Japan 8: The hike to Tsumago

Last night, I wandered the streets of Narai.  Once or twice I past someone else, but otherwise, it was just me out there.  It is a cute little town.  

This morning, I walked around and looked at all the shops.  Narai and the surrounding area is known for its oroku, a comb made from local wood.  It even has its own legend behind it.  

There was a notice board in town.

In one shop, an old woman had a display case with creations made by her late husband.  I really enjoyed one of the pieces.  She actually took it out of the display case and let me press the handle, raising the snake out of the man's hands.  Unfortunately, it was not for sale.

After walking around town, I grabbed my bags and headed for the train station.  While on the train, I decided to read some Japanese travel forums.  I came upon a thread that explained that in Japan it is very important to keep your passport on you at all times, as they are stricter about this than other countries.  Luckily, my wallet fits a passport inside!  Good to know!  Edit:  To be fair, the travel packet that was sent to me had this info in the back, but I did not read it in its entirety, and I am also less likely to do what it suggests than when reading about people who say that it is actually common for police officers to ask for passports randomly.

I arrived at Nagiso station a little over an hour later.  This is the nearest station to my next destination, Tsumago.  Throughout this area, including back in Narai, is the Nakasendo trail.  This old road connected Tokyo with Kyoto during the Edo period.  I decided to take the Nakasendo trail to Tsumago.  I was told that the walk was an hour.  Since I was bringing my rollable luggage with two small backpacks on it, it took a little longer.

At first, the road was fairly disappointing.  Keep in mind that I only skim research my destinations, as I do not want to spoil the experience.  However, I did not expect that an ancient trail would be paved and wind through houses.  There was a surprising amount of things to make up for the concrete beneath my feet.

I noticed that there were quite a few instances of people using plastic bottles for other purposes.

I continued on.

Eventually, the path turn into a dirt road, which only lasted a few dozen feet, and then turned into cobblestone.

After a short while, the path turned back to concrete and remained for the rest of the journey.  The views and other spots of interest dried up, but at least it was good exercise!

The town itself seemed to appear out of nowhere.  I turned a corner and it was there.  It is slightly bigger than Narai, with more hills and a small fork.  There were many, many more people.  I continued walking directly through the town and out the other side.  At the end of town was a horse.

Originally, I believe, I was scheduled to be in a ryokan in town.  I think they rejected me, however, because I was a solo traveler.  My new ryokan was a further twenty to twenty five minute walk uphill.  It would have taken less time had it not been for the luggage that I was still walking with.  Google maps counted the entire walk from the train station to the ryokan as 5.3 kilometers.

When I arrived at the ryokan, I was drenched.  I used a towel in my room to dry myself off and switched shirts.  The ryokan was much bigger and much nicer than previous ones.  The room was a bit small, but had air conditioning, which was much appreciated.  Only 2/4 ryokans so far have had air conditioning.  The owner explained to me that the shops would only be open to 4 and that I should go to town after eating dinner, as there is a festival going on.  When I asked, through google translate, what the festival was about, he explained that it was for the mountain god.

I walked back to town in order to look at the shops.  The prices were very, very high, and more tourist oriented.  They had some street vendors out, likely due to the festival.  It ruined the look of the town, but luckily was only in a small section.

I caught someone using a dog stroller, something ridiculous that is used in the US.  It was disappointing to see here.

I walked back to the ryokan, again drenched.  I put everything up to dry on hangers and took a shower.  I relaxed for a while.  When I had read reviews about this ryokan, there was a comon complaint about screaming from a young child.  These reviews were at the end of 2016.  Apparently, things had not changed much since then.  The child screamed an inordinate amount for quite a while.  It has since quieted down.  

There are many people staying at this ryokan.  It seemed like almost everyone was speaking English, so I was excited to be put with other English speaking people for dinner.  They sat me alone.  The meal itself, however, was the best of all of them so far.  Though I missed the lack of miso soup, there was  chicken, some good vegetables, and a decent salad.  I tried some kind of hot rice bar with sauce on it.  I wasn't a fan.  Back at the room, I read through the booklet about the ryokan.  They recommended having a bell to protect you from bears.

I really enjoyed the walk and all of the beauty I found on it.  Tomorow, I will be going on a 2-3 hour walk to the next town, and then departing for Kyoto.  A short while away from this ryokan, on the way, is another ryokan that offers a luggage forwarding service to magome.  Tomorrow's hike will be without the bigger piece of luggage!