We had a pretty cold night in Isa, with temperatures dipping to just below freezing. We both woke up a few times that night from the cold, but luckily we could help each other stay warm (although mostly Robin was cold and she stole my excess heat haha).
After getting up, packing up our tent, and getting a conbini breakfast, we cycled from Isa to Ashikita, where we ended up in an old business hotel because we (mostly Robin) were too tired to camp in the cold for a second night. This day was a bit of a mess since, after the first hour, our navigation app, Komoot, decided to send us on an “interesting” route. The road started off quite nicely, going through a small, cute village, but after a bit, the road started turning into something more resembling a (rocky) nature trail. After some time, we were basically standing in the middle of a forest on a path that could barely be called traversable. To give you an idea: the road was mostly sand, mud, and rocks, ranging from tennis ball size to melon. It was the kind of path where you warn each other of where (not to) stand so as not to break your ankles. There was no way in hell we could cycle this (I don’t think it was possible on a mountain bike without any luggage). Therefore, we had to push our bikes up the mountain “road.” The forest was quite thick, so there were some parts where the trees and shrubs obscured most of the sunlight. We even startled some deer about 20 meters away, who took off with lightning speed when they noticed us. We weren’t really sure how long this path would continue on exactly, but every now and then there would be a small patch of asphalt and a concrete bridge scattered between the long stretches of rocky, sandy hell. This gave us some hope that maybe we would approach an end to this road somewhat soon. In the meantime, we tried to enjoy the scenery and tranquility of the place. Along the way, the path started getting steeper and steeper, but we didn’t really have any other option other than to continue, as the way back was at least an hour’s time and would put us back at the foot of the mountain. Thus, we carried on pushing our bikes up the hill for about an hour more. In total, we struggled for about 2 hours until reaching the top.
We were ecstatic to have reached the top, still alive and without any broken ankles or poked-out eyes from branches. But our happiness soon turned sour, as the next path Komoot sent us down was actually non-existent. It seemed to have been someone’s backyard and was fully overgrown, with no chance of even pushing our bikes through there. We could try to reach the prefectural/national route, but that would mean backtracking for about 20% of what we had just climbed. We decided there was no other option than to do this, even though we would have to climb part of the mountain for a second time on the prefectural road. I can’t lie, this was probably the lowest we’d felt so far on the trip, as the pushing of the bikes had been grueling and now seemed to have been mostly for nothing. Robin had some doubts about the whole plan of cycling across Japan, and there was some consoling involved before she regained her motivation to continue on. Apparently I can be helpful in some ways, so that’s nice to know.
In the end, we did reach the top of the mountain after another half hour of cycling. Luckily, this did mean that we would have a quite steep and fast downhill ahead of us! Whilst racing downhill (safely, don’t worry, we know our limits, this isn’t the Tour de France), the cold wind hit our eyes, which meant we were blinking profusely in order to make sure we could see the road ahead. Passersby who saw us must have thought we were quite the pair: eyes wide open, blinking profusely, slightly teary, and smiling wide (who doesn’t enjoy going downhill with 40-50km/h?).
Not long after the descent, we came upon a perfectly flat, smooth cycle path, with red asphalt; it was like being back in the Netherlands (if you ignore the, you know, mountains and stuff). We cycled this for about 15km, enjoying the road and the beautiful scenery (it was next to a river in the valley), when we arrived at the next town/city, Minamata.
(A bit of backstory on Minamata: I happened to know the name of the town, as during my studies I had to give a presentation for sociology regarding a horrible ecological disaster that had happened there. There were several factories located in Minamata that were producing chemicals using methylmercury, and the locals were eating fish contaminated with large amounts of this chemical. This led to them developing what became known as Minamata Disease, which affects the nervous system. In short, people died horrible deaths, many children were born deformed, and it took a long time before the government acknowledged the disease and any form of compensation was reached.)
Anyway, not the most fun association to have with a town, but when we reached Minamata, it looked like quite a lively and beautiful town (which makes sense, considering the things I wrote about above took place mostly in the 50s-70s). We cycled to the nearest convenience store, which was located next to the Shin-Minamata Shinkansen Station. Apparently, there was a celebration of some sorts going on, as this was the busiest we’d ever seen a convenience store, and there were several hundreds of people gathered for a small festival-type thing at the station. We looked it up, and it seems that the Tsubame (the slower Shinkansen train, stopping at more stations) celebrated its 20th anniversary of being in service on this day. There were parents with children, older couples, and many train otaku (オタク) or train enthusiasts with cameras to take plenty of pictures of the trains passing and stopping. We were squatting on the floor in front of the conbini (in the afternoon sun :)), eating our food we’d just bought and watching the people who’d gathered. A woman approached us and asked us if we were there for the event and if the bikes she’d seen parked outside the conbini were ours. We told her we’d randomly passed by and that those were indeed our bikes. We had a small conversation (in English, as that’s what she used when she approached us) where she explained that she’d love to visit Europe someday and that she came from Fukuoka specially for the celebration. Afterward, we got back on our bikes and headed to the next city: Ashikita.
Earlier, we’d seen on Google Maps that there was a business hotel (hotels with minimal amenities meant for traveling businessmen) that claimed to rent out rooms for about 4800 yen per night (~30 euros), including breakfast. For that price, we wouldn’t mind a bed and a warm bath. When we entered the hotel and Robin asked whether there was a room available for tonight, the man looked at us a bit puzzled.
