9th Dec – Day 33, Temple 19 (Tatsueji), Bangai 3 (Jigenji)

Woke up at 4 plus this morning to turn on the heater again, because it would switch off every 3 hours! I thought it would be pretty cozy and had lesser warm clothes on last night.

Had a feast this morning! The owner made me a hot meat bun for breakfast and added two more sushi rice to take away! I thanked her very much and got ready to start my journey again at 8:05am. It was only a short 10minutes walk to Temple 19. After my prayer, I saw a phone and called up the free lodging at Bangai 3 to confirm my stay. But very sadly, the place was fully occupied for the day!! I didn’t know what to do for a moment. I called the nearest accommodation and it was 3500yen! Very quickly I had to use up my remaining “life-line” and asked if I could reach around 5pm, after going to Bangai 3. The owner didn’t say “ok” immediately and wanted to ask when I was starting my journey. Before I could answer, my phone was cut off and I ran out of 10yen coins. Later, I realized why he hesitated if I could reach by 5pm, because it was already 8:45am when I called, and I would have to walk around 28km in 8 hours! If it was all flat road, 7 hours would be sufficient, but the problem was 2.6km of it were upslope to 700m a.s.l.!! And, I thought I could have a more relaxing walk today, but early in the morning, already I had to rush again!

To make things worse, it started to drizzle and the wind was so strong that I could hardly hold my umbrella well! Nevertheless, my morale wasn’t affected and all my platoon members were in good shape. Besides, the journey was very direct. The first 13km was done in 2 hours and 15minutes! I had my lunch at 11am and continued half an hour later for another 5.1km of tar road, until I hit the final 2.6km, which was full of twists and turns! It started off by cutting through some housing area on very steep surface! Very quickly, I hit 300m a.s.l. Next was some steadily uphill jungle path. Then, I passed through a confusing duck farm, and thought I lost my way! The ducks were all quacking at different timing together and it sounded like the motorbikes engines! After that, it was a distance of tar road, and then more uphill on a jungle path! By now, I was already around 500m a.s.l. and I thought the temple should be around at this height! But I remembered wrongly. After the jungle path, it was a torturing 1.3km of upslope tar road! Finally, I took 1 hour and 25 minutes to reach the temple entrance at 634m and found out the Main Hall was another 500m further up till 740m a.s.l.!! It was freezing cold at the temple! I needed a longer break to rest my shoulders and my back! Had my quick tea break there as well. Around 3pm, I began to descend, in top speed! Very soon, I was supposed to pass the duck farm again, but I missed it somehow and reached the main road which was probably longer than the original path. Back at the flat road again, I moved faster and finally reached the lodging exactly 5minutes before 5!! I wondered why I was the only one who found this pilgrimage tough. The other o-henro-san whom I met, seemed to be really relax and not having a hard time at all!

Luckily there was a supermarket around. I bought my breakfast, lunch and dinner for tomorrow, and then had my dinner at a ramen restaurant! The pork slice was really nice! Was so tired that I could barely move my legs! Went back to the lodging and for the same 3500yen, I didn’t expect today’s could be so much different from the place that I stayed last night! In fact, the bath was worse than the free lodging I had 2 days ago at Sakae Taxi!! I missed my coffee. Wanted so much for a hot drink, and went out to the vending machine to get one. Thought of downloading my emails to read as well, but the access that I caught earlier wasn’t there anymore. I had my hot coffee like a drug addict having his dose of ecstasy! Went to bed around 9:30pm and realized the fall had injured my buttock as well.

Because the lodging at Bangai 3 was full, I had to do another tiring 28.5km today!