Japan: The height of stupidity

I'm shivering in a toilet three-quarters of the way up Mt Fuji in my Japan holiday. My four climbing companions and I have organised ourselves into a toboggan-like sitting arrangement on the floor and only just fit into the small wooden structure.

This isn't as strange as it sounds - a toilet being on the side of a mountain in Japan, that is. After all, this is the country where you can buy disposable clothes from a vending machine.

The fact we're cuddling each other without embarrassment might seem weirder.

But when your face is so cold you can hardly feel it, your teeth are chattering like a chainsaw and your toes seem to be suffering from the early stages of frostbite, wrapping your arms around another man and wondering what it might look like if a stranger walked in just doesn't seem to matter. What matters is keeping warm.

Earlier that day, we had boarded a bullet train at Shin Osaka station north of Osaka City and caught a bus from Shin Fuji station. We were dropped off at Fujinomiya/Mishima 5th Station, which is about 2700m above sea level and one of the 10 stations the mountain is divided into.

Most climbers start from one of the fifth stations, which can be reached by road and approached from different sides of the 3776m mountain. It takes about four and a half hours to climb from one of these stations to the summit.

To kill time, so that our triumphant ascent would coincide with the 4.30am summer sunrise, we hung out in the station's cafeteria for a couple of hours until the surly proprietor tired of our mooching and shooed us away.

Off we went at 9.30pm into a light drizzle - novice climbers clad only in shorts and parkas. But surely adequately attired - Mt Fuji is frequently climbed by children and grandparents. In a few hours, our lack of respect for the mountain would come back to haunt us.

Very quickly, we divided into three groups: pacesetters, Englishmen Grant and Aaron, who leapt up the trail like demented gazelles, with me in the middle and Mike from Oregon and Carl from London lagging behind.

The higher we climbed, the darker, wetter and colder it became. Along the trail are a number of stations and huts offering food and accommodation (if you book ahead, as we would find out later).

At most of these we stopped, allowing Mike and Carl to catch up. Each time we stopped, though, we had to wait just a little bit longer for them to materialise.

There is a quiet you experience on top of a mountain, as you stare out into the black starry night, that defies description. It is so calm, not even your mind can interrupt the tranquillity.

But a voice can. A gruff and concerned American accent cut through the still air, ruining my moment.