Cycling the Shikoku no Michi 3

July 6; Day Three: Over the mountain: Sankakuji, Unpenji, Daikoji

In the morning, after the obligatory bento box and a can of coffee from the nearest combini, I climbed back up to the roads around the freeway to continue along the side of the mountain. I liked it up there, I could see where I was.

I found a nice little tea house; perhaps private.


An old boy (that’s what my friend Katsuhiko calls older men) at Mishima Park insisted on accompanying me on his bike to the municipal road that cuts steeply up the mountain to temple 65, Sankakuji.



It was a slow ascent, but through pretty, shaded, slightly cooler woods; another old fellow on a Honda cub stopped to give me advice and encouragement. I nearly always found people to be very kind and helpful; it’s very cheering!




I also met these: mountain crabs! Yes, they exist. Fiesty little guys; if I stopped to take a picture, they would often come after me, waving their pincers! They’re quite quick; most of my photos of them are out of focus.




A rest stop for walking pilgrims at a spring. I drank at most of the ones I found, with no ill effects.





Sankakuji's Gate and bell tower. It's a very pretty temple.









Leaving the parking lot of Sankakuji, I took the small, dodgy looking, un-named road running high along the mountain, then down over route 5 near where the tunnel comes out, then up and down again to route 192, then right along that, up the valley east and south into the mountains. Long, brake burning downhills on some parts. It’s advisable to carry spare sets of brake pads; mine were worn almost to uselessness when I replaced them in Kochi.

Sakaime Tunnel was scary and dangerous. Many tunnels have wide sidewalks, but some, especially the older ones, have white lines more often than not 20 trash strewn inches from the concrete wall! A few times I felt lucky to make it through in one piece. No joke. Later, in one such tunnel I almost got smoked by a loaded logging truck.

Unpenji is on the mountains on the northern side of this valley. I turned left and upward at route 8, a steep but smaller, quieter road. After about 3 km. of climbing and right after another tunnel, I turned right onto a very small municipal road. It was paved, as practically all roads I’ve encountered in Japan are.


This little road climbed up to the spine of the mountain and then proceeded to run along the ridge for about 6 kilometers to Unpenji. It is quite steep in spots and I found myself walking a lot of it…





It does not seem traveled much; there is another, bigger road up to the temple further along the valley.






A few cars passed though. I smiled and waved, walked on. It was hot. Finally, after what seemed a very long journey, Unpenji’s gate appeared.



Relief. Unpenji has the reputation as being the toughest hike on the circuit for the arukihenro. It was a steep slog even riding up there, but I also saw some pretty views.




The temple itself is wonderful, surrounded by big (big!) trees, and boasts a beautiful statue of the reclining Buddha, surrounded by, I don’t know, perhaps 1,000 life size statues of enlightened beings (monks, I suppose) playing with various animal familiars like ryu-inu (dragon dogs).










The main road down from Unpenji, route 268, continued into the valley ahead, towards Tokushima. What looked like a separate road, however, smaller, branched off and led up and over the mountain on my left. I turned left. This was also route 268. On my map it showed, where it wasn’t obscured by an infobox about the Unpenji Ropeway, as a normal highway. Soon route 6 branched off, left again, showing as a small highway.


For the next hour, as I strained sweated and cursed my way up route 6, this road became smaller…and shabbier…and shabbier. Only a few cars passed, the drivers momentarily surprised, then passing on.





The woods became darker. I saw some bolete mushrooms growing. Some had been pulled out and chewed a bit, probably by deer.




Just about the time the road started to level out into some sort of pass, I was questioning my decision to come up here. I stopped several times to look at my maps but couldn’t discern exactly where I was…but, bloody minded, continued guessing, going left at one unmapped fork.

A few minutes later, and I could tell that I had crossed the apex of the pass, and the road (miraculously!) was turning back into something resembling a normal, if small, highway. Coming away from Unpenji, I had dropped over into the valley on the southerly side of the mountain range and climbed back up; I was now about to drop back down the northern side. Which was good, as temple 66, Daikoji, was to the north.



