As much as the old bathhouses hearken back to a bygone era, filled with the charm of bustles and ascots, the interiors recall a less palatable chapter in wellness history—that of the sanitarium. If you’re expecting lavender oils, Tibetan bells, and softly whispering attendants, skip the 1200 mile trip to Hot Springs and just get on the NR to Soho Sanctuary. What we have here are the austere tiling and stainless steel of many an asylum. Nevertheless, the friendly attendants and communal bathing atmosphere take the edge off a bit, and although you’re wrapped in a sheet (“like a Roman emperor,” says the informative but impossibly low budget video guide) and completely at the mercy of the rigidly timed bathing procedure, it’s impossible not to giggle a little bit about the whole thing and soak in the joy of being (institutionally) pampered.
*Travelogue interlude*
There are four operating bathhouses in Hot Springs, and the procedure is essentially the same at all of them. The Buckstaff has been in operation since 1912 and they don’t take appointments, which is actually a boon if you’re off-season and don’t have a lot of time. For $50, you get can get the works—a whirlpool bath with loofah, sitz bath, steam cabinet, shower, and massage. The procedure has been standardized since those nineteenth century quacks first determined the healing powers of water. Not following directions (impossible, with an attendant) could probably result in heat stroke, or so suggest all of the signs. But if you listened to the signs, you would probably never take a shower either.
Bathing guide 101:
1. Soak in warm whirlpool bath for 20 minutes. The water comes straight from the naturally heated springs (104 degrees which they adjust down to 90), but my attendant also told me that Hot Springs has good city water, so this might all be an elaborate moneymaking scheme.
2. Watch for the high water mark on your hips after the sitz bath, which is really, let’s face it, just an ass-bath. If not for the toga, I would look like a baboon. In heat.
3. Try not to pass out as super-hot towels are applied to your body. Other baths wrap you like a mummified burrito so that, literally, none of your pores can breathe, but I was happy to just have a few towels on my knees and back, to avoid the feeling of being buried alive.
4. Rinse off the mineral silt in the needle shower (not as painful as it sounds).
5. And, finally, try to forget the sound of your shoulder blades popping over tendons or cartilage as you wind down with a pretty standard massage.
What followed? A LONG drive through Oklahoma (dinner: the K-Bar in Okemah, where they were out of pie, cake, and fried chicken, but they served some mean chicken strips and mashed potatoes drowning in white gravy, and where the locals looked at us like we had just landed from Mars) and a Best Western in Shamrock, Texas. Yeah, Texas. Yeah, Route 66.
