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Oxalis Holidays Newsletter July 2008

Welcome to the July 2008 newsletter from Oxalis Holidays!

In Japan, the tsuyu, as the rainy season is known, is over, and the summer is here. Summer in Japan is a time for being outdoors, a time of picnics by the river, summer matsuri (festivals) with their fireworks displays, the humming of the cicada, and the lush green of the countryside. It's the time the high mountains become accessible again, with numerous religious ceremonies to open the mountain trails.

Our spring season of tours went very well, with our scheduled tours such as Shoguns and Samurai, and Land of Fire. Many of our customers have taken the time to write in and let us know how much they enjoyed their trip. For me, that is always the best part, knowing that we have given someone a lasting memory of Japan. We also arranged many private tours, and for me personally this is always a great pleasure, as I can design a unique tour for a family or small group, based exactly on their request. This spring we had four friends from London who travelled to walk in Kyushu, and members of a German family who live in Germany and Australia, and decided to meet in Japan! Amongst our other private tours were a Swiss couple who travelled from Tokyo to Takayama, Kanazawa, Hiroshima and Miyajima; an American family, and a company group from Dubai. We also had what must be a record in terms of last minute bookings. We received a phone call one afternoon, and managed to arrange a guided walking tour along the Nakasendo trail in the Kiso Valley for the next day. Two members of a family had received a surprise trip to Japan as a present; they turned up at the airport without even knowing their destination! I was up at midnight arranging it, and our guide, Aria, was on the train about 3 hours later (Japan time) to meet the customers. Normally we hope to have more time to arrange a trip, but this was a challenge we enjoyed!

In this issue:

1. Japan destination spotlight: Tsumago village
2. Notes from the road
3 . New tour!
4 . 2009 tour dates
5 . Save money this autumn

Notes from the road

Spring in the mountains of Japan is a glorious time. The flowers are out, the days are warm again and trails that might have been under snow only a few weeks before are once again open and ready to be explored. I lead a German couple in May along the Kumano kodo, the old pilgrimage route that once lead from Kyoto to the great shrines of Kumano. After achieving World Heritage status in 2004, the route through the mountains of the Kii Peninsula has been lifted somewhat from obscurity, but you can still walk all day and only see one or two other walkers. Over the course of 3 days, we walked eastwards, through forests of cedar, staying at small minshuku and hot spring ryokan. Our first night was spent at the small village of Chikatsuyu, in the delightful minshuku run by Mr and Mrs Kinoshita. I have to say the food there is some of the best I have had in Japan. It's not fancy, rather the food is superbly fresh, wonderfully simple, and because the minshuku has only 4 rooms they can take so much care with each dish.

From Chikatsuyu, the trail continues east, and the first section is mostly through small villages, sometimes paths that pass by villager's gardens and rice fields. We stopped for a break after only an hour of walking, at Nonaka, where an old lady prepares wonderfully strong cups of coffee in a small thatched house. It always amazes me that you can get coffee this good in such places even when it's still a challenge in England. But then Japan is such a place of perfection. Did you know that a Japanese man recently won the world prize for making pizzas in Italy?

At Koguchi, another small village deep in the mountains, we were the only guests at the small minshuku, and they prepared a feast with what must have been 9 or 10 courses. Earlier in the day, on arrival, we had found a good place to swim in the shallow river. The day was warm but the mountain river was cool, and clear enough to see the tiny fish and pebbles on the bottom. OK, river swimming was not in the itinerary, but a welcome ending to hours on the trail.
Our host told us about the pressing concern for the villagers this year; monkeys. I had noticed that the vegetable and fruit fields tended by the villagers were increasingly covered with nets and even electric wires, and it now seems that if someone from the village shoots a monkey (and I don't mean with a camera...), they can get a reward of 30,000 Yen (about £150/$300) from the local government.

