Hi All,
My friend and I were planning on visiting Mount Koya and hoping to stay at one of the temples overnight. We have heard this is very worthwile. I was wondering if anyone knew of any temples that are inexpensive, as we are doing this trip on a budget. I have looked at the guesthouse website, but found it difficult to see the individual pricing of each place. Any help would be great!

I am also thinking of going to Koyasan to stay in one of the temples. From everything I have read so far they seem to charge about 10,000 JPY a night which includes dinner and breakfast. There is a youth hostel there also - http://www2.ocn.ne.jp/~koyasan/indexe.html
which is less expensive.

Also the Welcome Inn Reservation site lists one without a meal - don't know if that is correct or not so it is cheaper...

http://www.itcj.jp/hdb/530001.html

Please report back

Thanks for the info. The Welcome Inn site is great.

We stayed at Mount Koya in March & booked through japanese guesthouses - this is from our email:-

* Ryokan: Shojoshin-in
* Area: on Mt Koya
* Nights: 1 night
* Number of Guests: 2 adults
* Per Person Rate: 11,429 yen plus tax
* Meals: Japanese Dinner and Japanese Breakfast
* Payment: Japanese Yen Cash
* Total Bill including tax: 24,001 yen
(not including incidentals charges like drinks with meals)

so thats the one night price. Shojoshin-in had a lovely atmosphere & we enjoyed it very much.

I am also planning to stay in a Temple at Mount Koya. I'm wondering how comfortable/uncomfortable you found the accommodations at the temple, futons, lack of heat, communal bathrooms?

We spent a couple of nights in Koyasan staying at Eko-in and it was a highlight of our time in Japan (there were many others!).

Like janev we booked via http://www.japaneseguesthouses.com/index.htm

If you are going all the way to koyasan then it really is worthwhile staying in one of the temples. In answer to your specific questions inor, we found the accommodation to be very comfortable (apart perhaps, from sitting on the floor to eat but even that I got used to!). Heaters are provided in the room if needed and the communal bathrooms were not a problem. On arrival we were a little concerned about noise when we saw the paper wall to see the paper walls but as we didn't have any neighbours we did not hear a sound all night. In fact, when we got up for the dawn service at teh temple we were surprised to see so many pairs of guest shoes outside in the hall. The food BTW was excellent!
A bit more info and some photos can be found on our blog:

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog...8720/tpod.html