He tries to read a novel, something about privileged people having trouble getting along with each other in exotic locations. He throws it against the wall. Something has broken in him. His appetite for human self-regard is dead.

Richard Powers, “The Overstory”

In part 3, I…

• Hike the last two days of the Nakahechi trail
• Soak in the only World Heritage onsen
• Surmount my hardest ascent ever in Nachi
• Understand the sublimity of spiritualism at Kumano Nachi Taisha
• Collapse in an isolated cabin on a mountain with cherry blossoms
• Experience the most climatic night of my life
• Decide to always pursue writing, chase the unknown, and spurn tedium

19 March 2023

• 7:30-7:50 Hongu to Kanmaru bus, 7:55-8:05 Kanmaru to Koguchi bus
• Koguchi to Ukegawa hike (4.5h)
• 13:00-13:05 Ukegawa to Hongu bus, 14:25-14:35 Hongu to Yunomine Onsen bus
• Tsuboyu onsen (30m)
• 19:25-19:35 Yunomine Onsen to Hongu bus

Hiking from Koguchi to Hongu

I woke at 6:00 after five and a half hours of slumber. Every part of my body was sore.

Despite years of avoiding caffeine, I needed coffee at breakfast. No bento was included in my booking, nor was there anywhere to buy food. The rest of my snacks would have to do.

The Hongu-Koguchi trail was the shortest section of the Nakahechi. Since accommodations in Koguchi were scant, my companions and I would sleep again in Hongu. This lifted two thirds of the load on my back. Why I insisted on bringing a laptop to a multi-day hike, only the writer in me knew.

Too tired to exchange a word, Elessar, Luna, and I hiked silently in a single file. Our pace was slower than yesterday’s, with short but frequent breaks. Continuing the tradition of the past two days, I forgot my walking stick at every stop.

The weather was sunny. Perhaps this explained why we saw more hikers than in the last two days combined.

Lunch was some of the wasabi and pea snack I’d been carrying for three weeks. Originally intended as a souvenir from a wasabi farm, it had been taking too much space in my suitcase, and getting progressively more crushed.

I took out a pocket mirror from my small bag. It was fully cracked.

Then I tried some of the vegetables I’d bought yesterday at a village. In the Japanese countryside, crewless stands with fresh produce were not uncommon. Whoever had set them up had trusted customers to leave coins. I got pickled ginger and leafy greens, Wakayama specialties, the latter used to preserve sushi in the old days. Both were too spicy or salty.

Likewise, Luna’s orange from a similar stand tasted like the bitterest fruit in the world.

At 13:00, we finished at Ukegawa, and took the bus back. (There was no path linking Hongu and Ukegawa.) In Hongu, we bought one bento for tomorrow, the last one in the shop. The clerk recommended we ate it today, before it would rot. So we stored it in a refrigerator.

I accidentally broke a jar of pickled apricot with my bag, and bought it as well. It was as inedible as the pickled ginger.

Then I ran into the Tasmanian couple.

After today’s meagre lunch, we found some sandwiches at a narrow café. There, we met the nicest local, who later offered me to stay in her bungalow if I returned to Kumano. She was quite chatty – but the last two buses were at 14:25, or 19:00.

You had to love the Japanese countryside.

Yunomine Onsen

The plan for the afternoon was to visit one of Hongu’s onsen towns.

• Kawayu: a river-and-onsen hybrid. In winter, it became a large, open-air bath. In summer, soakers could dig their own pit.
• Watarase: the largest rotenburo in west Japan.
• Yunomine: the only World Heritage onsen in Japan (and maybe in the world?).

The latter was the obvious choice.

Yunomine was a small town street. A picturesque, stereotypical onsen street. A creek ran through its middle. You could boil eggs and sweet potatoes on it – which we did.

We got in line to Tsuboyu, the famous (and private) onsen, at 14:50. While waiting, I ran into the Tasmanian couple.

People were strolling around in yukatas. At 16:50, our turn came.

At first, I couldn’t understand why this was the only World Heritage onsen. I entered a scanty wooden cabin on the creek. Inside bubbled the tiniest pool. Great for one person, extremely intimate for two.

The spring water was searing, a bit smelly, and milky white, thanks to its minerals. I stretched my legs and explored the pit with my feet. Maybe because I hadn’t been to a traditional onsen in a while, or maybe because it followed three days of hiking, but this was probably my most gratifying soak.

