I am currently in Yufuin. It’s a one street town at the base of a mountain. Mountain climbers don’t come here. Westerners don’t come here. Who does come here? Old Japanese people on large bus trips. They walk the street eating ice cream, holding hands while buying beautifully wrapped sweet treats for people that aren’t with them. The shops are filled with stuffed toys of animated characters I’ve never seen with the occasional Snoopy thrown in for good measure. There’s an onsen in every hotel but once you do that, what else do you do with the twenty-three and half hours in your day?
On days on tour like this one, there’s the convivial togetherness that normally forces us together for drinks, card games or some communal washing. At this very moment, Phyllis and I sit in the foyer of our hotel with beers we bought at the supermarket for about $1.80 each. She watches the spindly, yet consistent, stream of Japanese walk through the door and mentions she might track how many bows she can count in a five minute period.
Phyllis is funny. She’s 56 and been around a bit. She’s single. No kids. Lives in Tasmania and spends her money between renovating and ‘adventure’ holidaying. She has a macpac backpack, wears merrells and has only packed two pairs of long pants for a three week holiday.
Bob hasn’t appeared since breakfast, and only then because the hotel insisted we eat together. Bob, is at best, an absent tour leader. He plods around complaining of gout and knee pain but he’s one of those men, that even with gout, would just keep walking. Kind of like a donkey that just won’t quit. Old, stubborn and wearing sandals Bob moves with silent stealth. He is on and off the train before we’ve even realised he’s moved, he taps his watch impatiently when he hasn’t even told us what he wants us to do and then look at us like we are morons when we ask what stop we need to look out for.
Since day one of the tour, it’s just been the three of us. Bob still giving us the full run down and reiterating that we need to be in the foyer by 7.30am just in case one of us missed it. Bob shoving us on a bus, pushing us off, pointing 300m up the road and saying there’s a temple up there, when you’re done walk to the bus station here (he points on a map we’re only about to receive) and says I’ll see you for dinner at seven. He then turns his back and plods like eeyore down the road to get back on the bus.
We spend our days walking to temples and sights neither of us wanted to see, making up stories about what Bob could possibly be doing while he’s not with us. Has he women he visits in secret locations? Is he a secret millionaire that spends his days in Japanese snack bars? Or is he simply just watching illegally downloaded TV from his hard drive?
Two days ago, we picked up two boys from North Queensland. They are 21. They have been slightly unsocial and I imagine they are in mourning for a tour that they thought would have. I must admit, I was. I had this grand plan of having a holiday with a group of people of varying ages that were fun, clever, worldly and drank a lot. We spend time in steaming baths, visiting random small bars and trying to find non-English speaking locals to share their sake with us.
I have done all of those things. I’ve steamed, drank with random locals and found small bars. All with just Phyllis in tow. (Except for the steaming. She wasn’t into that) I did get moody and difficult for two days. I may have even been passive aggressive and a smart arse the night Bob took us to the Japanese equivalent of McDonalds and then for beers at the train station, but my Japanese escape was disappearing before my eyes and I was mad about it.
Last night the boys got over their disappointment. They sat with a 33 year old and a 56 year old in a hot spring foot spa and talked a little bit of shit and drank a little bit of beer. We all shared our disappointment in this ‘group’ travel and also decided there was fuck all we could do about it. So, here I sit with Phyllis, drinking beer out of a vending machine in a hotel foyer that’s paying xylophone muzak. (In fact, at this very moment, it’s a ‘Spoon full of Sugar’ from Mary Poppins) The furniture is dated and there is a marble tiger in the entrance. There is only two things left to be done in Yufuin really. Pick up more beer and ride that tiger. Next stop Bob.
life in big frilly knickers 