The next half hour was a whoop! The highway, smooth pavement now, snaked and crossed back and forth in the narrow valley, dropping all the while.






At one place I found this sedimentary rock cut. Some small coal seams, holes where someone had dug, very friable rock, no fossils, sigh.

Near the bottom, I found my way, via another municipal road, to route 240, and rode towards Daikoji.



But I bumped into this temple along the way...it's not on my list of bangai temples, so perhaps it is some commingling of jinja and Buddhist temple...no torii, however, just this red bell tower, the bell in the Buddhist style. I think it's called Daifukuji, though I don't know where I found that name (!). It also has a wooden statue of the little pilgrim guy used on the 88 temple circuit to indicate where to pray - but without the temple number usually written on his chest. As far a I can tell, this is not an 88 temple...it may be associated with temple 67, Daikoji.







A very well dressed statue of the pilgrim Kukai.




Statues of o-Jiso-sama alongside one of the Shinto Seven Lucky gods. The deity shown here is Hotei, I think, also known as the Laughing Buddha, god of contentment. Imabari, where I lived, to the west, was historically a fishing village, and one of it's guardian shinto deities is Ebisu, the fisherman.


A very Shinto shrine to happy marital life!






Daikoji has a nice old Kusunoki tree with a sacred rope around it. Workmen were trimming the hedges in the bottom, making a mess and a lot of noise.





If I had elected to take the ropeway to Unpenji, I could have stayed on the north side of the mountains and accessing the temple would only have taken a short while; it’s perhaps 3 kilometers into the mountain from route 241; Daikoji is perhaps a further 8 km. by local road directly from the ropeway terminus. But I wouldn’t have missed these parts of the ride for anything.



A small Jinja in an empty lot. There's a big one across the street.


I stayed in a small family run hotel near the station, I believe it’s called the Park. Nice rooms, a restaurant, but no laundry facilities (so they claimed). Oh well.

Cycling the Shikoku no Michi 2

July 5; Day Two: Saijo eastward to Chuo City

Yokomineji, oh my. Awake at 5:50, feeling good, I had breakfast and coffee in the hotel, then packed up and retraced my route west about nine kilometres to the road heading up to temple 60, Yokomineji.



A kilometre along, I found this interesting structure and a jinja nearby.






The jinja gate held guardians somewhat similar looking to the Buddhist guardians found in the gates of all Buddhist temples. But these are, I think, Shinto warrior guardians.


The road climbed gradually, a comfortable ride. At places it got steep; I got off and walked, at first feeling out of shape. But the heat, already building, and my sense of pacing precluded going all out. And, for me at least, it was important to remember that this was never a race.

There is a small coffee shop along the way, closed for the summer (I think), called Café Tentomushi (Ladybug Café). It and a handful of homesteads were the only structures on the upper portion of the road.






A small shrine with the Kobo Daishi encourages arukihenro.







An intriguing Jinja, no village here now to support it, though it’s still taken care of, and nearby, another standing stone.


The mapbook shows 6.2 km. to the end of the road; still it took me an hour and three quarters to get there, though I stopped a number of times to photograph jinja and standing stones I found along the way.


The last quarter kilometre was quite steep, so I walked it. There’s a small shelter where the road ends, with a spring. The path to the temple starts here. The sign says 2.2 km. Another sign on the trail said 3.5. It certainly felt like the latter!




The path starts out quite civilized looking, but rather quickly gets steeper, with the occasional fallen tree across it.






It’s an exhausting, steep climb, but beautiful, as it winds its way along, crisscrossing the streams of two valleys and round the brow of a ridge, eventually up the top of the ridge to approach the gates. The last kilometre had me out of breath; I would count fifty paces and stop for a minute…









This forest must be lovely in October, when the leaves are changing.












