Good News Bike Ride: Amagase

It's about damn time I had one of these! Although sometimes I can't tell the difference between a good and bad idea bike ride--after all, a trying situation can be looked on as positive or even pleasant in hindsight--this one just felt entirely right what with the noticeable lack of, oh, rain, snow, landslides, chemical spills or any of those kinds of things that turn well-intentioned rides into pilgrimages of pain.

The target of Saturday's ride was the hot springs town of Amagase, located west of Kusu, down, down, down the hill just over ten kilometers towards Hita City. The highway leading there, national 210, flows at the law-breaking pace of 70 KPH (posted limit is 50 KPH) in most places and has an on-and-off shoulder to veer into, so it's a bit hairy for cyclists. Between here and there though there's little choice in the matter unless I want to take a crippling detour literally up and over a mountain, Kagami-yama, that rises 675 meters in about a half mile, if even that. Uh oh, mixing metric and standard there...just ask the ESA and NASA how that works out.


Highway 210 looking west. These kinds of half-tunnels are common on mountain roads in Japan and are a hoot to drive through in bright sun at speed.

I'm not sure when Amagase's heyday as an onsen resort was, or if it even had one, but it shows all the normal signs of decline these kinds of kitschy resorts seem to fall into in rural Japan. Perhaps "decline" is the wrong wordage here, and in fact I witnessed a sort of theme as to which hotels are shut down and which are still open and apparently thronging with tour buses full of visitors. The trend seems to be heavily in favor of hotels, inns and restaurants that at least appear to be traditionally Japanese on the exterior even if the inner goo is all shag carpeting, box spring mattresses and blow driers. The places that looked like they were trying to be Monte Carlo with a marble bathhouse are largely gone. OK, there's still a German-themed hotel there that doesn't look to be doing too badly, but it's the last vestige of any wacky facade that I saw.


Russian Roulette Bridge and a very sexy bicycle. Going my way, baby?

The entire town straddles a part of the Kusu River downstream where a ton more water has been added to the flow along the way, no doubt from the still-saturated mountainsides, resulting in some decent rapids. There are at least ten fly fisherman wading through the shallows at all times hoping to catch...who knows what. Never saw a single fish in their buckets when I was riding or walking around. To cross the river you have three choices for cars and one for pedestrians, but I would definitely recommend parking and walking the pedestrian bridge over the others since it's a simple wood plank suspension setup that sways and creaks underfoot ten meters above the rapids. The suspension cable housings at one end are rusted halfway through, adding to the unshakable Russian Roulette feeling one has while crossing. But hey, what good is life if you don't spin the chamber every now and then, eh?


Amagase looking east from the largest and newest bridge in town. Note that this is only HALF the town

After mulling around for an hour I heard the siren call of nudity and obscenely hot bath water. Onsen time! But which to choose? I mean, every damn building in this place is tapped into the thermal springs underground and has a bath, so it's a matter of what I can see from my bath. One has an outdoor rock pool in a pristine, isolated bamboo garden. Meh, too claustrophobic. Another hangs out three stories above the river. No, I'd spend too much time worrying if the building was structurally sound and whether or not I'd be the 90 kilos too much that finally snapped the whole thing off, crashing to the rocks below. I finally chose an inn jammed right up against the valley's rock wall that was nearly vertical in construction, the bath being on the sixth floor roof. Ah, serendipity strikes again--as the sole bather this hour I am the ruler of a cedar wood tub overlooking the entire town. Rock on.


The view from my rub-a-dub-tub! Hights: no problem.

After washing up, soaking, applying a sugar mask, soaking, trimming my toenails and finally soaking again I got dressed and saddled up for home. As it turns out, I missed quite a bit of scenery as I whizzed down 210 before, so the upside of the uphill was being able to bask in the beauty of the gorgeous river valley between Kusu and Amagase.

I think next summer I'll return to Amagase not for its onsen, but to try a bit of tubing on the river rapids. Maybe I can even try tubing from Kusu to Hita City and meet up with friends...? The mind reels with possibilities.

--Matt