The Himedomachi Cycling Club

Over breakfast Madoka told me that half the building was a converted akiya, abandoned house, and the other half was something like her parent’s old office. She made us a Japanese breakfast and I ate mine and some of Jared’s.

The day was rainy and traffic was heavy as I threaded my way out of the city and into the countryside. If I leave the purple line on my Garmin it can’t recalculate, nor does it give advanced instructions and my route, calculated in Switzerland, took me across fields and up and down small roads.

The rain got heavier and I looked around for somewhere to change into my rain trousers. All around me were fields and I ended up changing under the cover of a drink vending machine, stepping out of my shoes on a tiny patch of AstroTurf and stepping into the crinkly gore-tex. My gloves and riding cap were soon soaked, but everything else was dry and warm.

Route 13 took me into mountains, where the trees steamed. I was on the purple line but the route was so windy I permanently had the feeling of being lost.

I hit a succession of tunnels. They all had pavements and I felt quite safe. Halfway through one I crossed from Akita and into Yamagata.

I had liked Akita even more than Aomori, and not just because its motorways were better signposted. The rice was already in the fields and the countryside looked tended, cared for. I liked it for not making an effort to be liked. People lived there, worked there, were friendly to foreigners and the landscape shone with every shade of green.

The 13 divided into a normal road and a motorway and I was alone as I threaded my way upwards. I passed a house that had completely collapsed on itself, just its red roof poking up over the vegetation that had grown around it. I came to a tunnel that must have been around when Booth walked. I cycled down the middle where the painted line should have been, my bear bell echoing off the walls, singing my way through the Japanese syllabary to listen to my voice coming back to me. 

I had arranged to meet Jared at a place called Mamurogawa for lunch. This turned out to be a 10km detour from my route and by the time I got there all the restaurants had closed. We loaded Ribena into the back of his car and we drove another 5km to a ramen place. Being the only place that was open the car park was full. We got a table on the tatami and I only had to break one of my legs to sit at it. A lady ran the front of house, clearing tables as fast as she could and bussing orders. I could see part of the kitchen and from time to time the cook’s muscled right arm appeared at a gap in the curtains.

I had wondered why Booth didn’t mention the poet Matsuo Basho in his book (correction, he does !) His path took him along the Mogami River which Basho immortalised in his best known work Osu no Hosomichi, The Narrow Road to the Interior or The Narrow Road to the Deep North. We visited the tourist information centre, which turned out to be a gift shop with a Basho cut out that you could stick your head through to have your photo taken. Not exactly what I had in mind. Instead we made a 25km detour and found the place where Basho boarded the boat that took him up the river to Haguro and where he wrote these words.

There is a statue there (cover photo) and some biographical notes. It wouldn’t have been around in Booth’s time so he wouldn’t have visited and, unlike Usu-Zenkoji, it wouldn’t have been worth the boot leather if he had.

As we were leaving a man bobbed out of a car in a workers outfit, hi vis bandolier and helmet. He was conducting some kind of survey about where people were visiting in the area – a likely story – and after he had gone through his speil asked us if he could take our photo, the third time in as many days a stranger has asked that question. We agreed and he left looking pretty happy. Incidentally, photos of Jared and I are now visible on the Oyu Stone Circle twitter page.

We drove down the river to Haguro, the town that is the setting off point for the holy mountains of Haguro, Gassan and Yudono. I had visited similar towns before and expected  restaurants and gift shops. As we drove into town Jared turned to me and said, “This place is deserted!” Not a car passed us and no one was out on the streets. It was at if the whole town had upped and left. There was barely a light on.

I hung my wet cycling gear up to dry, before realising there was a laundry facility and washing it all. The owner took my shoes away to be dried while we showered, soaked and presented ourselves for supper in our dressing gowns and overcoats.

We were both feeling sad and quiet at the thought of saying goodbye. 25 years ago on the last drive we took together we listened to Leaving on a Jet Plane. I told him that the singing of John Denver songs was explicitly banned this time. We did get to see the most dramatic tori gate I believe I have ever set eyes on.