THE STORY

After conquering Mount Fuji overnight, we had moved on to Tsumago in the Kiso Valley.  The train journey there had taken us through central Honshu, along a route with views of snow-capped mountains – the Southern Japan Alps.  We had picked the Kiso Valley as a place to stay for a couple of nights, based on the description in the Lonely Planet guide and further information on the internet.  This described how the Nakasendo highway was a historic communications route between the country’s two main centres at Edo (now Tokyo) and Kyo (Kyoto).  Tsumago was an old post town, and since 1976 has been actively conserved as part of the country’s heritage.

We had booked into a minshuku in the centre of the town, but had some difficulty finding it when we arrived on the bus from the local train station around 4 p.m.  It was near the end of the main street of old timber houses, a couple of doors from the tourist office. 

We were welcomed by an elderly man, and prompted to remove our shoes and change into slippers before stepping up onto the wooden platform of the living area.  A stairway led us upstairs.  It was a fascinating building, with a corridor running along the side of it on each floor, from which the rooms were accessed.  We had a living room and adjoining sleeping room, separated by folding screens.  In keeping with tradition, there were no chairs, only cushions to sit on and a low table where green tea was served.  I suppose if you are brought up with sitting like this you would get used to it, but my legs and back didn’t like being bent in this way.

There was a deep bath of hot water waiting under a wooden cover downstairs, which was most welcome.  Then we were served dinner in our room – with a variety of interesting delicacies to enjoy including deep fried locusts as a crunchy and tasty dessert!  After that it was time for an early night.

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Next morning, breakfast was served downstairs in the family area where we had entered the building.  As we tucked into the rice and the vegetables various unusual programmes were appearing on the breakfast TV, situated next to a little Shinto shrine.

We caught the bus for the 10 km journey to Magome, further down the valley to the SW, around 10 a.m.  The road went past the top of the main street and dropped us off in warm sunshine.  Steep wooded hills rose on either side of the valley, with a little mist around the hilltops.  The street was quite busy with tourists, but we didn’t spot any other foreigners.  It was another well-conserved town of old timber buildings, but more commercially active than Tsumago, with plenty of shops especially further down.  A replica water wheel provided a focus of interest, there was a tourist office, and the historic home of a literary figure open to visitors.  We wandered down around the shops, buying one or two presents, and emerged at the main road at the bottom.  A large map on a tall signpost seemed to show us a route to another interesting corner of the town, but when we walked down the road we found ourselves in a valley of rice fields, with more houses in the distance.  We had probably taken a wrong turning, but it was an interesting diversion -  I had never been so close to a rice terrace, and just had to take a photo!

We turned back and sought some refreshment – I tried green tea concentrate poured on crushed ice, with a topping of iced sweet bean sauce!  It was something else on the list of new taste experiences from Japan, but pleasant enough. 

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We bought some food for a picnic, walked back up the cobbled street, then cross the main road and set off on the hiking trail to Tsumago at 1 p.m.  It indicated it was 7.7 km., or roughly 5 miles from the middle of one town to the next.  There were lots of interpretive signs along the route, and direction/distance indicators, plus the occasional toilet.  Big wooden panels with writing on them seemed to be relics of the old Nakasendo post road, and we had seen a postman in Magome going round the shops dressed in period costume!

The route went mostly uphill for a while, past old timber houses, domestic gardens with beans, courgettes, beetroot and onions etc.  There was mixed woodland, with some bamboo thickets.  Some sections were on the old road, others were on paths made of big flat roacks that were not so easy to walk on, or loose shale.  The route was cutting the corners between bends in the new road climbing over the pass.

We passed a rice field with an old woman bent over tending the crop, then went through woodland.  Eventually we reached the pass, where there were more noticeboards, and then went down through thicker forest.  We found a campsite with facilities for a picnic, next to some old buildings in a clearing in the woods. It was a good spot for our lunch.  The forest wasn’t particularly interesting, but then we got a few stretches beside a rushing stream, and a couple of bridges to cross.  We could have taken a detour to see a waterfall, but instead carried on through trees high above the stream below. 

Then we descended through more settlements – there was no real commercial development however, just traditional houses and gardens.  A couple of kilometres from the end, there was a little light rain, and two of the direction indicators were a bit unclear – we could have gone left or right at a fork.  In each case, left turned out to be correct. We were now down in a wider part of the Kiso valley, with farmland on either side.

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Finally we walked down past a car park with toilets on the right and a cemetery on the left, on the edge of Tsumago.  We crossed the main road and followed the right bank of the river into the outskirts of the town and the first of the souvenir shops.  Catriona bought a few small presents to take home, whilst I was admiring the earthen walls of some of the buildings.  The hills rose up behind, to a height of about 1700m. 

We had time to visit the local museum and the big house used in past times by the local nobility to accommodate officials of the Edo regime who were travelling along the old road.  These gave a real appreciation of the design of important traditional houses, in contrast to the many religious buildings we had seen.  We saw the removable paper screens that could create enclosed spaces or open up large rooms. The house was built around a neat, sheltered garden. A fireplace at the centre of the house was apparently the place where the idea of conserving Tsumago was dreamed up. At the back of the old building was a much more up-to-date set of displays about the heritage of the area and the story of the post road. Another historic house could be visited nearby, using the same ticket.

Next day, when we were taken by our host down to the bus stop to set out for Hiroshima it was pouring with rain.  We had been lucky to get such a fine day to enjoy this hidden slice of Japanese history and countryside. It was so different to the popular image of Japan - busy crowded cities with modern technology everywhere. Although that's the living environment for most people in Japan, this was a reminder that 80% of the country is made up of mountains, valleys and smaller towns and villages.

NB – Apparently it is worth asking at the tourist offices in either town about a baggage forwarding service in the summer season.

Contributed by: Andrew Llanwarne

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