Kamado Jigoku (Cooking Pot Hell), Oita

A Beppu hell where you can compare six hot springs, from "1-chome" to "6-chome", each a different colour, plus steam experiments and hot spring water to drink.

Pale blue pool with a dark rock and billowing steam at Kamado Jigoku — Photo: そらみみ, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Hot spring pool enclosed by a wooden fence with a thick plume of steam at Kamado Jigoku — Photo: z tanuki, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The "cooking pot" hell that cooked rice for a shrine

Kamado Jigoku is in Kannawa Onsen in Beppu, Oita Prefecture, and is one of the seven hells on the Beppu Jigoku Meguri (Hell Tour). In Beppu, places where steam, boiling water and hot mud burst out of the ground are called jigoku, or "hells". The hells are not for bathing: they are sights where you look at hot springs close to 100°C.

A kamado is an old-fashioned cooking stove for boiling rice. The name comes from a long-standing custom: during the grand festival of Hachiman Kamado Shrine, home of the local ujigami (the guardian god of the area), the rice offered to the gods was cooked using the 98°C steam from this hell.

Six hells, from 1-chome to 6-chome

The site is lined with hot pools and steam vents numbered, like an address, from "1-chome" to "6-chome" (chome being a block in a Japanese address). Being able to compare several hells in one place is what makes Kamado Jigoku special.

Experiments using the steam are also held here throughout the day. They show how water vapour gathers around tiny smoke particles to form the white clouds of steam you can see, the same principle by which clouds form in the sky.

Drinkable hot spring water, a footbath and local treats

In the hands-on corner, you can try drinking hot spring water, warming your hands and feet in the mushiyu (steam bath), and holding your throat or skin in the steam at the nodoyu and hadanoyu. Visitors can also use the footbath for free.

At the shop you can taste specialities such as onsen pitan (eggs steamed in the hell, made with the heat of the hot spring), the hell's own soy sauce pudding and matcha ishigaki manju buns. There are souvenirs too, including famous Oita sweets and seasonings made with yuzu kosho (a paste of citrus peel and chilli).

Getting there

From the west exit of JR Beppu Station, take a Kamenoi bus heading for Kannawa and get off after about 20 minutes at Umi Jigoku-mae or Kannawa. Kamado Jigoku is in the Kannawa area together with Umi Jigoku, Oniishibozu Jigoku and others, and these five hells are all within walking distance of each other. By car, it is about 5 minutes from the Beppu Interchange on the Higashi-Kyushu Expressway.

Chinoike Jigoku and Tatsumaki Jigoku are about 3 kilometres away, so travel between them by car or bus. There is a combined ticket covering all seven hells, and visiting them all takes around two hours.

Tips

The hells in the Kannawa area can be visited on foot, so it is efficient to walk around the five, including Kamado Jigoku, first and finish by taking the bus to Chinoike Jigoku and Tatsumaki Jigoku.
There is a bike-share (rental bicycle) station next to the entrance to Kamado Jigoku.
The site may close temporarily when a typhoon is approaching. On days when the weather looks rough, check the notices on the official website.