4 April 2025 - Day 33 - Towards Temple 44 - 16 km

The night all alone in the big house was over pretty fast and I got woken up at 6 by the music that every village plays several times a day to indicate the time. It is comparable to the church-bells that ring at home at 6, 12 and 18, but the tune that is played varies from village to village.

There was no breakfast other than the cookies I brought and there was absolutely no reason to hurry. I had only about 12 km to walk and my Ryokan started Check-in exceptionnally already at 14:30. But that left me with a lot of spare time.

Josée contacted me because she would be walking past my house and checked whether we should walk (possibly a last time) together. Of course I immediately confirmed, but she had about 10 km to do before reaching me. So she left early and I decided to leave at 8:30 and walk in her direction to meet her. When I was back at where I’d slept I had thus already walked almost 4 km but I didn’t mind.

It was a very beautiful morning, it was cool but not cold, the sun was out, the birds were singing, what more could you expect? We both had enough time so we made our coffee break rather early, but only after checking the distance to the next toilet. That was going to be the place we had to split, as Josée took the northern route and I took the southern route towards Temple 44 which I should reach tomorrow.

Along the way we admired the pretty landscapes, small mountain villages, all the flowers in bloom and took the obligatory pictures. When we reached our separation point, we couldn’t find the toilet that was marked on our app, but a lady walked by and Josée asked her to point us to the toilet. The lady excused herself and walked off. While she was away I thought I had spotted them, but of course we needed to wait for her to return.

She came back right away, followed by a car, and opened the door and motioned for us to get into the car. Josée and I looked at each other in surprise. A taxi to the toilet as ossetai! I needed to go in the opposite direction, so I thanked them but declined, but Josée got into the car after we said a hurried goodbye. Apparently the toilets were clean!

I walked on and had my lunch break in a small park next to the gurgling river bordered by several still flowering Sakura. A peaceful place and I took my time to eat my biscuits. Just before I left, I saw several old Japanese women and men arrive and they put up some chairs and brought material for what looked like a cricket game on the sandy patio. I would have loved to watch them play but by then the wind had started to blow again and I was getting cold so I moved on.

The Ryokan I am staying at is another older house but partially renovated (brand new bath), built around a well maintained inner garden. Dinner was excellent, my room is very big and I am happy I managed to book another good accommodation.

I am now waiting for a call from RTL to do my interview for the “Planet People” episode that will be showing later today on RTL Luxembourg. Be sure to tune in at 19:00!!

Thanks for reading and you’ll hear from me tomorrow.