Japan II: Mt. Fuji

Mt. Fuji:

My admiration for the Japanese will never cease to increase! I told my manager at work that I want to climb Mt.Fuji..bingo! Next thing I know he has the entire itinerary planned for me..charted out in an excel sheet with colour coding!! wow!! beat that!!

Divya, had to leave to India on a short business trip, in any case she said she had vertigo and so wouldnt be able to climb with me. Two of her friends were to go with me and thanks to my manager we had everything arranged and charted out :)

Left Tokyo, Shinjuku station, by regular train and reached Kawaguchiko. Kawaguchiko is one of the 5 big lakes at the base of Mt. Fuji. Quaint town, couldnt see much of it though. We had purchased passes that were supposed to cover all travel from Shinjuku to Fuji and back. However for whatever reason the bus driver from Kawaguchiko to Fuji refused to accept the tickets. Ran back to the station got tickets and ran back thankfully the guy was waiting for us..something unusual given their punctuality routines.

The idea was to take this bus to the 5th station on Mt. Fuji (The last by road) and start trekking from there, reach 8th station, stay for the night, wake up early the next morning (3 ish) and trek the last portion to the summit to watch the sunrise.

The 5th station is at approximately 2000 metres elevation, about 50% up the mountain. Similarly the 8th is about 80% high up the mountain. If you did a little bit of math you would have guessed the peak is approx 4000 metres above sea level..about half the height of Mt.Everest.

While at the 5th station I couldnt resist buying Japanese mochi icecream..an acquired taste that I acquired back at Stanford :)

Started the climb at 2pm approximately. Luckily for us the weather was co-operative. Clouds sheltered us from the sun's heat while at the same time refraining from pouring water down on us (meaning rain). The sights were awesome..beautiful..lava slide zones (for lack of a better name) of black sandy volcanic soil, interspersed with lovely green strips of windswept trees..gorgeous.

As I climbed, the clouds blocked my view as I was pretty much walking through clouds. Visibility at times was about 10 to 20 feet in all directions. At one point, all of a sudden the cloud moved (or maybe I moved out of it) and the view it offered was amazing! Golden light from the setting sun illuminated the endless expanse of snowwhite clouds..the blackish brown bare mountain sloping down into the clouds..patches of bright green standing out on the black slope..people climbing up silhoutted against the blue sky with the clouds beneath them looked like they were walking on the bed of clouds! I wish! Many times I felt like I could take a running leap into the fluffy snowy bed and bounce around happily on it :)

Anyways, with nature flashing these beautiful sights at me once again I felt humbled, insignificant - a non-entity in front of the powerful force called nature, called God, called by any name you want, the effect is the same.

The climb was very challenging, as I got closer to the 8th station, for the first time in my life I started feeling the effects of alititude (When in Peru, on the Inca trek, I was at 4,200 metres and had felt nothing except maybe more than normal bouts of breathlessness as I had climbed). Here I could actually feel slight grogginess, slowed circulation, reduced blood supply to all the far parts of the body - brain, hands, feet. I had to keep opening and closing my palms to boost circulation, to get rid of thepins and needles effect. Might sound weird but I was happy..I was happy I was experiencing this new funny phenomenon which I had missed out on in Peru :)

Took many pictures on the way..all sorts of poses, trying to capture all sorts if effects..Divya's friend Suhas had an awesom camera (a lot like Praveen's) and that helped. I didnt have to fish out mine every time ;)

Kept remembering family and friends and how much each one of them would have liked to see and be a part of the sights..I pray to God and wish sincerely that I can redo and do many more travels with all of them! Please God!

Got to the 8th station at about 8.00pm and was ready to collapse!

The concept of the stations works like this - Each station has a few "huts" or "cottages" all lined along the path leading to the peak. We stopped at the last hut of the 8th station which we had reservations for. I was super happy to get rid of the load on my back, get off my shoes and bend over double backwards stretching every cramped muscle! I had taken some Indian ready-to-eat baingan bharta with me with a few tortillas (mexican chappatis), all of which I had gotten with me from the US. Shared it around, had a good meal and rested my back for a few hours.

Started trekking again at 2.00am the next day. A relentless stream of trekkers spanned the trail all the way up to the peak. Some of who were trekking non-stop to the peak! God bless them! This was the toughest portion of the climb. Packed in warm fleeces, two trousers on, a pair of gloves, two pairs of socks it was not the easiest attire to climb wearing. Only relief was that the backpack felt a little lighter in comparison to the previous day. After climbing for a short distance (stopping every 10 steps) I decided to strip down to my thin comfortable shirt, tied the jacket and fleece around my waist and started climbing. People were surprised if not shocked to see me in a sleeveless top climbing with cold clouds swirling around me. But surprisingly this step improved my progress I found myself walking double the distance (not much just 20 steps maybe) before feeling like a rest. I even came up with an explanation for the same - Exposing my body to the cold drove the blood supply to the inner organs, away from the surface. That gave them more oxygen and my heart pumped better too, so I could climb more without getting breathless so often. But there came a point when oxygen or no-oxygen the sorroundings became so cold i had to get back into my jacket atleast. So I did.

The last 20 minutes or so of the approximately 3 hr climb were the most agonizing. My mp3 player helped though..Had only one earphone in place, the other year was reserved to hear the sounds of the mountain :) I must have stopped God knows how many times in that brief period..few times I thought maybe I wont make it..but still I kept going..reaching the peak was a super duper relief!!

Next step was to find a good spot to settle down and wait for Suryadeva to provide darshana. Climbed a few more metres to get to a good spot and settled down for good. Man, was it cold!! No one wanted to get the camera out as it meant taking hands out of their warm pocket-nests.

When he did come Suryadeva made a glorious entrance on his chariot drawn by 12 white horses, each one distinctly silhoutted against the morning sky!! What a sight!!

Hehe..Everything true except for the chariot and the horses :)

It was divine indeed! I bowed to the glory of nature, to suryadeva the harbinger of another beautiful day on planet earth and started back down to the base, or rather to the 5th station.

The walk, or I should say slide, back took about 4 hours. It was amazingly hard on my legs. The track was just a steep zig-zagging line of loose volcanic soil and gravel. Slipped and fell a couple times before reaching flat ground.

5th station was a super duper welcome sight!!

I was so sore all over, I couldnt wait to get to the hot springs!!

So next in the story is the Japanese hot spring.

Japan being a volcanic island has multitudes of natural hot springs all over the island. They come is all sizes, shapes and with varying views. The one I took was indoors, though I would have preferred one with a lovely view (Hopefully next time).

The hot spring culture is very unique in Japan. The water from the springs is tempered (cooled) and fed to the baths (like public roman baths). The visitor to the spring first has to wash herself in the shower (japanese style shower) and then enter the steaming bath (more than 40 degrees Celcius). Soak for about 20 minutes, visit the steam and the suana if she wants. Go back and have a shower, clean herself with soap shampoo and whatever she wants. Get back into the hot water bath and soak for 20 minutes again. Get out, dry herself and get dressed. Thus the minerals and salts from the bath will not be washed away.

The highlight though is that most traditional baths require you to be naked!!!!

Luckily for me I was alone and that made things a lot easier :)

The springs have high medicinal value, they soothe your body, relax your muscles, improve complexion and heal skin cracks.

I was surprised to see the next day that my heel which had been uber-rough (not cracked, but rough) was completely smooth!! So was my skin!! Wow! I have to make another trip before I leave Japan!

Congratulations to those of you who have stayed with me till the end of this long story :)