October 19, 2007
Days 11 and 12: Narai to Takayama: Hiding out from the rains in Little Kyoto
From Narai, we set off on the long-day's mountain stage to Takayama - over 60 miles, two more mountain passes, and through numerous tunnels. Our route carried us through very sparsely populated, but very lovely country. We left early, to allow the most time flexibility - the dark comes early this time of the year, particularly in the mountains, with nightfall setting in somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30; and I was concerned in particular about the first few miles of the day's ride. The highway, after leaving Narai, plunges almost immediately into a 2000 meter tunnel through the range separating us from the Kiso valley. I couldn't find any accounts of cycling through here, and I wasn't certain that the tunnel was cycleable. If we couldn't bike, we'd have to improvise something on the fly - possibly by climbing over the pass, through a route that from the maps appeared to degrade to a footpath near the summit.
As it happened, the tunnel was uncomfortable, but safe. It's a two lane road on a busy highway (being the only N/S corridor through this part of the country), and the tunnel is long, narrow and very dark - but there was a walkway separated by a railing, barely wide enough for our loaded bicycles to pass through. It was too narrow to really ride, and we more or less pulled ourselves through along the railing for its mile-plus length, ending up with very soot-stained gloves.
After that though, we were fine - there were numerous other tunnels, some even longer, on the rest of the ride - but all of them either had bypasses or were more modern and had much better (wider) walkways and lighting. Two passes later, we made it safely into Takayama shortly before sunset. Takayama is another fine old historic town (they call themselves 'Little Kyoto'), with a lot to see and many tourists. The historic sections of town are preserved wooden buildings from the Edo era, similar in style and age to those we saw in Narai and would encounter here and there throughout the remainder of our tour.
We stayed in Takayama for two nights, to allow time for sightseeing and to rest up from the mountains a bit. One of our favorite memories from here is of our first night's meal,, at a tempura diner - we ate at the counter of this tiny place, watching the preparation of our meal and then appreciating the explanation we received of what the food was and how to eat it. Delicious!
This is probably a good spot to say something about Japanese customs in places of business - restaurants, shops, and so on. The employees are invariably welcoming and friendly - everyone welcomes you to the shop when you enter (Irrashai masen!), and everyone bows to you and thanks you, multiple times, when you leave. Even in westernized places, like the Starbuck's in Kyoto, this was the norm. In small restaurants, it was always a bit surprising to be paying the bill and preparing to leave, and the wait staff and even the chef in the back cheerily pipe out with their thanks.
It's also a good spot to say something about the difficulty in general we had eating out, with our nearly non-existent knowledge of Japanese. We were often frustrated by an inability to find many restaurants where we knew anything about what was on offer, or to find restaurant-workers who knew enough English to give us any hint of what was available. In a few places we could get by with pointing at pictures of food in the windows, but in many places not even these were available. One thing we found very odd was how often restaurants would have names in English (often names that suggested western cuisine); or menus that had English section headings (pasta; pizza; etc); but absolutely everything else was in Japanese characters. It was a frustration to see a section titled pasta, with 6 or so entries listed under them, but with no idea whether any given line might be sea urchin roe and nori (seaweed) rather than ham and cheese. This was probably the aspect of the trip that wore on us the most, and as the trip progressed we became increasingly ready to see a familiar restaurant.
The second great thing about Takayama was that it poured down rain while we were there. It is an absolutely amazing feeling to look out in the morning and see rain on our off day, after enjoying 7 straight days of sun while cycling through the mountains. Never have we had such great luck on the timing of the rain. It limited our enjoyment of sightseeing in Takayama, but this felt like a very small price to pay - especially since somewhere in this part of the trip Rachael picked up a cold and we were anxious about what effect a day's ride through the mountains in the rain would have on her health.
One more thing that amazed us in Takayama though was to see people cycling in the rain, sheltering themselves with open umbrellas. It must be quite a skill to master, holding an open umbrella with one hand while balancing a fully loaded bike with a kid on the back with the other.
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Today's ride: 60 miles (97 km)
Total: 435 miles (700 km)
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