Leaving our luggage at the Granvia, we’ve taken a trip out of Kyoto and up into the hills, where we’re staying overnight in the monastic complex of Koya-San. We’re guests of the monks here at Ekoin, where we’re experiencing a taste of life as a Buddhist pilgrim.

It was a long, winding trip up into the hills, taking a few train rides and a funicular into the scenic woodlands. Although the journey was much easier for us than back in the day when people would walk here, It still took us nearly three hours to get to Ekoin from Kyoto, and it was quite late in the afternoon before we arrived.

As we had about an hour before our evening meal (the monks serve dinner at 5pm sharp), we had just enough time for a quick stroll around the Okuno-In graveyard. Full to the brim with ageing gravestones of varying grandeur, it’s also home to a number of memorials (apparently including one from a pesticide company, dedicated to all the ants they had slain. We didn’t find this one, but we had to agree that it was probably not a good choice of career if you are a conscientious buddhist).

We decided to go back again after dinner, by which point it was completely dark apart from the low ebb of the lanterns lining the pathways. We managed to get a little further this time, finding the Mirokushi* and just happening across Toro-Do (Lantern Hall), glowing from the light of hundreds of ceiling mounted lamps.

We started wandering around taking photos and generally admiring our low-light surroundings, until I started to notice a low pitched oscillating noise coming from inside the structure. Being completely dark apart from the ghostly orange that was emanating from the lanterns, I started to get a little bit worried. It wasn’t until I heard a few notes from an electronic keyboard, followed by someone singing along in tune that we guessed it might’ve someone learning a song (possibly a monk-in-training being taught a chant?). We stood and listened for a while, as the discordance started to take shape and form patterns and melodies in the gentle glow of the lanterns.

As the monks at Ekoin were closing the gates to our lodgings at 9pm we had to cut our evening sojourn short, but were very thankful to bear witness to such a beautiful scenario.

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* A rock that’s as apparently as heavy as your sins - I couldn’t even lift it, so I must have a lot of them