Island-hopping in Japan's remote Okinawa

The National

01-05-2025

With a roll of his shoulders and a flick of his tail, Musashi starts his plodding journey across the sand flats. My journey in the trailer that this powerful water buffalo is pulling is surprisingly smooth, even as he starts wading into the sea, heading for the tiny island of Yubu. Along the coast in both directions there is little more than deep green jungle that descends from sharp mountains and ends at the waterline in impenetrable mangrove forest. Out across a postcard-blue sea, a line of white surf marks the outer coral reef. As the water sloshes around Musashi's knees, it is increasingly hard to believe this is Japan. In some ways, it is not. The island of Iriomote is the largest in the Yaeyama archipelago, at the south-westernmost tip of Japan's Okinawa prefecture. It is nearly 2,000km from the bustle and neon of Tokyo, but further south than Taipei and just 200km from the coast of Taiwan. The Yaeyama Islands are arguably the remotest part of Japan, and the people here revel in that. Okinawa's location at the ancient crossroads of north-east and south-east Asia has given these islands a unique culture and cuisine that blends the colours and tastes of their neighbours. The differences are even more pronounced in the Yaeyamas, made up of 10 inhabited islands and countless uninhabited islets and atolls. Festivals celebrate the bounty of the sea, with islanders dressed in the airy Yaeyama minsa cotton, dyed with indigo and other native plants. Bougainvillea and hibiscus bloom in gardens and grow across the single-storey traditional homes, not quite obscuring the red roof tiles and Shisa statues, the lion guardians that are believed to ward off evil. As Musashi keeps up his steady transit of the narrow stretch of water that separates Yubu from Iriomote, his wizened driver pulls out a sanshin, a type of three-stringed lute with a long neck and a body covered with snakeskin, and launches into a traditional song in a dialect that even the Japanese visitors who are sharing the trailer admit they cannot understand. Yubu is tiny – it would take a little over an hour to circumnavigate on foot and has sand paths instead of roads – and has been preserved as a microcosm of the islands. The beaches are stunning in the summer, with visitors also able to walk through mangrove swamps, an orchard of tropical fruit trees, a butterfly garden and an aviary. For many, however, the buffalo are the stars of the island. Originally imported from Taiwan more than a century ago, they spend time between hauling trailers wallowing in a series of muddy pools and locking horns when they are feeling feisty. Back across the waterway, Iriomote is the second-largest island in Okinawa but remains remarkably untouched by the development that has blighted other tropical islands in the Pacific. Protected as Japan's most southerly national park, it has no airport and the only way to reach it is by ferry. Visitors are able to hike in the rugged interior and try canyoning in its fast-flowing streams and rivers. Paddle boards and canoes are also available to explore the beaches and the broad tidal rivers that wind inland and are fringed by mangroves that stand proud of the water at low tide. Diving and snorkelling opens up the colourful coral reefs. For the slightly less energetic, those same mangroves can be visited in boats with local guides. An electric-blue kingfisher bides its time on a branch out over the creek and an endangered black-faced spoonbill digs in the shallows in search of a meal. There are occasional sightings in these waters of dugong. I have to once again remind myself that I am in Japan. Perhaps the most famous – and elusive – inhabitant of this wilderness is the Iriomote cat, a smaller relative of the leopard that is only found here. It is listed as critically endangered, with only around 100 believed to remain. The modern world has not been kind to these creatures and along every road are signs exhorting motorists to drive slowly. A short ferry ride to the east is Taketomi, where the heart of the island's community has been preserved as a network of traditional homes of red tiles and fierce-looking Shisa behind thick outer walls of jagged coral. Some of the properties have been turned into cosy minshuku where overnight visitors can sample the local hospitality and cuisine. The school is the most modern building and there are no cars in the heart of the village, where residents sweep the sand alleyways after the last buffalo cart of the day has passed by. Ishigaki is not the largest of the Yaeyama Islands, but it is the busiest and, thanks to its airport, is where most visitors arrive. Ishigaki City is small but has some excellent restaurants serving local cuisine. Goya champuru, Okinawa's signature dish, combines pork, tofu, eggs and goya, a greed gourd with a distinctively bitter aftertaste. On the north coast of Ishigaki is the peaceful town of Kabira and its famous bay. Black pearls are cultivated in the waters of the bay and glass-bottom boats set out from its impossibly white sand beaches. The boatman keeps up a running commentary as we head out over the coral that covers the seabed. Clown fish dart in and out of the anemones as other tropical species swim between the 250 species of coral. But it is the more elusive turtles that everyone hopes to catch sight of. Just as it seems today will not be our lucky day, we pass over a green turtle rocking gently in the current. The youngest on board squeal as their holidays are made unforgettable. With a lazy sideways glance, the turtle waggles a fin, turns and begins to ascend. The creature surfaces just a couple of metres from the boat before descending in search of a more peaceful patch of the reef.