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• Be mindful which temple you choose...

Most Koyasan temples are not really vegan, but use fish broth in their cooking to 'enhance' the flavour. Japanese monks are not vegan (unless by personal choice) so they do not share your views on fish/meat/eggs - keep this in mind as it means they will sneak things into your food and think nothing much of it. One of the very junior monks we chatted to took pride in telling us the food they serve us is not what they themselves eat on a daily basis and that whilst we are eating all these vegetables, they go out to the local izakaya to eat yakitori and drink beer. Food for thought. The temple we stayed at first was Fukuchiin. The environment was truly special - we loved it. 3 huge rock gardens by a famous Zen garden designer, a natural onsen to soak in and interiors that feel like a museum. They served us lovely food too but unfortunately it clearly contained fish broth. The seaweed they gave us with our meal also contained fish and seafood extracts plus a dose of MSG (we asked to see the label and confirmed this first hand). The sweets they gave us were labeled in Japanese as containing eggs (if you are vegan, watch out for any sweets that are 'cakey' with sweet beans etc inside - the cake component is usually egg based) Next we stayed at Ichijyoin. The environment was much less spectacular, the room was less than half the size of Fukuchiin, monks were less friendly, there are more rules and restrictions, and the bath is not a natural onsen BUT they do serve very good truly vegan food. You will pay for it though - very expensive considering the level of the lodging and the level of the overall experience, particularly if you upgrade to the 'special Zen' meal package as we did. Oh yes and beware the cakes in your room here too, they contain egg. We had lunches at: * Ekoin: very good, food was proper vegan. Surrounds not as flash as Fukuchiin but nice all the same and the monks were really friendly. * Fudoin: also very good and this one is probably proper vegan too (at first we weren't sure as the soup tasted a bit borderline - almost like hondashi flavour - but nothing else felt fishy so they're probably ok). Monks less friendly though and the environment was the most 'basic' of all the temples we visited, particularly the toilets. All in all, we enjoyed Koyasan. We went mainly for the food and in this respect were slightly disappointed as the food was definitely not up to Kyoto or Tokyo levels (flavours are strong, less refined), but still worth a trip.