Ten minutes, a five-minute break, and another three minutes inside were all I could muster. I felt so hot afterwards, that I forgot my bag.

We ate a light dinner at the only restaurant. After waiting for the last bus, I couldn’t finish my proper dinner at the minshuku in Hongu. The staff gifted me a plastic container, but warned that the leftovers would give me a stomach-ache if I ate them tomorrow. I wondered if Japanese meals were always fresh.

I went to bed at an earlier time than yesterday. The onsen hadn’t healed all my muscle pain, but today was more relaxed. It prepared me for tomorrow.

Travellers we met on the Nakahechi trail – day 3: the middle-aged Taiwanese couple (walking from Hongu to Nachi on the same day, instead of splitting it into two like sane people. They might have had superpowers); the Spanish girl and Swiss guy from yesterday, minus the girl who had slipped and got hurt; an old couple from New Zealand, the only ones in shorts (the Tasmanian couple texted me a photo of a snake they’d seen on the trail); three solo Japanese guys; a young Japanese couple; and 15-20 more Caucasians. The majority hiked the opposite way, like us.

Today’s highlights: hiking in sunny weather; Tsuboyu onsen.

Stray observations:

• Signs in Koya-san and Kumano Kodo include translation in French.
• At various points during this pilgrimage, I could smell pasta. Macaroni and cheese, to be exact. Must’ve been delirious.
• At the beginning of this trip, locals kept telling me: 日本語が上手. Lately, it’s been: なぜ日本語がそんな上手い？
• When Japanese people hear I’m here for three months, they say: “Well, Japan is a small country, but there is a lot to see…” to which I reply: “A small country?!”
• I’ve never seen so many old people’s spines bent at 75 degrees. I wonder if it stems from a lifetime of farm work.

20 March 2023

• 7:30-7:50 Hongu to Kanmaru bus, 7:55-8:05 Kanmaru to Koguchi bus
• Koguchi to Nachi hike (6h)
• Kumano Nachi Taisha (1.5h)
• 15:45-16:30 ride to accommodation

Hiking from Koguchi to Nachi

Last day of the Nakahechi trail.

“You’re walking to Nachi?” the staff in Hongu asked upon check out. “That’s the hardest part.”

And here I’d thought the first two hours of the Nakahechi trail would be its vilest. The elevation gain on the first day was 850 meters. Today would be 1250, plus a shorter distance.

The entrance to the trail was cold and foggy. Our breaths were materialising in front of us. Before long, I stripped to a T-shirt. The ascent had begun, and I was in full sweating mode.

I wanted to die. I’d never done something so hard. Elessar and Luna were gliding up the stone stairs in the forest, while I was faltering on my walking stick, slouching under the weight on my shoulders. (Everything I’d left in my room yesterday was back in my bag.) I was lagging so far behind, that we split at some point, and I couldn’t see them anymore.

People were resting every now and then. Us three weren’t. I was floundering left and right on the stairs because I couldn’t walk straight. My soul departed my body, left it on autopilot, and entered eternal meditation.

I had never been this sore. I had never traversed mountains and forests for full days. I had never sunk my teeth this deep into nature.

I couldn’t climb anymore. I wanted the pain to stop.

Then I noticed Elessar and Luna up ahead. On top of the hill. They were standing still.

I pushed myself on this last stretch, panting with each step. After two hours of hiking, I reached the peak.

“You fucking bastard,” I wheezed at Elessar. “Why didn’t you stop once?!”

He laughed.

“I was comfortable. It could’ve been steeper.”

As I was catching my breath, the sun illuminated me from behind.

“You’re steaming,” Luna said. “I can see heat leave your body.”

I couldn’t care less. I’d been defeated and resurrected.

We continued after a few minutes’ break. A sign read: “Nachi, 175 minutes.”

“We’re walking too fast,” Elessar said. According to the map, the time estimate for today was seven to nine hours.

“I agree,” I panted. “You are walking too fast.”

There was yet another ascent, albeit much easier and shorter. (The map LIED.) It led to a glade, where the sun showered us with its rays.

It was a glorious moment, full of gratification and warmth. As if the sun had emerged from the fog to say, “Congratulations.”

We reached a rest house and ate a small brunch while basking in the sun. Further up the trail, another rest house stood overlooking the ocean. This view was so unexpected, that we all exclaimed “Wow”.

