I was in Amsterdam a few years back, and the taking a bath in the canal part sounds like a whole new level of disgusting. But since the guy was a hippy it could have only been an improvement.
This was in 1986, and I also went to Soviet Leningrad. There, many people took baths in the canals because they didn't have running water.
That trip was very eye-opening to me. At 15-years-old, I became the kind of anti-communist that makes Joseph McCarthy look like a moderate.