18 March 2025 - Day 16 -Temples 34 and 35 - 28 km

A nice breakfast with Joe and Johan, then I was on the road again in the cold sunshine, direction Tanemaji (Temple 34). The walk was uneventful until, just in front of the Temple, a nice lady who had just bought drinks at the ever present vending machine, held out a bottle of hot green tea to me as ossetai. How lovely and it felt good in the still cold morning. Thank you dear lady!

The Temple visit was nice, as always, and as always I spent about 10 minutes drying the calligraphy on my scroll with a tiny hairdryer.

The walk to Kiyotakiji (Temple 35) was just simply good. When you walk, the world around you slows down. You have time to watch, look at and see everything that surrounds you. You capture the smells of nature, most but not all of them rather delightful. You see the flowers, trees and giant bamboo forests, all sorts of animals and you have all the time in the world to just stop and watch Nature at its best. And I just simply enjoy this.

Temple 35 was again built in a hill and needed some effort to be visited. But again, it was absolutely worth the effort. I also met Siobhan and Elliott again, the nice couple from the UK and this time I finally got their names. By now I had walked about 15 km, it was lunchtime and I was only about halfway to my lodging for tonight.

I therefore decided to take my lunchbreak at the next Henro hut, which was unfortunately still far away. I hardly met any Henro on the road, apart from the 68 year old Japanese Henro doing his 99th pilgrimage and who had slept at the same inn as me last night.

Before arriving at my hostel, I needed to cross an 837,5 m long tunnel. Luckily there was a large footpath on one side which was separated from the road. It is quite frightening to walk through these tunnels, especially such a long one, with cars and trucks rushing past.

The lady at the hostel was very sympathetic and helpful and she managed to book my lodgings in the mountains, a subject that gave me bad dreams as there are only very few lodgings available in this part of the pilgrimage. I might sleep better tonight.

Also I met John and Pauline from France, who stay at the same hostel and we had a good talk together.

This is it for now. If you like what I’m doing and writing, stay tuned and thanks for reading!