Toyota Rentals Yakushima Island, Japan Review

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Rainmaker
Marietta, GA

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1-lane, 2-way traffic? hmm, and what does a stop sign look like?

Love Japan, travel for hot-air ballooning, a global traveler

Pros

Courteous Professional Service, Clean Economy Car

MAR

2008

So, the first thing that I must tell you is that you can't imagine how far outside my comfort zone I had to move in order to rent a car in Japan. I have dyslexic tendencies that confuse me from time to time, but somewhere ingrained deeply in my psyche, I usually know that I belong on the right-hand side of the road and I distinctly remember wanting to dive for cover the first time I was on a tourist bus that went left on red instead of right on red. All that anxiety was before I even walked in the door at the rental company. I do force myself outside the comfort zone intentionally from time to time and when I went to AAA for the International Drivers' License, I was accepting that this might be one of those occasions. And, let me say this about the International License. I have heard some travelers advise that the international license is not needed. Don't listen to that advice if you are traveling to Japan. They expect you to have it, they expect you to have the right one and they expect it to be current. The "right one" for Japan is available at AAA (whether you are a member or not). The license is simply a little less expensive if you are a member because the photo is free. You should get the license before you leave. It is possible to get the "right one" afterwards, but it involves faxing driving records and other things to and from the correct sources and it is an unwelcome and time consuming hassle.

We made our reservations for the rental and the ferry over to the island from the tourist bureau in the Kagoshima train station. Check-in was fairly smooth, but, Yakushima Island is a bit off the beaten path for international tourists, and the further one gets from the beaten path, the less English one hears....enter the English flyer with the plastic cover. We thought that what this flyer meant was that accident insurance was covered in the rental fee, but that if an accident occurred there would be a fee charged for missed use, that is, a charge for time that the car could not be rented out because it was in the repair shop. The whole thing worked exactly like buying extra insurance to avoid a deductible, but the actual name of the fee had to do with opportunity costs rather than a deductible. It was a distinction that seemed a little difficult given the language barrier and we hoped it would not effect us and did not opt in for the smaller front end fee. We later found out that our interpretation was, in fact, correct and that if you do manage to get a little scrape, they will get someone with a little better English to help you figure it out. More on that later.

This was so far outside my comfort zone, such a simple thing as driving didn't seem like it should be, but at the same time there I was asking what a stop sign looked like (it's a triangle, more like our yield signs) and asking what else I might need to know before driving away. One employee pointed out a section on the perimeter road that was one lane...but it had two-way traffic...What? You couldn't circumnavigate the island without driving that road, I thought I must have misunderstood, maybe it was just a little narrower than other roads. I was moving forward anyway, not because I had overcome my fear, but simply because I was committed to moving forward and because I was the one who made it by AAA to get the the license.

These are well paved roads, smooth well marked and well maintained. At one point a driver had stopped in the road to pop in a store for a quick purchase, pretty unusual, and we had to wait. There was a bicyclist and then a car. We didn't get to pass. All in all a pretty good experience. We had a delightful time in our economy car. Toyota has models in Japan that you don't see in the US. We went to the forests, the mountains and the shore. Most of the roads were in excellent condition, though there was a good bit of construction in some places. This consisted mostly of putting up concrete supports that keep the road from washing down the mountainside. There were mirrors where needed on the roads leading to the forests and World Heritage sites and they all pointed correctly so that you could see around curves. Sometimes the mirrors were a little disorienting. For a split second it would appear that the car in the mirror was myself, but it was actually a car similar to my own. Most drivers were very polite, even big construction and delivery trucks drive politely and help to direct you in tight spots. It is also important to remember that there could be monkeys in the roads leading to the forests and to drive accordingly. I told my friend that back seat driving (from the front seat) was welcome and she helped me not to make foreign driver mistakes. We never would have seen as much of the island in the time we had without the car. The least convenient part is that the car must be filled and returned around 7pm or there will be a charge for ab extra day, so we had to be done with all transportation needs fairly early in the evening.

The perimeter road was at or near sea level for most of the way. There were several small towns with small town traffic. Then there was that last day. Time to find out what two-way traffic on a one-lane road really meant. Well, sadly, it means exactly that. The elevation climbs here and resembles the interior roads leading to the forest. There are many, many mirrors for seeing around the curves and driving is slow enough to stop and see who can most easily move over enough to let the other driver by when opposing traffic happens. There were larger quantities of monkeys and deer than on other mountain roads. Once I grasped the situation, I asked when it would end. In addition to "back seat driver" duties, Pat was the navigator. I don't remember the actual words, but it was a gentled version of "not soon". There was a time when she asked me to stop so she could take a picture of deer. I think it was the only immediate, adamant refusal she got on the entire trip. I was so close to my trouble free rental experience I could taste it and this road was messing with my calm. The occasional views of the ocean were fantastic, so I'm told. I wasn't really looking. It is possible to turn around and go back the way you came, but retracing our steps around three quarters of the island seemed impractical and we were wanted to get the car turned in on time. Many people must make that choice. The traffic here was thankfully much lighter than in other areas. We made it through...or at least I thought we had, but when turning in the car, there it was. At some point I had rubbed the guard rail ever so slightly and made a smallish, but distinct and glaring scratch. It felt worse than just money, I felt like I lost face when I turned in the car. Regardless, it was a smooth process that only involved a short explanation given while referring to the flyer and then giving my credit card back for the additional charge.

I passed on my next opportunity to drive while in Japan, but only because of my lack of comfort with my own driving skill in country where I can't really read the road signs and still feel like I belong on the other side of the road. Moving into turn lanes and turning around for a missed turn still required a good bit of concentration and the other places where driving was an option had much more high speed traffic to deal with than there was on the island.

Here is what the US Embassy has to say about driving in Japan. Happy Trails!

http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/acs/tacs-drive.html

Last edited on Mar 05, 2008