The trees on Mount Takao near Kyoto had somehow found a new kind of life, surpassing anything that I’d seen or heard before. Not only did their leaves burn brightly with a humanistic passion, but I also heard strange noises out there on my own. They sounded more like the deep voices of ancient beings, than just some aging timber, swaying in the breeze.
I loved this isolation. I was an hour out of civilised Japan and I was face to face with real nature in all its mystery and destructive power. It was my vindication for being such a lone wolf. Yet it was a place I found myself in, thanks to a tip from another traveller.
Japan it seemed would be another lesson in the value of good company, even if some of the best bits, like this, I’d ultimately experience alone.
The Roadblock
Adrenaline coursed my body on the bus ride out of Kyoto. It was my first solo hike in a foreign country. I felt again the fear I’d felt riding in to the Apennines with an emptying water bottle and failing phone signal. I’d nervously eyed the bus schedule. I’d read and re-read the comprehensive route guide. I’d packed enough gear to survive nuclear winter. But despite all the prep, my heart sank as the bus pulled away leaving me stranded. “Road Blocked” it read.
Google translate, among its usual red herrings, or in this case “Trees Percent Agent” showed me the word “Landslide”. This was the antonym of anything calming that my eyes had been desperately searching for.
It was simultaneously exactly what I’d been searching for. Adventure without the possibility to back out. I’d come this far, I only knew one way home and it was 4 hours past that roadblock.
The Calm Before the Storm
Fortunately the sign it seemed, like many in Japan, was placed there solely to worry and confuse. There had been a landslide, it was true. A house mere metres from the sign rested on a brand new cliff face, moments from disaster. But the steps down to the Kiyotaki-gawa river were still mostly visible. With big gulp and a bit of scrambling I was on my way on an adventure that walked so perfectly the lines of danger and reward.
The first stop was two temples. “Sigh,” I initially thought. That was until I saw them.
Even in the grips of a powerful temple fatigue as I clearly was, the peaceful Saimyo-ji and commanding Jingo-ji temples did not fail to impress. Their architecture cut like a samurai sword in to the soft autumnal surroundings.
“Perhaps spatter from those slicing arcs was what slowly stained the leaves from green to red”, I thought. Except that violence was wholly absent here.
When the sun back-lights those gorgeous colours your mind simply stops. The vibrancy bombards your senses and you feel locked-in. As if the trees have burning bright eyes and they’re staring right in to your soul.
The Valley of the Voices
After a brief stop to rid myself of bad karma in the form of three small ceramic Karawage discs, hurled into the valley below, it was my turn to venture in to that same valley. I took with me a hope that the peace might calm some of my anxious thoughts, and that also I wouldn’t get hit in the head by the next group’s Karawage.
The open arms of that valley held more than enough to deliver on that hope. The route was gentle and meanderous, with vermilion bridges and beautiful reflections from emerald pools. Great Catfish swam lazily against the current just to stay in place. Apparently they were as happy as the hikers with the scenery they found themselves in.
But soon such peace gives way to other signs of life and power. Pencil pines tower above as if the ground and sky were pulled apart by the two great hands we’d found on Ba Na Hill. The space between the trunks is haunted by the sound of creaking wood. Each one the sound of some ancient door pushed slowly ajar, revealing passages to mysterious worlds. The voices of those trees raised the hairs on my arms and made me swiften my pace. At the same time I felt so lucky to have heard them.
Pathways of Fate
Later on I found increasing signs of destruction from the same typhoon that had caused the road block. Kuya-no-Taki falls on my guide was marked by an impressive looking Torii shrine gate which now lay smashed and splintered. It struck me that all the fallen trees hanging precariously from telephone lines and strong branches were expressions of fate. Some statues had stood for hundreds of years until that storm. Some would stand for hundreds more. Fate would choose their start and ending.
Ducking under more silently suspended limbs of fate, I hurriedly made my way out of the storm damage and back to relative safety. Fate was on my side it seemed as it also left a travel companion in my path. Not only was this man friendly, and going my way, but we also had an eerie amount of things in common. We were doing the same route, using the same guide. We were both from the same country, had the same profession and it even turned out we were staying in the same hostel.
It was a nice reminder that although fate had inscribed the countless graves at Yaska Cemetery, it had also carved a path to my meeting of two lovely people. One who guided me out to the mountain, and one that led me home again.
