Update Mid April 2011

In reality there's little to mention over the past 3 months, despite it being the best time of the year for soaking in Southeast Asia. Now the heat is on us and we can sit at home and soak in our own sweat.

This blog has been busy, adding entries on Lao and Vietnam as well as an extensive standard setting entry on global mud baths and another entry on the most popular soaks this side of the globe. Next month will see a few more entries in Soaking in Siam.

Though not exclusively Southeast Asian I would like to draw your attention to the following. The first is an entry on japansugoi, it focuses on hot springs on tv:

'Fuji TV’s popular onsen ジテレビの温泉番組 show is called “Lets go to the Onsen or Onsen ni Ikou!”. That program was so successful they decided to make an upgraded version called ” Let’s go to the onsen more! or Motto Onsen ni Ikou!” もっと温泉に行こう'！'

There's a long way to go for Southeast Asian soaks ...

Other big news from Germany's Focus magazine on New Zealands Hot Water Beach. A good write up (if you can read German)

From the blogosphere, a description of Ban Nam Ou, Lao on travelfish:

'Everything is shabby and funky but also crazy and cool'.

'Native laotians bathing in the hot springs south of Luang Prabang
I saw this incredible view out of the bus window, near Nan Keng on the highway between Vientiane ad Luang Prabang. (Geotagged picture, thats how I know), people bathing in steamy water - but my camera was tucked away and I didn't have time to catch it. Then 10 seconds later he bus stopped to let out someone who had to pee :) I grabbed my camera and ran back 200 meters and catched this picture, it was one of the rare minutes it didn't rain on the whole (11 hour!) bus trip back to Vientiane'.

Photo of Ban Nam Ou by Sunday Laks

Southeast Asia's Top 10 2011

More than one and a half years have past since a collated data on the internet savviness of Southeast Asian hot springs and present to you in a top 10. Back then Soaking in Southeast Asia wrote:

'Though arrived at through repeatable measurement, it has to be acknowledged that there is considerable bias in the results.

• English is the main language in some countries and counts especially for Malaysia and Philippines.
• Income and thus internet use once again counts in favour of Malaysia.
• Names for hot springs are sometimes fluid, especially in Thai, where one can have many different versions for the same hot spring. In Vietnam and the Philippines this is less the case.
• Due to changes in ownership, hot springs change name which does not favour a large number of hits. See for instance Toya Bungkah, which was previously known as Kintamani, a much more often used name. And would have made the top 10.
  
• Internet is disproportionally skewed towards English. Vietnam sees relatively more non-English speaking tourists.
• Some hot springs carry easy names referring to larger places, such as Fang or regions. Banjar for instance, would have been third instead of fifth if Lovina (the name for the region) would have been used'.

Much of the above is still very much true.

Used were searches on google, bing (new), flickr, tripadvisor's Asian forum and google blog (new).

So again caution when interpreting the following top 10 as of April 5 2011:

1. (1) Poring, Malaysia
2. (4) Fang, Thailand
3. (3) Ardent, Philippines
4. (5) Banjar, Indonesia
5. (-) Asin, Philippines
6. (2) Sungai Klah, Malaysia
(7) Thap Ba, Vietnam
8. (-) Kham, Lao
9. (10) Tambun, Malaysia
10. (-) Pedas, Malaysia
(-) Binh Chau, Vietnam

Sungai Klah drops, possibly an anonomy. Purely on Flickr, the number of Sungai Klah photo's has doubled, though ranking stayed the same. With tripadvisor many of the other hot springs scored better.

Muang Kham in Lao is a newcomer as is Asin (Philippines), no idea why they have become so much more popular. Maquinit (Philippines) dropped away altogether, would now be twelfth.

Country wise, Indonesia seems less popular.

It's surprising how in just one and a half years much more info has come online. Fang for instance has received more than 150 times more links. Sankampaeng (Thailand) has seen the number of links on Flickr increase 5 fold.

Do note that this says nothing of the quality of the soaks nor over the degree of greatness of each soak. It might just be the opposite ....

By the looks of it, Fang hot spring is getting hotter! Photo by Hannah Says Hi:

'Fang Hot Springs This water is SO HOT. A geyser shoots every 20 minutes. Family fun!'

