Nikko is Iron Maiden:s drummer, but Nikko is also a small town about 2hrs outside of Tokyo. As a tourist, if you were to visit just one place outside Tokyo, Nikko would be a good pick with it’s temples, beautiful scenery and tourist friendly atmosphere. It has stunning temples, built to exquisite detail, which was an attempt by the shogun to stop the feudal lords from getting too powerful by draining their cash on gilded building after gilded building. The Japanese say that you can't say beautiful until you've seen Nikko. Which isn't really true, but there you go.
We were lucky in avoiding the hoards of people who reportedly throng to Nikko, though the temples were still fairly busy. We strolled past tranquil water features of perfectly balanced mossy stones and still ponds, took tons of pictures of the gaudy gold/red buildings, including one set adorned with a mythological zoo including elephants (drawn by someone who clearly had never seen an elephant), monkeys (speak/hear/see no evil), birds and dragons.
Our main reason for going to Nikko was the hiking, so much of the trip was spent in the mountains. We saw the top three waterfalls of the area, romped around lakes, up and down hills and managed some of the more challenging mountain hikes with plenty of ice, snow and wilderness. We saw deer and not very many people at all. Sadly there appeared to be no bears although a man did warn us not to go into one area because of bears. Emma said we couldn't go in if he said that. All through most of the flat trails were wooden pathways raised up from the ground so as to avoid the natural inhabitants of the marshes. Pretty ace. They do say that many years ago the principal marsh in the area was formed by a battle between Nantaisan and Shirosan, the two volcanoes at either end. A giant centipede general (I'm not making this up) died and his blood stained the marsh red FOR EVER, a bit like the Lancashire rose. To top it all, the hostel we stayed in had its own private hot bath, a real luxury after the day’s hike.
The only minor disappointment was that much of Nikko seemed to shut by 6pm… Which actually didn’t stop us from enjoying several good meals out, and one night drinking till we felt horrible for the next morning's hike. The moral of that story is that when in a pub with all kinds of junk surrounding you, do not trust the friendly bartender not to get you hammered. Certainly do not compound the error by proceeding to the bar of the most expensive hotel in town and talking about camels till the early morning. The hike the next day involved getting lost and having to go off piste because they closed our trail and we had to dodge across some bamboo. Most notable though was the curmudgeonly service at the pizza shop that looked so inviting. After waiting 15 minutes to be acknowledged, the rude %*^£$ skipped past us to serve someone else who wasn't even in the cafe, for "£$**^'s sake. We left and found surprisingly good coffee in an antiques shop next door, provided by a very cheerful old lady. |
