宿坊　光明院(Komyoin)

A short walk next to Ekoin. People are warm and helpful. Big and clean room with heater. Big public bath but need to reserve time. They have fire goma ritual everyday and provide sutra writing for free. Very recommended!

There are many shokubos in Koyasan. If you don't understand Japanese, you could book through one through the shokubo association and they will just randomly assign one to you or one of those travel hotel websites (with limited selections). I stumbled upon Komyo-in website which has an OK english translation page and let me book direct. Most of the reviews are on google and i think it deserves one here. Communication: Mostly through google translate and it worked fine. The hospitality was great. Everything was well organised. Nothing was too much of a hassle. I stayed here for 2 nights. I wanted to do the cemetery night tour and the monk told me that he would wait for me and not lock the door if i returned pass the curfew hrs (9pm). I didn't think it would be a problem but they didn't want me to worry. Location: The temple is located just behind the Eko-in, where the night tour starts. It is also located near the bus-stop if you are coming from the koyasan cable station. Food: I ordered the breakfast and dinner on both nights. There were delicious and adequate for a standard portion. They have the larger portion selection. Room: Spacious as a solo traveler. They provided me a gas heater and it was warm enough when i was in the room. Tea and cookies were complimentary. Clearly, you have to utilise the public bath and toilet. Bath time was given for each gender. Atmosphere: It might be like the big temple but i really quite liked the small temple setting. I also participated the morning ritual one morning. Highly recommended.