The rein of confusion

Duc My 

Confusion reins concerning the hot spring of Duc My. Duc My is a village located along Vietnam’s Highway 26 which connects Vietnam's Khanh Hoa town of Ninh Hoa with Buon Ma Thuot (Dak Lak provincial capital), close to the Cambodian border. However my driver speeds through Duc My, a village located on the banks of a nice river, just before the road leaves the lowland for the foothills covered by extensive sugarcane and cassava fields. It is 9 km after Duc My village that there is a turn-off to the left down a 100m wide dirt 'avenue' before we halt in front of a house. An attentive man sells an entrance ticket (5,000 VND, about US$ 0,25) and explains to proceed to behind the house. A short way after the house one comes across two shallow ponds. Around the ponds are a number of shaded picnic tables. Just upstream of the ponds is a 3m high, 10m wide piece of rock which emits both water and steam. The host who had accompanied me illustrates nature’s oddities by simply announcing that the water is 70-72 degrees. That’s Celsius. The water body (see photo below) is a man-made 1 m wide basin halfway up the rock, roughly 3m long. There’s another basin, same size, equally hot. One can scramble over the rock, there are quite a few holes from which hot water streams. It all doesn’t look soakable: the ponds are too shallow and look very muddy, the basins are for boiling eggs or such. Vietnamese guests seem to have found the only way to use the water: adding it to their noodle lunch. I scramble around and must conclude that, no there is no way to soak. 

Clear 

I return to the house and try with help of my driver and the host's son try to clarify one or two things. For one, I always said I wanted to go to Duc My hot spring and my driver went straight to this place (without any need to seek questions), so this must be it. However at the spring site itself, they refer to this place as Truong Xûan (Suan). Then there is this reference to a hot spring, about 5 km past Duc My called Ong Me with some descriptions which remind me of Truong Xûan, though it distinctly says it is not Truong Xûan:

'Beside Truong Sinh [or Xûan?] Hot Spring that is very well-known, tourists coming to Ninh Hoa District, Khanh Hoa Province recently rumoured about a new hot spring which has a very peculiar name of Ong Me'.

The description though is not of Truong Xûan. The attendee and taxi driver have not heard of Ong Me, which if closeby seems a bit odd. Is it thus another hot spring? Or not? Then again this reference of Duc My hot spring has another description of it’s location,

'close to National Highway 1'.

Which it is not. But the other two sentences would not conflict with what I experienced. And a reference to Truong Xuan hot stream:

‘located in Ninh Tay Village’.

Which according to my sources is correct. But surprisingly it also adds that

‘the precious natural mineral water is processed into beverages’.

Which I observed no proof of. Why can't life be more simple? Hope Mr Rakuda of his hot spring journal fame, has visited what he also calls Duc My and the photo's posted are very similar to what I experienced. Translation of the text does not add much to the above other than that back then (2005) he did bathe in the lower pond ... (I believe). I've been able to find an experience from 1995 though other than hot nothing new (or old). Odd as it seems, but there is a project underway to build Truong Xûan Hot Spring Heath-Spa Resort which the name would imply would be at exactly the same place. The first reference I found dates to 2003, but clearly nothing has come about. Even though a real estate agent is trying to sell something under this name in 2004. More importantly Wellness Vietnam

('Consulting is dedicated to the design and implementation of client-centric, cost-effective spa and wellness solutions')

now lists the project as going to be completed this summer as well as a project nearby in Ba Ho (which when visited was well under way). The above link to Wellness Vietnam though is to a cached page, it's up to date page has no reference to either projects ....

'Hot springs, near Nha Trang. Khiet showed us some very natural hot springs tucked in the foothills on the way to Nha Trang. It was beautiful to see springs kept so naturally'.

Funny that, natural cemented wall. Photo by lafeola

Elsewhere

Khanh Hoa province through Thap Ba hot spring Center has become a major destination for hot spring lovers. That said until recently Soaking in Southeast Asia had listed a number of other soaks, such as the already blogged Tubong and this entrance's Duc My. We will have to contend that until further proof Ong Me is another hot spring in this province.

But there are possibly more hot springs. Danh Thanh is often used in texts on Vietnam's potential for geothermal electricity as well as in mineral water sales.

Then there is this link that names Danh Thanh as well as another hot spring:

'By 2003, Khanh Hoa has registered 10 hot springs with average reserve of more than four litres per spring every second. The province’s famous hot springs are Danh Thanh and Suoi Dau'.

Ten? Suoi Dau? Suoi Dau is more better known in the province for being an industrial zone as well as the place where a former colonial Alexander died (source):

'The grave of Doctor Alexandre Yersin is located on top of a nameless hill at the Suoi Dau area in Dien Khanh district'.

My hunch is that they only mean spring rather than hot. But then 10 springs are not much ...

Getting there: From Nha Trang head north to the town of Ninh Hoa and take the main road out to Buon Ma Thuot, After passing Duc My village (about 5 km) it’s about another 11km on the left side of the road. 

Soaking experience: Too hot. 

Overall impression: Due to the lack of soaking possibilities, not really worth a visit unless passing through.