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     My sweat-filled eyes focused hazily on the two naked young Finns opposite me; I marvelled 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. Nordic Sauna.

     During our conversation, I had casually asked them the way to the youth hostel, they had told me that they were waiting for a 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 have always 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 I had travelled from Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan, by way of Lake Baikal, to Helsinki on the Baltic Sea.  

   My newfound friends took me off on a twenty-minute train journey north followed by a quarter of an hour trek through deep forest snow, We arrived at 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'm certainly no prude and definitely enjoy new experiences, but I soon had doubts 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 pudding; juices oozed from every pore as I slowly melted into a puddle of my former self.   

Painful bliss.  

   Suddenly, Oskar leapt to his feet, pushed open the cabin door and rushed out into the snow. His sister, Anneka, 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 of ice-cold air. I was as naked as a newborn babe, a gossamer cloak of body-steam engulfed me, it 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.’ The Pink Panther on the prowl    

     I followed their footprints to the lakeside jetty - like a prudish ‘Pink Panther’ on the prowl. My overcooked senses were insensitive to the temperature of snow melting beneath my bare feet. A puddle of my former self.      Around me, lay a gentle Christmas scene of white-capped trees and a frozen lake, but I was in no state to enjoy it. What concerned me was the black forbidding pool of arctic water where Oskar and Annika were splashing playfully amid floating chunks of broken ice.       'Come.' Anneka beamed. ‘We are doing this every day.’      No wonder you have ice-blonde hair, I thought. Such monumental madness after a sauna would make anyone's hair turn white. Bathing around the World  

   I thought back to my time in Japan and my almost daily hedonistic visits to the local Ofuro public bathhouse. There, in its noisy, steamy atmosphere, bathing is a community event, a place to exchange gossip with naked neighbours who, while sitting on low wooden stools, soap themselves and scrub each others backs.  

   Only when thoroughly clean and rinsed off would we then go into the main Ofuro bath-hall, to soak away the world's worries and meditate for an hour in the large hot communal pools.       It was a very enjoyable and civilised two-hour process, one which required no birch beating or suffocation, nor any bizarre ritual of plunging naked into frozen lakes in mixed company.      Bathing is the first human function we are introduced to at birth and the last act we are subjected to after death. And, because we do it at least 20,000 times during our lifetime, it is probably one of mankind's most familiar of functions – for most people it is an act of pleasure that comes second only to food or making whoopee.  

   Why then do different nationals choose to perform this simple act so differently? Each to their own.

      In Thailand for instance, they wrap themselves in a lungi and douse themselves with cold water scooped from giant earthenware pots, whilst in Indonesia they do something similar, but they store their water in a large concrete mandi in which they also keep goldfish.  

    In the Australian outback bush-camps, I had stood for as short a time as possible under a large perforated tin can whilst feeding it alternately with hot and cold water.

     In Britain, we sit in large, elongated plastic containers to wash ourselves, then continue to lay in our own dirty water until it becomes cold. bizarre to say the least, but each to their own I say.      

      For now I was being implored by a blonde naked nymph with large t-t-tantalising eyes to jump into an ice-covered lake...?   

    I took a deep breath, and with a cry of  'Geronimo!' leaped in.    

  Why not?

 

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Driving across the isolated dirt-packed prairie road in South Dakota had been sublime, not a soul had been seen all afternoon. I was alone but not lonely, I had Betsy, my camper van, for company. She was old and fat and comfortable; we had shared many adventures together.

   

   Today, Betsy and  I were nearing the end of a 4,500-mile journey of discovery; we were retracing the Lewis and Clark exploration trail of 1804, we were doing it in reverse from the mouth of the Colombia River in Oregon, to St Louis, Missouri.

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    The late afternoon sun was erupting into a spectacular display of gold and russet. It was time to pulled off the track, parked Betsy on some soft scrubland and make camp for the night.

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Already the the thermometer had dropped below zero. I was ready to sit with a welcome mug of soup and watch the sun's final rays settle whilst enjoying the solitude.

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     I switched off the blanket of country and western music pouring from the radio, but instead of the expected tranquil silence, the air was alive with the mass 'honking' of Canada Geese.

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      Migrating groups of geese had been spotted flying overhead for the past three weeks; usually seen in social groups of 20–40 birds.  They would occasionally give out a solitary ‘honk’ as they changed leaders in their trademark vee formations.

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 However, the 'honking' I heard now was as thunderous as the traffic on Broadway.

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      They were a quarter of a mile west of me in countless formations, circling and dropping to land in what looked like a newly ploughed field, thousands more were arriving in a convoy that followed the path of the Missouri River.  

 

    I crossed the dirt track to the fence and saw that the 'ploughed field' was in fact a recently cropped field of maize that was now covered by a heaving ocean of birds already on the ground.

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    This was no isolated gaggle of geese; it was a highly organized mass migration of fowl escaping the frozen climes of Canada, on their way south to the warm lushness of Louisiana. 

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     They had dropped into this ‘Maize Motel’ to rest up for the night, to dine on the freshly cut stalks and seek safety away from human habitation. Already there were 15–20 thousand on the ground.

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    The noise and din of their cackling conversations from a quarter-mile away was extraordinary; I imagined shouts of:

    "Hey! This Maize is great, better than last night’s sagebrush."        "God! It's good to stretch the legs again."  

     "Yeh, it's not a flap too soon, I'm exhausted."

     "Did you see that amazing lake in North Dakota?"  

     "Has the Gander Family arrived yet?"  

     "Hey! Keep an eye on Donald, or we'll lose him."  

     "Clear a space, here come the Quaker clan."  

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    This was too good an experience not to be a part of.

 

     I grabbed a thick fleece to guard against the gusting wind, and a video camera to capture the phenomenon.

  

  As I leapt the fence to make my way to the greatest pow-wow in North America, I spotted an owl sitting silently on a pole, mesmerised by what was taking place.    

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      I crept to within 100 feet of this cacophony of sound and stood in awe of what I was witnessing. Suddenly, the honking ceased, all was silent, an eerie hush hung in the chill dusk sky ... then without warning, a death-like screech went up, followed by a huge rush of air – the geese had spotted me and were panicking.

 

   Total chaos and confusion prevailed as 20,000 ungainly Canada Geese tried frantically to become airborne at the same time; wings beat and churned the air, collisions and cursing occurred, a whirlwind of feathers and fluff welled up as distraught screams and shouts were made in an effort to gather themselves into family clans and formations.

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  Don't panic! Stay together guys.

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     What had I done? The natural order of nature should never be tampered with. I had broken the rules and approached too close. Pandemonium reigned. It was a sad sight and I was to blame.

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     I could do nothing. I stood there in a pool of shameful guilt, there was nothing I could do but watch helplessly as they gained height. They grouped and regrouped, until at 500 feet they finally headed westward desperately hoping to secure a little more daylight in their search for food and a safe haven.

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      Slowly, I turned toward the waiting warmth of Betsy and followed my own lengthening shadow across the loam, the last of the sun’s rays cast a cold mocking sting of scorn on my neck.

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     "I'm sorry!" I cried out. "I'm sorry!" 

     But they didn't hear. No one heard.

   

     “YooTwit! Yootwit!” Cried the owl. Then swooped away.  

      I was alone on a vast cold plain.

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     "I'm sorry," I whispered.

     But there was no one to hear, no one to know.

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     Except the owl ... it knew.  

     I dragged my feet ... I knew.  

    A milky moon gazed down ... and He knew.

Naked Encounter

by roy romsey

MAIZE MOTEL                        by Roy Romsey
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