I like onsen (natural hot spring baths) so when I was travelling I o!en stayed at the tohjiba. In two storey wooden structures with wooden window frames which let in cold draughts, the room cold even with the para"n stove lit, I would wrap myself in a thick futon to sleep; these were the rather desolate tohjiba that were my favourite lodgings while on my travels. People seem to become free when naked. I was losing myself in Japanese village life of a bygone age, in which the one tohjiba bath was shared equally by men and women,old people and children, all with faces reddened by the hot spring waters