Day 4: Dolls in the valley

 Today we will face the first henro-korogashi of our trip, or, to say it in other words, the first part of the path which is remarkably difficult. But, being on our bike, we won't be able to hike through the forest from temple 11 to temple 12, and will climb from the other side, where normally henroes walk down.

Our day starts early as usual, and before leaving the hotel we take some time to also take care of our bikes. Few drops of lubricant for the chain and some tuning for the brakes are the bare minimum for our faithful vehicles and travel companions.

The air of the early morning is chilly, and being at the bottom of the valley where the Akui river flows doesn't help the sun to warm it up. The waters of the river are crystal clear, and we constantly move from the shadows to the sun according to the turning of the road.
It feels like being in a Murakami's novel, constantly on the border between two worlds. When we then go through a small village whose only inhabitants are, apparently, stuffed dolls busy doing whatever is possible (playing shogi, sightseeing, greeting those passing by) the vibe gets really spooky.

But we have no time to enjoy the trill and we keep getting closer to the climb for temple 12. After leaving the main road and rising on a narrow mountain road, we reach the parking place at the bottom of the temple, where we leave our bikes to an old shopkeeper, thanks to a young pilgrim who helps us with the translation.
We wear our hiking shoes and start walking up to the temple: the road is steep and goes for a good length among tall trees, where we can only see rocks and vegetation surrounding us.
As soon as we reach a sunny spot, we notice 3 snakes enjoying the warmth and carefully avoid them.

After 1 hour we finally reach the temple and, while resting, we meet the Korean couple we have met yesterday. They came hiking from temple 11, and are obviously happy to have reached their goal.
Few minutes more for resting while listening to a priest chanting the Heart sutra restore our energies and we can start descending. We hitch a ride from another henro, who is doing the pilgrimage by car, and we are able to quickly reach our bikes.

After giving a small osettai to both the car driving henro and to the shopkeeper to thank them for their help, we wear back our cycling shoes and get back riding. During the descent we meet several pilgrim, joyfully walking down the road. When we cross again the doll village we hear a shamisen playing somewhere: probably this village has also some human inhabitants!
We reach temple 13 and shortly after temple 14 and 15, where we meet again our young morning helper. There we also see a bus packed with elderly pilgrims, crowding the stairs to main gate.

We stop by a tourist center to get some help in reserving a lodging for the night, and we have to convince them that we can reach our intended lodging in due time. Probably used to help walking henroes, they doubt some cycling henroes can go faster. Anyway we manage to get our booking and we can continue further.

We reach our travel companion for the coming days, road 55, and we rush to reach our lodging before sunset. We stop a person to ask for directions and he is the tenant of the minshuku, gladly taking us to destination.

There we enjoy one of the finest experience one can have: soaking into a wooden ofuro, breathing the fragrance of inoki wood and resting our legs after the day while tasting ocha and yokan. We really cannot ask for more.Once again sleep takes us quickly as soon as we lay ourselves on the tatami.

Where we slept:
Komatsushima city, minshuku Funa-no-sato, 0885 37 1127