Tuesday, 19th May - Takayama

I woke up after my second night in over 2 weeks sleeping in an actual building on a mattress (tatami). I did not sleep too well as it was too quiet and comfortable... I guess...

After a light breakfast I went into the nearby Takayama Park to find the Takayama-jo ruins (Takayama-castle). The park was pretty big and left to its own devices harbouring many song birds and providing magnificent views onto the Japanese Alps (picture right). The ruins were pretty disappointing as they were only sketched onto the ground with wood.

After that I went into the old part of the town to stroll through the well preserved neighbourhoods of sake breweries, wood craft and pottery shops as well as stalls offering locally sourced food stuffs. I sampled here and there and especially the different types of sake got my head spinning in no time. Considering I had to cycle a little more I stopped sampling after the second sake brewery - honest. In the last brewery I met a few Chinese who worked in Takayama and we had a nice chat (picture below).

I went to a store to upload the pictures from my camera. The very kind proprietor saw my bicycle and we got talking. He explained to me that I can’t take the R360 to Kanazawa as it’s closed for traffic. He went through lengths explaining which way to go giving me some local maps, too. He also told me to go to Shirakawa-go, a UNESCO world heritage site with plenty of Gassho houses from a few centuries ago. This sounded interesting and I was on my way up north, anyway.

After that I went for lunch in a noodle bar, but what they tried to serve as noodle soup with vegetables was outrageous and I pulled faces and pointed at my half finished bowl that I was not going a pay the full price. Was it my fault that the only vegetable they had was frozen bamboo stripes? No.

I went back to the Temple Youth hostel and decided to do a couple of miles on the R41 until it was time to look for a camp spot. I found a derelict field and stopped there. I offloaded my luggage to see if I could find a supermarket with necessary foodstuffs. Unfortunately all I got was a flat tyre. This meant pushing the bike back to my provisional rest-spot and then to change the complete tyre and fix the inner tube. The old tyre was pretty worn down after just 2 weeks and was definitely a safety issue to continue with it. A local must have spotted me on the field and he came driving by with a pump for the tyre. It didn’t fit, but after asking him if I could stay on the field, he said no, saying that there is a nicer camp spot very close by. He drove me, my luggage and bike to a really nice spot in the middle of the forest where I had running water, a functioning toilet and the whole forest to myself. I was a little scared, I admit, as there were some huge man-made mounts (grave yards, sacred mounts) nearby and movies such as “The Blair Witch Project” and others came to mind as the sun was already setting and I was going to be alone in the wilderness. Japan still has bears and they are known to also come down the mountains into human habitation. With a circle of protection drawn around my tent and bike, my cooking knife always by my side I started to make some dinner, inside the tent. I told myself that I am going to have the best and most undisturbed sleep ever and would wake up fully restored and happy in the morning. It worked, phew.