I Went to Ibusuki, Japan to Be Buried to the Neck in Sand
The ancient practice of sand bathing is not for the claustrophobic.
After wrapping a yukata over my naked body, I am led into the dimly lit, wooden annex of the Ibusuki Hakusuikan hotel, built atop Ibusuki Beach. It feels as though I’ve just walked in on a scene I wasn’t supposed to see: rows of isolated, human heads poking out of manicured brown sand. It all feels very restrained, as bathers silently fight discomfort in the name of relaxation, beads of sweat dampening their reddened faces.
But it’s not entirely serious. A few kids are building sand castles at the feet of their buried parents. An on-site photographer points to a photo display—the kind you see at the end of amusement park rides—and asks my group if we’d like the photo of our heads to reflect a straight-line or back-to-back orientation. I watch as a couple decides, without ceremony, to arise from their small, sandy tombs, casually brushing off their yakutas. A young employee with a rake refills the body-sized ditches they’ve just left behind.
The Japanese city of Ibusuki, located on the southern tip of Kyushu’s Satusuma Peninsula, is often billed as the “Hawaii of Japan,” famous for beaches heated by volcanic hot springs. The volcano Mount Kaimon, nicknamed the “Fuji of Satsuma” for its conical shape, looms in the distance.
Ibusuki is the only place in the world where you can experience a sunamushi onsen, or natural sand bath (you can attempt to recreate a version of it, though, at Sojo Spa Club in New Jersey, where the volcanic sand is shipped in from Hakusaikan). If you’re one of the many travelers who are seeking out rare wellness experiences integrated with nature, this far-out, seaside town is worth the pilgrimage.
I spent the past week in Ibusuki’s greater Kagoshima Prefecture, getting acquainted with the concept of an onsen, a cross between a hot spring and a bathhouse, where naked bathers dip in and out of steamy and icy pools. Just as I was finally getting used to the self-confrontational experience that is bathing oneself in front of a mirror, crouched over a downturned bowl, the sand bath was there to humble me once again.
"You really have to fight the urge to break free when you’re enveloped like a hot potato covered in tinfoil."
While a number of resorts dotting the coastline of Ibusuki boast private sand baths, the practice is, for many locals, a way of life. “I have memories of my parents and the other adults in my neighborhood going to Fushime Beach to enjoy sand steaming,” says our tour guide, Hiroko Otani, who was born and raised in Ibusuki. “We dug our own holes in the beach and spent time pouring sand over each other with shovels.”
The tradition is said to have been around for over 300 years, dating back to when warriors in Ibusuki used hot springs to cure sword wounds. “There's a record of a ‘sand steaming hot spring cure’ used at Surigahama (a beach in Ibusuki City) in 1703,” Otani says. An early guide to Kagoshima written in 1843, entitled Sangoku Meisho Zue (Illustrated Guide to the Famous Views of the Three Countries), defines the process of sand steaming, citing it as a treatment for musculoskeletal pain.
Getting buried up to your neck in hot, volcanic sand has a lot of health benefits, Otani explains. The heat from the hot spring causes blood vessels to dilate, which promotes circulation. And because you’re lying horizontally, blood flows more easily back to the heart, increasing the amount that gets pumped out. This can work to do all sorts of things, according to Otani, like refresh your skin, help your body flush out toxins, and even cure ailments like back pain, neuralgia, and joint pain. Whatever your traditional hot spring can do, the sand bath is supposed to do it three to four times better.
It should be noted that I have tried, and will continue to try, any wellness experience that comes under my nose—from ecstatic dance to sensory deprivation—because I am curious as much as I am skeptical. I’ve grown tired of the white-marbled, cult-like aesthetic that’s become the norm at wellness centers in New York City, and I was quite pleased with the charmingly dated facilities at Hakusuikan. The traditional hotel has been around for over 70 years, and you can tell. Tatami mats line each room, which are opened and locked with actual keys.
So when I stepped into my burial plot, I felt as though I was engaging in an activity that’s actually steeped in history. There’s a small wooden block for your head, which I placed a towel on, to form a little pillow. After I laid down, the man with the rake came over and proceeded to cover me with the hot sand, which had the immediate, heavy sensation of a weighted blanket, and to my surprise, he tucked my hands and feet in, too.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked, hilariously.
The photographer stuck some red umbrellas into the sand for decoration, asked us to turn our heads, then snapped a picture. We were told that the longest we should stay buried is 15 minutes—any more than that and you run the risk of overheating. I was staring straight up at an analog clock, as some traditional Japanese music played faintly in the background. We must’ve been facing the ocean, but I couldn’t quite tell, as it was already dark out. My mind became restless, wondering if, somehow, this experience would cure my traveler’s constipation (it didn’t).
As a hot yoga enthusiast, I do not say this lightly: Things started to get really hot. I could feel my skin pulsating, and every crevice of my body was drenched with sweat. You really have to fight the urge to break free when you’re enveloped like a hot potato covered in tinfoil. But if there’s one thing I learned during this trip, it’s that no one knows how to be patient quite like the Japanese, who actually wait for the pedestrian signal to cross the street; who favor drip coffee over instant; who line up outside of restaurants instead of relying on the convenience of Resy; who sing about the gradual growth of moss in their national anthem.
I made it to the 15-minute mark, dashed for the first showerhead I could find at the adjacent onsen, then ordered a cold glass of Asahi at dinner, which probably counteracted whatever detoxifying benefits may have come from the process. It’s hard to say what the immediate effects of the sand bath were, or if it was the culmination of onsen experiences, but I returned from an action-packed trip to Japan with glowing skin, little to no muscle soreness, and some pretty funny pictures of my floating head.