“Tonight? Do you have a reservation?”
“No, but might there be any room available?”
“For tonight? Like, right now?”
“Yes, please.”
“For two persons?”
There was no one else in the lobby.
“Yes, please.”
He went to the back office and rummaged around in some drawers with papers in them.
“There is one room left with a one-person bed (a single), so…”
“Sounds great!”
Robin was quite desperate for a roof over her head, since the previous night was quite cold and our “pushing your bike up a mountain road” experience was still quite fresh in the mind.
The man behind the counter blinked for a minute and then provided us with the key to our room!
We took off our bags from the bikes, parked our bikes at the back of the building under some emergency stairs (I hit my head once again, as that is basically a daily occurrence for me in Japan) and took the elevator to our room. The hallways smelled of smoke, and our room also had a hint of the fragrance as well. Clearly, this hotel had been here for quite some time, and smoking had been the norm until relatively recently. We didn’t mind too much, as the windows could be opened and an air conditioner was present. We gathered that this business hotel was probably (like many hotels and restaurants in smaller cities) on the decline. Its heyday was likely in the 70s and early 80s, before most of the expressway system was fully built out across Japan and almost everyone took the national routes. Nothing seemed to have changed since those days; the wallpaper, bedding, lamps, and posters were all distinctly seventies. It smelled like the aforementioned cigarettes and your grandmother’s house, but otherwise everything was incredibly clean. For dinner, we went to a local izakaya (bar/restaurant combo, great for both food and getting drunk), which was mostly empty and was run by an older couple and what was probably their middle-aged son. We had great food there: a mentaiko (明太子) pizza (the roe of some fish, I don’t really know which one, but it’s delicious), kimchi fried rice, some chicken skewers, and a set meal of chicken nanban (チキン南蛮), which is fried chicken with tartar sauce, a Miyazaki prefecture specialty (we were close enough and it didn’t disappoint!). We thanked the couple for the delicious food and went to sleep like babies in our 70s-themed hotel.
The next morning we rose early for breakfast downstairs. This day we would try to cycle towards Kumamoto and see how far we would get. Our goal of the day was a campground in Yatsushiro, about halfway to Kumamoto. Whilst scooping miso soup into our bowls, one of the hotel staff approached us and told us that they had forgotten to make copies of our passports yesterday (Japanese law demands that hotels make copies of foreigners’ passports when they stay the night). Of course, we didn’t mind; it had been the norm for every other hotel we’d stayed at; we even had to copy our own passports at the no-service hotel in Kagoshima. We did have a bit of a laugh about it during breakfast, as we reckoned the staff member from the day before must have been quite overwhelmed when we had walked in, slightly sweaty in our biking gear without a reservation and asking if there was a room available. He must have completely forgotten to ask for a copy of our passports.
Everything that went wrong the last day went well this day. The weather was great: sunny and barely any wind. We arrived in Yatsushiro around 11 in the morning. We decided we should be able to reach Kumamoto before nightfall, and Yatsushiro wasn’t the most picturesque place anyway. We ended up cycling about 80km that day, the most we had so far. We only had a bit of a hill at the start of that day, and it was mostly flat after that (perks of cycling next to the sea). When we were approaching Kumamoto, the traffic intensified. We were riding next to cars on the national route (prefectural roads; it’s a bit unclear what the preferred name for it is) towards Kumamoto.
This may be a good time to explain a bit on how we are cycling in Japan. In the Netherlands, there are bike paths just about everywhere, but in Japan, that rarely is the case. Most of the time, you are on a road that you share with cars, except for the Express Ways, which are like highways in the Netherlands (think A2), but mostly paid, and there are toll booths to get on them. So every other road is one that both bikes and cars use, even roads with a max speed of 80km/h (unless you see a sign stating otherwise, of course). In the beginning, this can be a bit intimidating, as not all roads have wide shoulder areas, which means you are often cycling in the lane that the cars are driving in. When we first heard of this (long before we even started planning this trip), we were a bit shocked, as we couldn’t really imagine cycling on something like the local N-roads in the Netherlands. Of course, this is the norm in most of the world, and even across the border in Belgium, this is how it is. But we are spoiled Dutchies, so it was quite strange to us.
Anyway, here it is quite normal. That also means that the Japanese drivers are used to it, and so far, all Japanese drivers we’ve encountered have been incredibly polite and safe. When they spot us, they slow down and pass us with a large safety margin, sometimes completely crossing into the oncoming lane, which we feel is actually more dangerous than just passing us a bit closer. They sometimes just wait behind us for a long time until they deem it is safe to pass when they can’t see any traffic from the opposite direction. We’ve never felt unsafe so far. Of course, we also try our best to behave ourselves, making sure to keep to the side of the road as best as we can, avoid swerving, looking ahead to make sure we anticipate traffic, and sometimes even stopping when there’s room so a large amount of traffic build-up behind us can get past. Luckily, most of the time we only encounter cars going about 40-50km per hour, so it’s not too exciting.
The next couple of days we will be staying in Kumamoto. We will probably do a quick trip to Fukuoka by train before continuing on to Mt. Aso and Beppu.
