Naked in Finland

My sweat-filled eyes focused hazily on the two young naked Finns opposite me; I marveled at how I had come to be in this situation. They had befriended me at Helsinki railway station less than three hours ago as I had gotten off the Moscow train.

         I had asked them the way to the youth hostel and during our conversation was told that they were waiting for their train to take them to their family forest retreat for the weekend. They asked if I would like to join them, as they needed to practise their English.

 

    I subscribed to the premise that Life is made up of a road lined with a series of doors through which lay opportunities – one can either pass by or push them open to enter.

Nothing Ventured Nothing Gained

     As I have never knowingly turned down the opportunity of a new experience, I therefore readily agreed to join them. Why not? It was winter, it was cold; twenty centimetres of snow blanketed the city and I had just arrived from a journey of thirteen bathless days on the Trans-Siberian railway from Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan, by way of Lake Baikal, to Helsinki on the Baltic Sea. A door of opportunity beckoned.

 

    My newfound friends took me on a forty-minute train journey north and a twenty-minute trek through deep forest snow to a charming but mystical log cabin on the edge of a frozen lake. A fire was quickly built in a wood burner and we warmed ourselves with mugs of hot chocolate laced with vodka.

     I was acutely aware of my need for a bath, so I asked if there was hot water available. They said: ‘We can do better than that. Outside, we have a cabin with a traditional Finnish sauna; it’s already heating up and just about ready for use. Let’s strip! Let’s go!’

 

 

 

 

 

 

Naked and Melting 

 

    I am certainly no prude and definitely enjoy new experiences but I was now in some doubt as to whether agreeing to a sauna-bath had been such a good idea;

 

    I had just been cooked, oxygen-starved, beaten raw with vihta birch twigs, had my nose and lungs purged with searing steam and then recooked again. I was feeling like a splodge of soggy steamed duff; juices oozed from every pore as I slowly melted into a puddle of my former self.  

                                   

    Suddenly, Oskar leapt to his feet, pushed open the cabin door and rushed out into the snow. His sister, Annika, paused momentarily, flashed her ice-blue eyes at me and said: ‘Come! This is the best part.' She too disappeared, her short blonde hair bouncing in rhythm with her naked buttocks.

      I needed little encouragement to slide off the wooden seat and stagger to the doorway. I stood there, gasping and gulping in lungs full of ice-cold air. I was as naked as a newborn babe, save for a gossamer cloak of body steam that rose and mingled with snowflakes drifting in the raw winter air.

 

    Giant Nordic pines with snow-laden limbs towered above me. All I could hear in the muffled silence were distant shrieks of my new friends egging me on with, 'Come! Come! It is so good.’