Niko

I finally found something in Tokyo that annoys the crap out of me. Busses. They annoy me at the best of times at home, but todays one was shocking. We paid for a tour of Niko, which includes a transfer to the Tokyo bus terminal from your hotel (and what a complete hole of a place that is, as most bus terminals are...) 

We finally got on the bus, and from the terminal Niko is a 2+ hour bus ride on the motorway out of Tokyo. At least it was a nice air-conditioned coach. We stopped at some Japanese version of a truck stop. Not to foul as far as truck stops go. Found a vending machine that dispenses hot dogs, hot chips and hamburgers. I can't begin to imagine how disgusting they would probably be.

We got to Niko and had a look at the temple, as far as temples go, it was quite nice, although I found the small Japanese garden much more interesting. After this we had a traditional Japanese lunch at one of the restaurants there (included in the tour). Sharon, Paul, Sue and Chris liked the food, but I wasn't all that impressed with it and stuck to the rice, as did Emma.

Whilst we were there we had a massive amount of really bright cloud/smog cover which made taking photos extremely difficult due to the contrast of the rather dark temples.

We found a JR station at Niko, and honestly this is the point I should have said "Sayonara" and headed back to Tokyo on my own  (approx. 2 hours on the train) as it was my last chance. The next point was quite interesting, climb a massive mountain to find a huge lake at the top of it, but the 42 hairpin curves, on narrow roads with 12% gradients on a bus playing this god horrible traditional Japanese flute music was not particularly appealing.

The ride home wasn't much better, it was about 3 hours on the motorway, I don't know why but the bus wouldn't seem to go over 75kph, we have huge semis flying past us at 120. I've never wanted to get off a bus so desperately in my life. At the truck stop I asked if there was a JR station, but no, I was out of luck.

Travel tip:- If you want to go to Niko, take the JR train. You will do Niko in less than 5 hours and probably save $80 over what we paid.. It took us 11 hours by Bus.