Ota is an unassuming place, a low-slung mix of back-street workshops, traditional bathhouses and modest apartments.

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The bathhouses that once accommodated 6, 800 people have been transformed into recreation and community facilities.

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Unlike other bathhouses, sweat lodge rituals can last up to several hours.

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Just as bathhouses in the 19th Century were as much a social hub as they were a place to relax, the bar at the Barking Bathhouse is a great meeting spot.

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Known for the mineral water that courses beneath it, feeding the bathhouses and giving the town its name, Saratoga in the 19th century was the summer destination of the rich, the social, the ambitious, the corrupt, the adventurous.

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