It was 12:00. Time for lunch. Two Australian women and a Canadian-Australian couple joined us, after we’d walked sections of the trail together.

Blue ocean. Clear sky. A serene respite, after a nefarious climb under clouds.

From here on, the trail cascaded into a long descent. Quite tricky and slippery, though a walk in the park, compared to this morning.

It literally became a walk in the park when we arrived at a nice, albeit abandoned, one. There were empty swings and blooming trees, a cemetery of walking sticks, and a four-wheeler consumed by nature. One could shoot a horror movie here. On this fine spring day, I wondered why parents and children hadn’t come. Then I realised such families probably weren’t locals.

Kumano Nachi Taisha

At 14:00, Nakahechi ended with a short stroll through Nachi town to the grand shrine.

‘Grand’ was the perfect word for it. We crossed red torii gates and beheld what struck me as the most spectacular shrine complex in Japan.

The traditional buildings. The smell of incense. Green mountains and a view of the ocean. Blooming cherry blossoms, a gentle breeze, and a red pagoda backdropped by a 133-meter-high waterfall. I hadn’t been to Kyoto, but I doubted I would find such a combination there.

As I marvelled at this marriage of culture and nature after a four-day pilgrimage across mountains and shrines – my first time hiking – I felt enervated, I felt feeble, I felt the sublime.

I was a temporarily-animated piece of flesh. Heavy, sluggish, blistered flesh.

At that moment, I understood spiritualism.

We were tiny, at the end of the day, ants in a vast landscape dwarfed by vaster planets. The world was so big; there were so many places to explore, and people everywhere. I yearned to visit and meet them.

It wasn’t because I was delirious. Triumphing Nakahechi all the way to this grand complex infused me with new strength. The sacred atmosphere, the crashing of falling water, the physical and mental challenge – both primordial and transcendent…

Nor was it because for once, I was in a country that I loved.

It was because none of this surprised me. I’d foreseen my reaction. My euphoria soothed me, because it proved that I was right. Life could be what I wanted it to be. Even if just for three months.

Kumano Kodo was everything I’d thought it would be. And that alone heartened me more than any trail or attraction. I’d laid in bed months before this day, read about Nakahechi, and fantasised, as I always had. But this time, it had materialised.

When you drank the lemonade you’d squeezed for years; when you fulfilled, for the first time, a dream; when you knew it would be the last time, and watched out for snakes while grieving; when you hiked for days and collapsed in the end – when you achieved your goal fully on your terms – there was little you could do but imagine your own death.

The grand shrine was sunny and warm all the while. I couldn’t have rejoiced more over cancelling my day of rest. Tomorrow onwards, it would rain.

We bought ice cream, each a different flavour (my delicious plum tasted like a stronger rose), and explored the shrine grounds. I crammed into an ancient tree with a hollowed trunk that led to stairs, and was reputed to grant wishes.

Pagodas were always inaccessible. Yet here, we could enter and climb to the top. The view of the waterfall was dramatic.

Before I knew it, it was time for farewell.

My host for tonight had come to pick me up, while the rest of the group took the bus to Kii-Katsuura.

It was the bitterest parting of ways. We hadn’t spent mere hours together: we’d hiked 88 steep kilometres in four days. It was a physical and spiritual bonding experience. I’d gotten used to Elessar and Luna’s presence.

Night in a Secluded Cabin

My accommodation stood on the other side of Nachi mountain. Impossible to reach without a car.

The host stopped at a grocery store, where I bought dinner and breakfast. Forty minutes and a one-lane winding road later, I checked in.

“This is the best time of the year to visit,” he said. He was a talkative elder living down the hill. “Kumano-zakura has just started blooming in the backyard.”

It was my dream home. My “Cameron Diaz retreating to Kate Winslet’s fairy-tale rustic cottage from The Holiday at the height of winter and her personal life falling apart for some peace and quiet” fantasy, minus the snow.

“This cabin is 100% wood,” the owner said.

After he left, I threw all my clothes into the washer and put the kettle on. Dinner on the porch came with a view of a mountain range and Wakayama prefecture’s east coast. I wrote Part 2 and took an unforgettably assuaging hot bath, which was also made of wood.

Then I returned outside to re-examine the landscape. The sun had set. Outside was pitch black.

I couldn’t see anything; nothing at all. There was no light, apart from the one inside my cabin. The image of the Pacific Ocean from last month’s overnight ferry resurfaced. Back then, I’d heard waves crashing; now, hooting owls and croaking frogs. The countryside could be terrifying at night.

