[Kotobukiso] A One-Group-Only Hot Spring Inn Deep in the Mountains of Shimanto

A hidden, little-known inn

Kotobukiso has no website and is not listed on any major booking site. It is a small hot spring inn standing alone beside a river deep in the mountains, run by a woman on her own.

When I called to make a reservation, she asked me an unusual question.“Are you sure you’ll be all right here? There’s really nothing around, and we don’t have the facilities or services you would normally expect from an inn. Are you really sure?”

Being warned so clearly only made me more curious about the place.

There was availability on the final night of the holiday weekend, so we decided to stay. Kotobukiso accepts only one group per night.

Into the Mountains of Shimanto

Following the navigation system, we drove farther and farther into the mountains along a tributary of the Shimanto River. Eventually we reached a deep valley where there was no mobile phone signal. Kotobukiso stood alone beside the river.

There were five of us that night—three men and two women. The men were given the larger room and the women the smaller one.
The difference was rather extreme.The men’s room was 30 tatami mats in size. The women’s room was just four and a half.It was more like a banquet hall and a dressing room.

Even in midsummer, it was cool enough in the mountains that we didn’t need air conditioning. Cicadas were calling outside as we relaxed in the room.

Normally, the sound of the river would have been a gentle background noise. But there had been heavy rain the previous night, and this time the river was loud enough to make itself very clearly heard.

Dinner from the Mountain and River

They had also been caught in the river in front of the inn and were surprisingly large—about the size of small kuruma prawns. They are one of Kotobukiso’s specialties, although they cannot always be served. When heavy rain raises the river level, they cannot be caught.

That means what appears on the table depends partly on what the mountain and river can provide at the time of your stay.

With freshly caught ayu, wild mountain vegetables and freshwater prawns in front of us, the sake went down very easily.

From Center of Tokyo to the Mountains of Kochi

While we were eating, I heard something unexpected about the owner. She had once worked at the head office of Nomura Securities in Tokyo.She mentioned it after seeing my address.

The contrast was striking: the headquarters of a major securities company in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district, and this solitary inn deep in the mountains of Kochi where even a mobile phone signal does not reach.

Kotobukiso does virtually no advertising. Yet the owner told us that travelers from Europe and North America sometimes come all the way here specifically to stay at the inn.

Thinking back to what she had told me when I made the reservation
—“We don’t have the facilities or services you would normally expect from an inn. Are you really sure?”
—she was right.

Kotobukiso does not offer many of the things people might normally expect from a Japanese ryokan. It is isolated, simply furnished, and even mobile phones are useless here.

Instead, one group has the entire inn to itself. The ayu and freshwater prawns served for dinner come from the river outside, and when guests make a reservation, the owner goes into the mountains to gather wild vegetables.

What this inn cannot provide in conventional services, the mountain and river provide just outside its door.