Day 3 of the pilgrimage started fairly normally except I felt bit stiff in the morning. Guess all this walking and climbing was affecting me. No shoesores of note though. That's good! And once I got on the move stiffness was gone as well which was good news. Wonder why stiffness went away just like that when I started moving though?
As where I left off was far off I didn't want to walk there(was going to walk far enough as it is) so took my first train ride here. No biggies there. Standard stuff. I saw first time other foreigners here(albeit I haven't been much in places where I could see much of those! No train stations, just temples. Unless you are doing pilgrimage like I am you are unlikely to go to many of those making odds of me seeing them fairly small.
Path to the nearest station went through narrow alleys like picture above. These are definitely the kind of pathways you don't run into in my home town. Here they are everywhere.
Train went do early I had good time to do what I do at the temples with extra time to just relax and enjoy the feelings. There was some sort of cave you could enter as well but with long day ahead I figured I'll leave it later or maybe after I call day over if I still feel like doing something.
The temple(Hoshodatedou, horse headed Kannon. Name comes from horse shaped ornament in his/her head. Not because Kannon has horse head ;) This Honzon is somehow credited for Kuukai despite it being identified as Kamakura period(so long after Kuukai died/went to eternal meditation). This type of Honzon(horse shaped Kannon) is fairly rare with just 2 such Honzons among the 100 temples.
Getting back and heading to the temple 29(Chousenin – Shoukannon) I had much easier time. I might have skipped one pilgrim path but the road I took left to same place if the other was the pilgrim path so no harm done.
Mountain name of the temple(bamboo door mountain) seems to come from Honzon being founded in a cave that was covered by bamboo grass that had grown to shape of a door. Whole temple was originally elsewhere but after fire place changed.
Now here's a thing. I'm bit of a shy person so if I'm going to chant the heart suttra(bussetsu ma ka hanya hara mita shingyou, kanji zai bosa, gyou jin han nya ha ra mi ta ji... and so on) I prefer to do it when there's nobody around. Not quite sure how people take foreigners chanting it. Silly mental block I presume. (still btw can't chant it fully from memory. Sometimes I forget what line came next and few lines are bummer. Anyway seems custom is to read it from book anyway even if you remember it. Guess to ensure rhythm and nobody can brag with their memory or feel bad about lack of it!).
So here I was and what I hear midway? Foot steps behind! ARGH! However didn't want to stop(now THAT would be odd :D) but if I could hear them walking they could hear me chanting! I gritted my teeth and went to the end.
After it was done and they were climbing the steps up they started up a discussion. Boy were they hard to understand! Wonder if it was because they were elderly(70's or so?) or local dialect? Either way had hard time understanding but we got around some of the usual where I'm from(and they didn't know where Finland is either. Small country like Finland isn't probably high on list of things they teach in Japanese schools I think!).
When leaving they then complimented my chanting(ugh! They did hear!). Well I have heard of it done often enough that guess some of the rhythm has sticked.
This temple sported quite a nice garden in it. Did spend some extra time here just to marvel at the garden.
This finished the short distances between temples were over with 7km being shortest distance with 15km and 18km included in it. 13Km or so is average in Shikoku pilgrimage though there are temples with several days worth of travel without any temples. Not so here.
Anyway arriving to 30(Houunji – Nyorin Kannon) I found this quite a big temple that had an excelent garden. Made me think of Zen but not Zen temple at least. Wonder why this distant temple seems to be so wealthy? Many of the temples close to Chichibu are much more barren looking. Because there's so MANY temples in heart of Chichibu?
While approaching the temple I had by the way encountered a man with the white shirt(Hakui) and white trousers. Apart from me this was most traditionally dressed pilgrim I have seen so far. One guy had the white shirt. I have white shirt, wagesa(thing that represents monks stole), sugegasa(the conical hat) and the staff. He's now also first FOR SURE another walking pilgrim like I am. Keep him in mind!
Honzon was originally brought from China in 1329(old one!) and is shown ONLY in 18.4(bummer missed it by few weeks!) and year of the...You guessed it if you remember what I wrote before. Cow!
Old name plates show that indeed the pilgrimage used to have just 33 temples before.
The garden invited me for some flower sniffing but alas they were kinda....reserved. Big bees were flying in almost every bush. Not wanting to risk offending anything with a pointy thing ready to be used I kept my distance. I don't mind bees. I just want the stings away from my skin :D
Road to temple #31(Kannon-ji, second temple just in this pilgrimage named like that! With the Shoukannon for Honzon) took first back where I had gone, then turned to west before loooong winding route to north before entering the mountains where temple is located. This is credited as hardest temple of this pilgrimage.
