Jigokudani Hot Spring Korakukan

An old, crumbling ryokan from the list of hito (secret onsen), located right in front of Jigokudani (the monkey onsen park). The ryokan itself is quite worn — everything creaks, it's dusty, rotting, etc. The staff is literally one old man in sight. The main draw is the rotenburo where monkeys come, and it's pretty much the only place where you can predictably take a bath with them. This rotenburo is mixed-gender and VERY visible to crowds of tourists. An adventure for the bravest. This isn't about relaxation, water, or atmosphere. It's purely about sitting with monkeys in a rotenburo. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend anyone repeat this. The bath maintenance is clearly not top-notch, the monkeys aren't the cleanest, and they're very genetically close to humans. You can potentially catch all sorts of things. 1500 yen for higaeri. You can also get towels and bathing clothes for women.

This is that onsen famous in certain circles where you can end up bathing alongside monkeys. First, a disclaimer for those who want to visit: all risks associated with being in a bath where wild animals hang out are on you — you need to accept that. I went here for higaeri. It runs from 12 to 15. The chance of encountering monkeys while you're in the bath is ultra random. As the ryokan staff explained, the colder it is, the more often the monkeys come. But even that's not guaranteed: when I was going up to the park, there were no monkeys in the bath; when I was coming back down, a whole crowd was sitting in it. Also, monkeys can randomly get chased out of the bath by other monkeys. The process of going to this bath is pretty cringy, since it's basically visible from all sides (from the mountain far away, and from the bridge right next to it). Women can rent bathing clothes, men are offered to cover up with a towel, but the small towel from the ryokan doesn't really let you wrap it around your waist properly, and the large rental towel is actually big and brightly colored. The monkeys act with complete indifference toward people in the bath (it was me and one hardcore Japanese guy). They might even swim past you or walk along the edge of the bath right next to you. The bath itself is surprisingly not dirty, the water is clear, I don't particularly remember the smell, temperature is average to slightly below average. At some point all the monkeys suddenly ran out of the bath because two large monkeys showed up — apparently some hierarchy thing. It's better to come (if you're going to) right at the start of higaeri hours. Because when we were leaving, there were already 4 women and 2 more Japanese guys heading in. I'm not sure the monkeys would react well to that big of a crowd. Before the monkey bath, in the men's area there's a regular hot square bath. Shower gel is also available. If this ryokan were in a remote spot without the animals, it would be a very strong and solid ryokan, because the views are really good. The rest area there is also great — if you're in the area, I'd recommend using it (regardless of whether you go for the onsen or not).