No one was driving around. There were no streetlights. A rural home was not to be left at dark.

I noticed a beacon of light shining intermittently from afar. Probably a lighthouse.

Then I looked up and saw the stars. Their twinkling was impossible to photograph. I was on a planet, I thought – not a city or an attraction teeming with humans, but alone in nature, somewhere in the universe.

I stood naked on the porch and let the air cool me after that scalding bath. From four strenuous days of constant exertion and companionship, to solitude and silence. My body was craving peace and quiet, but my mind was hungry for action.

This trip had been turbulent since its inception. So many conflicting experiences, so many extremities, happening too fast, sometimes all together.

This past week had radicalised this. Hatred and existentialism; comradeship and isolation; misery and elation; fun and indifference; heat and cold; energy and lethargy; reprieve and frustration; content and terror; pining and alienation; vigour and exhaustion; comfort and annoyance; disregard and awe. I’d gone from a thesis to its antithesis in a manner of seconds.

Ever since February 21, I’d feared my trip had peaked. But Koya-san and Kumano Kodo had proven me wrong.

I reclined on a cold chair with my head raised at the sky, and tried to imagine myself from above. If someone up there looked back at me, they would see a vast blackness and one tiny light, issuing from a wooden cabin. They would see a bipedal being sitting naked and shivering, living in an uncaring universe, an uncaring society, an uncaring body that paid no mind to its soul. And if they zoomed in, they would discern his grin.

Then they would hear a song blasting from his phone. Yet another one by Rina Sawayama, this time from her second album. They would see his lips move and hear him singing along. Crying, and laughing, and crying.

The night in Koya-san was among my saddest. Now, I’d never felt greater freedom or joy. I gawked at the starry sky and realised: when the time came to watch a montage of my life, this would probably be its climax.

Some moments from my life had been etched in my mind in an instant. This one overtook them all. Everything that had happened to me in 28 years. This one would outlive every other recollection.

The only thing left to desire was the possibility that it would not.

Determination spread to my fingertips. A quest to experience all that life had to offer. I would never be able to settle on a small and quiet existence.

I wanted to sleep in an igloo. To visit every church and art museum in Greece and Italy. To go on a safari. To raise animals and study languages. To traverse every country on Earth. I wanted to produce in every art form, to partake in every culture, to try exotic fruit, to meet people completely different from me, to not know my whereabouts the following week, and eventually, in old age, maybe even see all this from outer space. I wanted to become the real-life version of a character in my novel who said this in the last chapter.

I want to wheeze my insides out, can’t you fathom? I want my cells to mitose and apoptose. I want the compulsion to defecate and chew. I want to traverse forests and greet wanderers, to daub seascapes and attend operas, to nourish moppets. I want a dwelling fixed to the ground, I want to erect it from scratch. I want to bake and mop, taste umami and smell petrichor. I want to cherish and sicken. I want to win and lose. I want redamancy and detachment, lassitude and verve, every noun in every dictionary! I want to learn something new every day, to acquire a profession every year, to loaf about in boredom. I want a bucolic, arcadian life. I want an oppidan, stressful life. I want an anodyne, hackneyed life. I was meant for nothing short of that.

(The character was supposed to talk like that.)

‘Boring’ was like poison to me. I’d rather alienate every person on the planet and ruin my future prospects than be dull. I’d rather end up penniless and alone than betray my values. Pain would escort me wherever I went; I’d rather fail than not try at all. In fact, I would continue to fail, as the past had proven.

When people had read my fiction in workshop, they kept saying: “I’ve never read anything like it.” That had filled me with pride, until I realised none of them had meant it as a compliment.

My stories had been dismissed as niche. They hadn’t fit into the market, because I’d never fit into society.

People didn’t like different. They sought what they’d already known. A book that hugged you and assured you everything would work out. (The exact preference of one of my workshop tutors.)

Opposites did not attract. Psychologists would be the first to testify that.

If we stuck to what we liked and knew, how would we learn? How would we evolve? Perhaps people could change, but simply chose not to.

For art to be creative, i.e., new, it ought to confront you with something unfamiliar. Hence, it equalled a slap in the face, rather than a warm embrace. It ought to show you things you’d never considered, challenge your worldview, and shake you to your core.

