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† A travel tip: that “two-hour bus ride” is parroted
in all the guide books, and is thoroughly misleading.
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We discovered the hard way that well over an hour is
spent just getting out of the environs of Asahikawa—you sit there wondering when you'll ever get going
to the actual destination instead of grinding down thoroughfares on the way to the first “real” stop at
Kamikawa railway station. The bus took an hour-and-a-half to get out of Asahikawa and reach Kamikawa railway station, and then the
rest of the trip to Sounkyo took just half an hour, through some of the most fabulous terrain (of rivers, marshlands, mountains,
cedar forests, and ravines) you could imagine . . .
A much better use of time—in our opinion, and in fact what we did on our
return journey—is to take the train
from Asahikawa to Kamikawa station, and get the Sounkyo-bound bus from there, and vice versa.
Unlike some United States train and bus “systems” we're familiar with, buses and trains in
Japan actually connect with each other for the convenience of passengers . . .
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