Traditonal Boat Tour

Traditonal Boat Tour to Hayatama Taisha

Some of you might keep trekking to Nachi Taisha. Otherwise, I strongly recommend to join the traditional boat tour down the river Kumano-gawa to Hayasama Taisha in Shingu-city. Pilgrims of long ago used to down the river from Hongu Taisha all the way to Hayatama Taisha, and which took half a day. Now, the boat departs from the middle point of the ancient route and the duration is 1 hour and half trip.

I joined the tour the other day and it was grate experience. The day was sunny and less wind, the perfect wether for the tour. A nice and knowledgeable tour guide who speaks fluent English and a skilfull boat man led the passengers to the ancient time. The view from the boat was spectacular and the stories the guide told us was so interesting and sometimes funny.

There were a lot of impressive moments but the best high light of the day was bamboo flute time. When the boat came to quiet “lake-like” point, the boatman stopped the engine of the boat and switched to rowing. The guide started to play her bamboo flute. For a wilhe, all we hear was squeak of oars and calm and relaxing sounds of the flute. I really felt like I was time tripping to 1000 years ago.

Tips for the tour

• Advance reservation is required. The tour is very popular especially in the spring and fall. I heard some seats are booked from 6 months ago. The website of the operation company is here. Only Japanese at this time. If you are a random site visitor and want to make reservation by yourself, Kumano Travel is useful. As for our costomer, I am happy to help.
• Your luggages will be brought to the goal point by the tour staff by car, so that you can forward to the next plan after arrving at Hayatama Taisha.

Sight Seeing In the Shingu-city

What would you do after visiting Hayatama Taisha? If you plan to sight see around the town, baggage storage service in the Kumano Shingu Tourist Information Center, which is located at near the JR Shingu Station, is recommended. By the way, the center rents bicycles and if you rent them, the baggage storage service is included in the rent cycle service fee.

Here is an English website of Shingu-city for travellers. Various experiences are prepared and looks interesting. I tried Suzuyaki (mini sponge cake) by myself and bought some for my friends for souvenir too. But unfortunately, the soft and sweet cakes made me fan of them immidiately, that’s why I ate up all of them before I even show them to the friends.

Beside the information on the site above, I recommend to try “Narezushi”, the fermented sushi. Narezushi is original form of nowadays sushi and being popular as Wakayama-Ken’s local cuisine. I visitied TOHO JAYA to try this local delicacy and brought 2 kinds of them, both 1 year “Ayu” and “Samma” back home. They matched perfectly with sake which I also bought in the city. The taste is difficult to explain, but somewhat like yogurt or cheese. The texture was like mochi a little bit. Anyway I ate all of them and they did not make me upset my stomach.

The owner chef of TOHO JAYA -we call the chef TAISHO in Japanese- is very friendly and welcoming. Moreover, you can try various kinds of Narezushi from 1 year one to 30 years one. Yes, 30 YEARS! If you have any chance, visit and try the 30 years and let me know how it was.