Day 49: summary and a few reflections
Today is the first day after finishing the o-Henro pilgrimage trail. It feels strange to sit and write instead of walking.
I was number 479 finishing the walk this year:
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| Certificate of successfully finishing o-Henro by walking |
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| o-Henro certificate from the Tokushima tourist center |
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| Kobo Daichi statue at Jizoji temple (T5) |
In regard to the second objective “improvement of health” I do agree, that this is accomplished during the long walk. Everyone is loosing some kilos of unnecessary body fat (in my case about 5-6 kg, roughly the weight of my backpack) and strengthening some muscles in the legs. It is also good for heart health and improving endurance.
The most apparent question you may have and Dieter already asked, is “how do you feel now?”
I missed walking today. You may get addicted to walking every day. I was always keen to start in the early morning without exception.
I was never thinking “when is this whole thing over”. For a very long time I was curious to see what would happen during a new day. Only in the last week the curiosity went slightly down and I felt a little repetition. But I always liked walking (except steep inclines in the mountains and long and steep stone stairs at some of the temples).
Here you can see the walking impact on my shoes, which I now can discard. A reasonable shoe profile is no longer existing (bad for the mountain trails, but I had my walking sticks, which supported in particular a safe decline in the mountains).
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| Impact of walking on the profile of my shoes |
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| In the area of the hells the shoes were damaged as well |
A couple of people I met carried two pairs of shoes with them. This is wise, since you might not be able to buy new shoes in case of need (limited number of sport shops in a few bigger cities and unavailability of bigger shoe sizes). I had left a second pair of hiking shoes with Kimura-san, which she could have send to me.
The o-Henro trail is at least 85 % asphalt. So light suitable shoes for this kind of underground are needed. My Goretex Brooks Ghost 14 GTX were perfect for me. I bought 1+1/2 shoe sizes bigger than usual so 47+1/2 and walked perfectly without any blisters. Blisters are a frequent issue when walking. They are not only painful but could result in a stop of the whole journey (as happened to one o-Henro pilgrim, due to subsequent infection).
Coming back to the reasons I had for starting this walk. I wanted to manage a physically challenging tour. Yes, I was able to do it. Do I feel proud about the achievement? Actually not so much. I think everyone who is in a normal state of health and has a serious will to do it (not giving up early after a few obstacles) can do it. May be some people need to do same walk training before and test their ability to do steep uphill walk. Nobody is saying that you should be a trail runner and you can decide to walk slower than others and spend a number of days more.
I wanted to see more from Japan and learn more about the country. Yes, this was the case, but I can not list all the details which I will take home as memories. What I can say in general is the following: Japan is a beautiful country with pleasant and helpful people as well as clean cities. It is absolutely safe and nobody must be afraid of getting a crime victim. This is relevant for women who want to travel alone. Japan is the perfect country for doing so. There were many women from various parts of the world, walking alone.
The structure of a walking day: get up at 6:00 a.m. or earlier if needed. Take breakfast or skip it. Leave the hostel/ryokan/minshuku/business hotel at 7:00 or earlier. Be outside „on the road“ until 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. = 8 - 10 hours before checking-in into a new place to stay overnight. If you look at walking distances I have reported, this seems like slow walking or many rests. Both was never the case. You may rest at a 7/11 for a coffee and a sandwich or eat some fruits on a bench somewhere, but this is a short time. You consume time when walking around the temples and in the mountains your walking speed is slow, in particular when it goes uphill. At the end of every day you are tired. You may have about two hours to take a shower, wash clothes and bring your packing items in order. At 6:00 p.m. you have a dinner (often with others, which is relaxing). At 8:00 p.m. you are in your room and do some reading, communication with the family and writing (e.g. the blog post, which requires time and also discipline, when you are tired). Sleeping time for me: between 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. at the latest.
Best food? On the coast of Shikoku every small town has a harbor with many fishing boats. The fish you get served at any place is incredibly fresh and good!
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| A typical habour of a small town on the coast with many tiny, private fishing boats |
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| Fresh sashimi nicely presented for one of my evening dinners |
Worst drink: in Matsuyama there was a shop which only dealt with products related to „mikans“ (mandarins) which are very good on this island and a major part of the agricultural business. They also offered mikan juice, which I ordered, since I have never drunken it. One of the serving ladies disappeared in a back room and it took quite some time for her being away. I thought: “what takes so long to press out some mikans?” After a while I got my juice. The taste was awful, since it was sweetened up, most probably with sugar sirup. I drank it and was angry with me thereafter, since I thought about the bad taste and the calories which came on top of this.
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| A Milan tree |
Was there any feeling of monotony? No, not at all. Things repeat themselves, but it is in a country which is very much different from where you come from and therefore it stays interesting (even the roads through the suburbs).
Loneliness? Not at all! You must not walk alone, unless you want to. The possibility of interaction with others is given at many occasions and you can have joint walks with others for some time. However you should not be shy and open to talk with people you don’t know.
Taking photos: I have taken a lot of photos and shared some of them with you. Many photos are not really beautiful, but they serve the purpose to remind me on the things I have seen. Initially I wanted to take a couple of good photos and I had taken a small tripod and a remote controller along with me. I have not used these tools once. If you want to take good photos you need to have time for that. I never took the necessary time and only took fast snapshots. This does not mean, that they are all mediocre. Actually some of them turned out to be good. My focus and energy went into walking and observing. A couple of times I said to people who joined me on a walk: “isn’t that beautiful? But it can not be captured in a good picture!”
Insights? Don’t expect any philosophical talk from me. I am not the right person for that, as you may know already.
Yes, you are changing and do not remain the same as you were before (basic claim of Buddhism), your mind changes possibly more than within your normal life at home, your body is changing as well.
Lessons learned:
1. I was treated very nicely by many people and want to do so myself much more in the future. It just requires some energy and work. Doing nothing is always easier.
2. It is not only the country, its culture, nature and landscape which made this journey a great experience. Equally so, it were the people I meet, talked to, walked with and learned from, who will remain in my memories.
3. In regards to walking such kind of trail I changed my mind from what I thought before the start. Initially my thinking was to walk every meter of the official trail all with backpack. This I have not done. I took trains and busses for certain parts of roads which for many km had not had a separate path for pedestrians. Also I have left my backpack a few times at my overnight stay and did a day tour without additional weight on my shoulders. I took a ropeway way and two times a cable car to avoid uphill walk. This change of mind seems to be not unusual. I have not seen many people to walk it all. Usually it were Japanese, who had a strong mentality.
This is the end of blog posts related to my o-Henro trail in 2023. Thank you all for showing interest and accompanying me virtually on my walk.
Eckhard Puchert
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