The human brain thought through narratives. Our identity was a story we’d been telling ourselves since before we were born. Humans couldn’t live without food, medicine, and clothing, but they also couldn’t live without fiction. Through art, we examined who we were, where we had come from, and where we would go. 

I knew I wasn’t an easy person to deal with. I was stubborn, quixotic, and expected too much from art and from people. But I gave my all to my endeavours, and I couldn’t understand those who did not. Why would I foster superficial friendships? Why would someone suggest to hang out and then ghost? Why make a promise we both knew you wouldn’t keep? Why exist without the intention to live?

I couldn’t understand why we could formulate ideals, but not implement them. Humans knew what a perfect circle and a straight line looked like without ever glimpsing them.

Reality was messy. Perfection sheltered in the mind. But if I didn’t spend my life chasing it, I’d waste my last breath on regret.

I’d rather write the worst novel in history than a recycled piece that sold well.

I would die on this hill. Chances were I would, because at this rate, my life would have been for nothing.

Emily Dickinson had once written, “Till I loved, I never lived”. For me it was “Till I published, I never lived”. Becoming a published author had been my biggest aspiration since I was little. Some people dreamed of a big house, a large family, a closet full of designer clothes; dinners at fancy restaurants, and a gazillion friends. I dreamed of writing while home alone. I dreamed of playing my music in front of people and directing my screenplays and sharing all the stories in my head with the world, before they made me explode. I’d give up anything in exchange for that. Anything but my soul.

It killed me that I couldn’t. Publishing hinged on the faith of other people.

I had never minded rejection from dates as much as I had from agents. Why had dozens of them rebuffed me? Was my writing that heinous? Sometimes I felt heinous myself.

I didn’t know an industry more cutthroat than the publishing world. Tech was child’s play. Dating could never compare. Yet another system that cared more about numbers than people.

It was a terrible – and terrifying – thought, but I truly believed that in order to create, you had to be sad. Otherwise, why would you come up with something? Not only words. Any work of art. Something that wasn’t there before. If you celebrated your reality, why would you defy it, and say about it something that was new?

All those pop stars singing about how hot and rich they were. Their songs were infectious. They were also more entertainment. I’d been falling for them as much as the next person. But maybe I wasn’t supposed to have this kind of life.

Maybe I wasn’t meant to be happy. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be successful. Or attractive, or popular. Maybe life was supposed to be anguish and emptiness, until it was over. More void.

For people to be hot and wealthy, someone had to be the opposite of that. For a book to be creative, there had to be books that were crap. For something to stand out, it had to be surrounded by things that were similar.

I felt so tired of this reality, tired of writing about it, naked on that porch, that I didn’t know what to think anymore. I didn’t know what the future had in store.

The only response I could utter at this point was, “Surprise me. Bring it on.” This was the taste of freedom: opening your mouth, while keeping your eyes closed.

I shivered on the chair. Angry and bitter; energised and enraptured. The world was so immense, full of beauty buried underneath civilisation. I wanted to scream at this and sob, to cheer and soar. I wanted to learn and grow and gape at things and people, but more importantly, by my own unforeseen actions. I wanted to change people’s lives, and more importantly, the world.

I couldn’t imagine not using my one chance at living on this planet to make it a better place. Despite my dismissal of destiny, I felt that I was put on this Earth for a reason. To traverse every road, expand the pavement, and fill sinkholes.

I’d always felt this way, long before travelling or studying nearly every possible subject in arts and humanities. One need not move in order to advance. Immanuel Kant had taught me so.

So what else was there to say? How could I relieve fuel from my train of thought? Life was too big for a full stop. Maybe that was the point. There were so many wonders that could raise a smile, so many threats that could cut lacerations. It was a plethora of experiences, a whirlwind of emotions, upsetting and depressing and revolting and – who was I kidding? – exhilarating. One moment you wrote a scene where a character experienced just that, the next you found yourself using the same words you’d used back then, only this time you experienced them first-hand – you understood the character better now, but also life itself – and you set off toward the next destination of your long-awaited journey, glued to car windows, with only one thought on your mind, playing over and over again: “It’s temporary, bliss is temporary, but so is life, and in this moment, I am alive.”

I went to bed after this, weary yet cosy in my futon. It was my eighth day in a row sleeping on the floor.

Travellers we met on the Nakahechi trail – day 4: I lost count. Similar to yesterday.

Today’s highlights: the whole day.