Let me explain. I said earlier in my post about Musashizuka Park that I got out the door of my hotel rather late on the morning of August 7th. Well, here's where it came to bite me in the butt. By the time I got around to finding a bus out of Kumamoto Terminal, and managed to make it clear to the ticket agent where I was going (Iwato Kannon Iriguchi was the nearest stop), I bought a ticket and went out to wait at platform 23. Bus No. 6 was the one I was waiting for. It didn't come but once every 40 minutes or so, and it was already late in the afternoon: 4:40 or some-such.
Well, here's the hell of it: I was on the platform when the No. 6 bus came. However, there was another bus at the platform already. Instead of waiting until that bus pulled out and then pulling up behind it, the lazy-ass No. 6 bus driver stopped at Platform 24 for about five seconds, didn't see anyone who looked like they wanted to ride with him, and then took off. All I could do was stand there, open-mouthed and dejected (like Jonathan Winters in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) while my ride cruised off into the sunset without me.
So then it was another interminable wait for the 5:20 bus.
It never came.
It was well after six o'clock when what must have been the last No. 6 bus pulled up to the platform. I leaped on. I was beginning to panic. Iwato Kannon Iriguchi was in the middle of nowhere. Should I take too long in getting out to Reigandō, getting back to the bus stop and catching the last No. 6 bus back to town, I'd be stuck without food, a change of clothes, a toothbrush, or a roof over my head, on a dark one-lane road in rural Kyushu overnight. That was not a prospect I relished.
I did my best to enjoy the spectacular views of the city and Mount Kinpo as the bus gradually left the city limits and climbed into the wild, leafy vastness of the mountains. The lane was sinuous and narrow, and often the bus had to slow down to squeeze past a car or a minivan coming in the opposite direction. Houses were few and far between and rice paddies dominated the hillsides. I had to listen very carefully to the scratchy female voice on the loudspeaker announcing the stops. Even as it was, I very nearly missed my stop. Against my better judgment, I leaped off the bus and found myself on a sunlit road at the foot of Mount Kinpo, with rice paddies all around and the charming village of Iwato Kannon Iriguchi behind.
So I hiked a kilometer uphill, and found myself in a little parking lot with a rather lumpy and crude statue of Musashi overlooking it (the first picture in this post, up above there). A kindly young Japanese woman, impressed that I had climbed the hill on foot, gave me a few pieces of candy. At this point, with the sun getting low and my journey far from over, I considered asking her for a ride back to town, but thought better of it.
After a bit of waffling about which way to go, I went: down a hill (after all that climbing!) and then a hard right turn down a slight slope, with another village (or an extension of Iriguchi) nearby.
And lo and behold! There was the ticket office!
...closed.
Closed.
I was too late.
I'd missed my chance.
All my ambitions about seeing Musashi's final haven went up in smoke, just like that.
This was as close to the cave as I ever got.
For a brief moment, I dithered at the turnstile, considering the leap and the unknowable distance to the cave thereafter. But my worries about missing the bus back to Kumamoto and spending the night by the side of the road, being eaten alive by mosquitoes and deafened by cicadas, won out. As fast as I could I scrambled back up the narrow road, up the forest-clad hill, and down the twisting kilometer driveway back to Iwato Kannon Iriguchi. On the way down, I chatted (again, in pidgin Japanese) with a local who was busily jogging up and down the first few hundred meters of this hilly driveway, who made me think that I'd missed the last bus. I wound up waiting for about 20 minutes before (thank God!) the ol' No. 6 came chugging around the corner. I hopped on and was back at Kumamoto Station before the last rays of the sun had faded from the sky.
Okay, so Reigandō was a bust. Oh well. At least I know the way out there now, and I can budget time appropriately whenever I find my way back to Kyushu. But at the time I felt rather crushed. I was so blue I went and bought a Freshness Burger to console myself:
Then it was back to the APA Hotel for my last night in Japan. I had a celebration of sorts: an assortment of canned beers from the convenience store. I had a jolly night of it and slept pretty well on that rock-hard mattress.
What more is there to tell? Only one thing: the journey by high-speed ferry from Japan to Korea. Tomorrow: THE JR BEETLE TO BUSAN. I didn't know Boeing made boats, did you?
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