The Kii Peninsula, which juts south into the Pacific Ocean south of Kyoto and Osaka, remains one of my favourite places in Japan, I think mainly because it has missed-out on so much of the development in other parts. There is one slow train line that hugs the rugged coastline and takes 3-4 hours to reach Osaka, and narrow roads through the mountains that wind between the peaks and rarely allow you to drive at more than 30 miles an hour. It has my favourite hot spring in Japan, a tiny, open-bath-beside-the-river-affair along a deep valley with no mobile phone reception. There is a tiny wooden box suspended from a rope that you can use to hoist yourself across the river should you wish - but there is nothing but forest on the other side.

Japan Destination Spotlight

The Japan Destination Spotlight for this newsletter is Tsumago village in the Kiso Valley. The Kiso Valley lies about half-way between Tokyo and Kyoto, in the mountains of Gifu Prefecture. The Kiso Valley, oftened referred to in Japan as kiso-ji, or Kiso Way, was part of the Nakasendo, a medievel trail that lead between Tokyo and Kyoto. It was one (the other is the Tokaido Trail leading along the Pacific coast) of the trails used by merchants, nobles, and itinerant traders to travel through Japan up until the 19th century. Originally, there were 69 towns along the trail, referred to as 'juku', or 'post towns' in English. Each town had stables for horses, inns for the travellers, as well as a more elaborate accommodation for feudal lords known as daimyo who had to make the regular journey between their fiefdoms and Edo, as Tokyo was then called. It was part of the Shoguns' system of rules and duties designed to keep the daimyos in their place. They had to spend six months in Edo each year, leaving their families in Edo as hostages when they returned. This system of 'sankin kotai' as well as other measures were very effective at stopping any revolts.

The village of Tsumago is located along one of the best-preserved sections of the old Nakasendo, and has been restored by its residents so that it gives the feeling of an Edo-period village. Starting in the late sixties, the villagers decided to restore their houses, which at that point were in a bad state of decay, and they have set themselves rules to follow so that the village is preserved. However Tsumago is not a museum, it is a living village, and this makes a big difference. As with most Nakasendo villages, it is long and thin, about one kilometre long to be exact. The merchants houses that line the main street are deep and narrow, as they were taxed according to the amount of space on the street they took.
My favourite place to visit apart from wandering past the small shops, is the waki-honjin, which was the accommodation provided for the daimyo's retinue. Inside the wooden building you can see an irori (sunken hearth) and learn where each member of a family would sit according to their 'rank'. You can also see the walls, deeply coloured by the smoke from the fire but polished to a deep shine up the height of the maids whose job it was.

There are several lovely places to stay in Tsumago, all Japanese-style minshuku run by local families. The evening is for me the best time to wander, as the other visitors have all gone home, and you are left pretty-much on your own. At dusk the lanterns glow and it's hard to believe that you are in the 21st century!

We visit Tsumago on our Shoguns and Samurai, and the new Nakasendo Trail tour.

New tour! - Nakasendo Trail

We have a new tour for 2009, the Nakasendo Trail tour. This tour starts in Tokyo and ends in Kyoto, and involves lovely village-to-village walking. It travels along parts of the old Nakasendo Trail (see our Japan Destination Spotlight above), and then visits Nara, the mountain-top village of Yoshino, and sacred Mount Koya. The tour lasts 12 days and the walking is easy to medium level. If you are looking for gentle village-to-village walking in Japan then this tour is for you!

Our tour page has a map, slideshow, a downloadable brochure page, and there is also a Google Earth link so you can follow the route in 3D!
Nakasendo Trail

2009 tour dates for Japan

Our full line-up of Japan tours for 2009 is on our website. For anyone booking before the end of September we will guarantee the 2008 price. Please mention this newsletter when booking.
2009 tour dates

Save money this autumn!

Save £100 (that's about $200) per person on any of autumn tours for 2008. Enter the code 'AUTUMNOFFER' into the special requests / comments section on the booking form.

That's it for this newsletter. Until next time...

Matt Malcomson