By James Stone -


I'm no trainspotter - in fact, being a regular train user in the UK, there are probably few things I hate more than trains. My only experience of them is that they're slow, dirty, overcrowded, noisy and generally not a pleasant mode of transport for your discerning traveller.

So imagine my scepticism when a friend of mine told me that on our forthcoming trip to Japan, we were going to make a tour of the entire country by train. Spending 20 minutes on a train going from London Paddington to Reading is bad enough, I though to myself, but as Japan is a far bigger country than you first realise - we'll be on them for hours at a time. Little did I know, however, that Japanese trains are not quite like other countries' trains - these are bullet trains.

Leaving Tokyo station on a south-bound bullet train, I suddenly realised what an incredibly good idea this was. First of all, the ride is like gliding. The train speeds up at such a gradual rate, that you almost don't notice, until suddenly you find that your travelling at over 150 mph through mountainous countryside, with paddy fields and villages shooting past your window.

We were heading for Kyoto, Japan's former capital and still its centre of Zen Buddhism. Apparently you couldn't move for shrines and centuries-old buildings there, but that was all ahead of us, with miles and miles of coastline and rugged hills still hurtling past. Kyoto is hundreds of miles from Tokyo, but it was going to take us only a little over two hours.

Japan is pretty densely populated in the cities, with everyone living on top of each other, scrumming to get onto commuter trains, eating standing up when there's no room to sit down. But out of the train window, like 90 per cent of the country, it seemed virtually empty.

Half an hour in, we passed Mt Fuji, with its distinctive cone shape towering over us. I played the tourist and crouched at the window, taking snap shots with my camera. In an attempt to get a better view, I decided to move down the train to the next carriage. Opening the door, a released a plum of thick smoke - the smoking carriage, now extinct on trains back home, but they love their cigarettes too much in this country.

Halfway along I had to almost dive for cover next to a grey-haired businessman choking on a thick cigar, as the man with the drinks trolley marched down the isle, looking like he had no intention of stopping. He was a big guy, but he had a paper hat on that made him look like a thunderbird, and when got to the end of the carriage, he turned around and bowed. I headed back to my seat. We were nearly in Kyoto now, and the next part of my holiday was about to begin, but the bullet train ride, for now, was over.

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