Route went through small towns and lonely roads between them. Views were generally speaking excelent. I was feeling pretty good at this time though ”hardest temple in this pilgrimage” was nagging me. Especially seeing mountains up north. If it goes all the way to the top...
I had spotted in google map soba restaurant thinking to stop there. However somewhat before I came to it there was suddenly sign saying pilgrim route goes right. Okay so street I was walking WILL take me there. Is that quicker shortcut for walkers? Or just more traditional way? (always these shortcuts aren't fastests since they go through rougher terrain and there's no quarantee it's shorter). Googling map around I concluded that it might very well be faster or not and it will almost certainly take me PAST that soba shop. However I knew there were more food restaurants up north and I had emergency rations with me anyway so I decided to take the scenic route over the boiling plate of the asphalt road!
Well as I suspected it could be it wasn't neccessarily faster road. Lots of tree roots and narrow pathways so I wasn't doing fast progress. Also small streams. However it did feel good being out of the sun and I knew I had leeway for time(I was well in schedule! Time would only be problem if I wanted to go to 32 in same day as well while it's open which I don't think I could have done anyway) so this was pleasant detour.
Until I came across a small stream. With rocks that looked like good for stepping on. Now MAYBE I should have just waded through the stream. It's not like my shoes get all soaked with that small stream. But no I took the stones. For my defence I did poke them with my staff but one moved anyway when I stepped on it for real. Before I knew it I was falling face first toward the river. I barely managed to stop from going down on my stomach so was there on my knees. I quickly rushed up and pulled the zudabukuro(the white pilgrim bag with guidebook, stamp book, other pilgrim staff and few souvenirs I had got) and checked my safe, phone and passport were all dry. I just about had managed to save them and also the stamp book was safe. Some water at the bottom but it hadn't got to the papers.
PHEW! I managed to dodge the bullet(and I realized I was carrying way too much money in wallet. If it had been soaked I would have lost more money than I care to lose. I should put bigger partion of my money in water proof containment in my bag but felt it was too inconvenient. Well inconvenience is small price to pay!
So in the end biggest effect of this mishap was soaked trousers. Which is bit annoying since I don't have spares(stupid me) so until I go back to Finland my trousers are now muddied in Mount Buko and soaked in some nameless stream in western Chichibu.
Apart from small scratches I could feel on my left knee I felt also uninjured so after transfering all soakable staff to my backbag leaving pilgrim bag only for my bottle of drink until it dries I continued onward. Coming eventually out of the pilgrim path I confirmed I was past the soba shop(and no point going back almost to where I had started the pilgrim path for it...) so I just shrugged and pressed onward. Wasn't feeling horribly hungry yet anyway and still had emergency rations(always carry those when you are doing long walks! You can't be too sure when you get your next meal!).
After dinner was done the cook(who had been so far quiet) asked if I'm doing the pilgrimage(guess they don't want to make any mistake assuming somebody is doing something when it's almost certain he is but since nothing in world is 100% certain...) and when I said yes we started talking about things related to it. He noted I had the hat to which I commented it's very useful. Which it is! I think Japanese were bit too hasty to drop it when they started modernization. I mean it's not THAT odd looking when one thinks about it(it only looks odd now because it's not used generally. When it was used it wasn't that weird looking!) and it's very good to give your head shelter from the blazing sun. I would probably be suffering from severe case of heatstroke without one right now! Okay so modern hats can do it too but then again how they are better than this? (since I'm talking about the hat let's say I later noticed I seem to have broken it a bit. Maybe during the trip. Pity)
Well eventually I said my goodbyes, picked up staff from outdoor where I had left it, thanked the pause(legs were starting to feel the fact I had walked already 20km. I still could do it but my legs are generally 25km legs. After 25km it starts to get steadily heavier to walk).
Walking through area like this(maybe even this) met couple kids who reacted excitedly seeing me. One kid noted excitedly my pilgrim outfit. Haha. Nice if I could give some excitement to the kids. Having now walked this pilgrimage for 2.5 days I think it's safe to say even this traditional dressed pilgrim isn't common sight so reason for excitement for kids.
But generally very polite these kids. They are systematically greeting me when we cross. I don't think there's as much greeting of strangers in Finland(unless me being foreigner sparks those ”konnichiwa”'s. Obviously if it's case of extra polite for foreigner I can't really compare to Finland since I'm not a foreigner in Finland! I make sure giving smile, bow and either ”konnichiwa” or ”hello!” depending on does the kid greet me first with Japanese(konnichiwa), english(hello/good day!) or me first(konnichiwa). Well replace konnichiwa with ohayougozaimasu in morning and konbanwa when it gets dark.
