Ibusuki Sunamushi Onsen Saraku (Sand Bath)

Saraku is a bathhouse on the shore at Ibusuki. It is the best known of the sand baths that give Ibusuki its name.

Hot spring water rises through the beach and heats the sand above it. Bathers change into a yukata, walk down to the shore and lie in a shallow trench, and an attendant covers them to the neck with sand. The weight and the heat bring on sweating within about ten minutes. Most people lie there for ten to fifteen minutes, then rinse off and use the indoor baths and sauna.

The spring water comes to the surface on the shore at around 80 degrees, and steam can be seen rising from the beach. The sand is black and coarse, thrown up by the volcanoes that made this coast. Because the grains are large, air passes between them while a bather is covered.

The water is a sodium chloride spring, which is to say a salt spring, and is not simply heated seawater.

A study by the medical faculty of Kagoshima University reported that the sand bath has positive effects on a number of medical conditions.