A short portion is paved with freestones, in the same way as a photo I have seen of the Nakasendo, the old mountain road from Edo to Kyoto. I believe it's called 'ishidatami'. Another short, climbing section has been washed out by the creek; new path winding from tree to tree.



Occasional statues of Jiso mark the spots where pilgrims have fallen, some so old that the features on the stone are obliterated. There are perhaps forty on this small section of trail…in places the trail is worn five or six feet deep into the soil by the passing of the faithful.

At the top, as the Temple gate comes into view, so do the gorgeous old growth (Japanese) cedars that surround the temple. The temple itself is nice but small, tucked into a fold on top of the mountain.

I met a young arukihenro there; he told me he was 31, from Osaka. He was feeling blue, he told me, his body was breaking down. He had walked from Temple 1, Ryozenji, in Tokushima, around Shikoku in the summer heat, in 33 days! A smokin’ pace. He had only perhaps 250 or 300 kilometers to go…I advised him to head down to Saijo, and soak himself in one of the famous onsen there for a few days to rejuvenate. The spring water of Saijo is wonderfully clear, sparkling, limpid, and is celebrated throughout Japan.

I was back on my bike by about ten thirty and enjoyed a great coast down to the plains.


Temple 61, Kouonji. Another Umakoshi sculpture. The soft focus is the result of moisture in my camera lens. The rainy weather and moisture sensor in the iphone caused some problems with taking pics.


Temple 62, Hojuji.


Temples 61 to 64 are close to the main road running nearby the base of the mountain. The sun came out around 1:30 and it was hot hot hot.

Temple 63, Kichijoji. The large rock with a hole in it is a kind of test or game. The pilgrim, holding their staff in front of themselves, walk with eyes closed twenty paces to try to stick the staff through the hole in the rock.



Temple 64, Maegamiji, being renovated.


Another shrine at Maegamiji. The small silver dots are 1 yen coins.


After visiting Temple 64, I followed the green dotted ‘culture’ route in my guidebook, up and along small access roads that follow beside the highway. Though they wind up and down (a bit more work!) they are quiet, and allow me a vista north to the Seto Sea, and keep me generally apprised of where I might be…

It’s worth noting that there are three routes marked in my mapbook. One is the traditional walking path, which now sometimes follows modern roads, but at least as often strikes off through the mountains: marked with a dotted red line, not always passable by bike. Another route is considered the ‘cultural’ route and takes local detours for cultural landmarks. Yet another route is considered the ‘nature’ route.

I mixed and matched, more on that later.

Looking ahead, mapwise, I noted the presence of a youth hostel along my route. For a while I couldn’t find it and considered camping, but couldn’t find a place that might not cause alarm at the sight of a stranger putting up a tent…eventually, a few friendly folks directed me towards it, tucked a few hundred meters into a small valley up from a quiet neighborhood. Shin chokokuji is a local Buddhist temple that has been gracing the valley since the Nara period (700 AD).



The temple is small, very beautiful, with a large, recent shukubo (lodging) building in modern traditional style. The shukubo was closed, as they often are during the summer. Most henro walk in the fall and spring, some fewer in winter, as they have to traverse considerable distances in the snowbound uplands. So those are the arukihenro seasons. Summer arukihenro are uncommon, though I saw a few from time to time.

The proprietress was very kind and spoke English fluently, sparing us both my Japanese (though I tried). She gave me a room for Y3300, though there was no food available. I had already bought some bento at a combini, so this was fine with me. When she took me to show me the showers, we passed along a corridor into an older building (early Showa or Meiji) with a nice little Japanese garden, and other living quarters in the back. A beautiful, quiet place.

My room was a traditional Japanese tatami room – my favorite! I find the grassy smell of tatami very relaxing, and sleeping on futon on tatami is much more restful than any mattress…

Even though I didn’t even make it out of Saijo City, this place made a stop worthwhile. This day also served notice to me that mountaintop temples were going to require some planning, timewise.