Again it IS possible it's just because I'm foreigner(in which case who says Japanese are reserved against foreigners?) but feels there's lot more greetings of strangers here than in Finland.
I was approaching the temple so eventually I turned into more lonely pathways up to the mountains. Less people started to be visible(with notable exception of group of kids who started quick chat with themselves seeing me pass by :D).
I encountered my first tunnel here. Now in Shikoku there's more of those but here just this one. Not that pleasant experience. Noisy, smelly, dark. At least here the walking pathway was quite wide so didn't feel too scared of prospect of incoming car. In Shikoku I'm told there are tunnels with scarily narrow path for walkers and there's at least one case of dead pilgrim that was hit by a car in tunnel that I know of.
Approaching the temple I passed another temple that had lots of child statues. I think this is temple for Jizo, guardian deity for children and travellers. LOTS of statues.
The 31(Kannon-in, Shoukannon) is classified as the hardest nansho(difficult spot) of the pilgrimage and for a good reason! It took a lot of climbing of stone stairways. Again I was blessing my water system.
At the up there was this nice pond that had water falling from up like a small waterfall(very small though if it can be even called a waterfall).
The Honzon(made by Gyoki) is supposed to have been lost but when somebody(monk?) saw a dream it was refound again.
As this was last temple for the day I took my time relaxing there. I also considered what to do next. Original plan had been to end here and get a taxi back to where I start(20km or so walk would be hopeless! I can't do 50km in a day I think..,). However next day is going to be longish(30km+) and I need to get to Tokyo as well. By train schedules looks like I need to hit the 5.00 train or so to get in reasonable time. And getting from temple 34 takes time as well.
can't make it to temple #32 in time to get the stamp. Nope. That ain't possible. I'm at the top of several hundreds steps, I have 1 hour left and about 10km to cover. I would need to run to make it in time and with being tired and backbag that isn't feasible. And I don't want the trip to be about running madly to next temple anyway.
However that doesn't mean I can't go to the temple anyway! Temples are not locked up after 5 and I can always return to temple in morning by taxi to get the inscription. And this way I would cut 10 kilometers from tomorrows trip making it much easier to reach Tokyo in time.
It also gives me time to find better what my limits are for daily walking distance.
(and also cuts down on taxi price since I'll be doing shorter taxi trip!)
So with that I decided to hit the road and head toward the next temple. Hopefully all the way but even if I can get just 5-6km onward it's still over hour cut from tomorrows walk.
Walk itself was fairly simple. Not too difficult to find way. Path took again through towns. Legs were starting to get more and more tired as walked distance was pushing well past 30km by now.
...However this was the weekday it happens to be closed. Since Christianity has not dominated here the sunday isn't the holiday of weekdays automatically. Other days can be free instead.
Eventually both ankles and knees were starting to feel painful. Now pain is generally body's way of saying ”you are pushing too hard!” so when it gives you that hint you are often better off listening to it. After all I would like to walk tomorrow as well!
Using google map I tried to figure good place to call a taxi. Something that is reasonably easy to find. Eventually I spotted Ogano post office, police station and Mishima shrine close to each other. Figured the shrine sounds like it should be easy enough to explain to taxi company.
Now here's a thing. This is THE first time I would be calling to taxi company. I had asked my host for taxi number but guess I didn't specify where I would be calling likely and host didn't guess it either. I had just specified ”Chichibu taxi” since this was ”Chichibu pilgrimage”. Well gee. Turns out this part of it was actually elsewhere and the number I had called didn't actually deal with this area.
Whoops!
Well here Japanese helpfulness came to the rescue again as the taxi company provided to give help and called appropriate taxi company and arranging taxi to pick me up. Phew. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I asked to drop me to Chichibu station since that felt easy place to explain to taxi driver(rather than the placeI stay...Umm...How to even explain it?). Still had some walking but not that far and got to buy food on route anyway.
Well next entry covers the end of the pilgrimage.
till...It was not day fully done yet! I needed to get my stuff elsewhere since I would be leaving this place tomorrow. And I am NOT carrying about 15-18kg of extra weight in books etc. So I headed to the station once more with all the stuff I won't be carrying and put them in to coin locker. Convenient these ones.
Friend of the host's son offered to drive me to where I had left off. That was friendly! Saved me trouble of arranging another taxi drive. Thank you for him as well!
My feet were extremely tired and left knee felt extremely painful making me worry about a) could I even SLEEP tonight and b) could I walk tomorrow? However I had kinetic tapes with me and putting in good support to the knee(well pro probably would laugh at my taping :D) the pain ebbed right away(that was unexpectedly effective. Didn't expect taping to work like that). Hopefully good night helps even more.
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