Takachiho

The winding route 218

Taking a forty minute car ride into the volcanic heartland of Kyushu is rewarding enough by itself. The roadside scenery will transfix the unintiated. Mountains, steep and carpeted by trees rise one after the other as far as the eye can see; the valleys far below is where human civilization has been forged into the landscape. Where the land lies flat enough, rice paddies and terraces of green tea plantations with its lush and sumptuous shades of dark green ensnare my eyes. And yet, all this scenery is ubiquitous in Kyushu. One part of the road sits under the shadow of some enormous cliff, and green vegetation saddles its crest. This is the road to the legendary gorge Takachiho.



Hinokage town (日之影町）

Takachiho itself is archaeic in origin and with its the unique wonder it is not difficult to see why it has fuelled great fantasies. It is the stuff of real Japanese legend. Most famously, perhaps, is that the gorge is where the ancestors of Japan's first Emperor, Jimmu, descended from the heavens. Ninigi, Jimmu's great grandfather, was sent by Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess. He was charged with the task of pacifying a wild Japan. As Ninigi himself was the grandson of the Goddess, the subsequent emperors have all been regarded as divine beings, a tradition that continued until the end of the 2nd World War.

It is a place that that rattles your senses. Everywhere you look something will catch your wandering eye; it is quiet except for the water and the cries of the insects, and the lively plants are smelling sweet of nature's scent. Tiny paths are found alongside the water. Some lead along the gorge, others to the Shinto shrines and some probably to nowhere and back again. I came to Takachiho with my co-worker, Motoko and her brother, Yuuzo. We took the steep path up to the Shinto shrine. The trail was at times difficult to climb, either due to the steepness or the occaisional vines that crept down from the green ceilings to block the way. The sun was completely blocked out as we walked up and down, alongside boulders the size of houses, with the sound of rushing water our trusted comapanion. It probably took us the best part of an hour to climb to the shrine. We paid our respects as is customary and made an offering, for which you are permitted to take a fortune, that will predict the coming days prosperity in various firlds, such as love, health, money, travel and lots more that I could not remember as I sit here. It seems, perhaps because of novelty and the grandeur of the setting, much more convincing than a horoscope. Inside this shrine, and in some other shrines I have visited, there were two trees that were joined at the base of the trunk to give the impression of 'tree twins'. All in all, the trek to Takachiho shrine rewarded us with great sights, sounds and smells and in reaching our destination a sense of unparalleled peace descended on us like a thin viel of silk floating calmly to the ground. We eventually made our leave, taking the main exit that avoids the gorge and leads into the town.