Temples open at around 7 so we got up a little before that. We only had a short walk to the temple so we headed straight there. Naturally it was still raining. We had stuffed our shoes with newspapers the night before and to some extent it had worked. We headed out and up to the temple, Kongofukuji. We were both somewhat underwhelmed with the other “cape temple” (#24) as I think we felt that it was going to be something spectacular bearing in mind it was in the middle of nowhere. Luckily though, Kongofukuji didn’t disappoint. Something about the rain made it seem mystical.
We checked the bus times previously, there was a bus at 9am, we figured we would attempt to hitch and if all else fails just get on the bus back and go from there. We waited in the rain for around 45 minutes before we (ok *I*) got hungry, there was a small place doing breakfast so we went in there and grabbed something to eat. There were many cats.
Hitchhiking failed and so we got back on the bus to Nakamura. The bus take a very coastal road, I remember on the way down the previous night looking out the window at the sheer drop that was to my right, this time the sheer drop was to my left, and in broad daylight. Unnerving to say the least. It was strange though, every so often there were small pockets of houses in the hills, and a school or two dotted around, so quaint but you can tell that without a car (public transportation: INFREQUENT!) it must suck living down there.
Killing time
We got back to Nakamura and found we had to wait 50 minutes for a train to take us to the vicinity of the next temple, Enkôji (public transport:INFREQUENT). We were both fearing that today would be a repeat of the previous day, and we’d be sat around waiting for trains and buses and not visiting many temples. Doug took the time to write his travel journal, I took the time to stare out the window and play on Facebook on my phone.
We got our train and attempted to hitch as usual, The temple wasn’t actually that far but we figured if we could get a ride maybe they would be travelling around and we could hit a few temples with them. One lady pulled over and said that she would give us a lift if we were able to put her elderly mothers wheelchair in the back of the car. Unfortunately try as hard as we did, it just wouldn’t fit in. She apologised and gave us 300 yen osettai to get some tea. We thanked her and continued on our walk. I was actually quite happy to walk, as the rain had subsided and we’d spent a lot of the past day or so sat on trains, so it was quite nice to stretch my legs. We got to Enkôji, the final temple in Kochi and as we were leaving the rain stopped.
The roads in the area were very quiet, luckily there was a bus within 20 minutes and so we headed to the bus stop. We were joined eventually by an old couple who were also waiting for the bus. We were somewhat worried that they would end up screwing up the hitching chances as cars might not stop if they see 4 people standing together. We never got picked up and got the bus into the town.
In order to get closer to the temple we would have to get another bus, however the bus would not turn up for an HOUR. Whilst Doug and I were discussing whether to attempt to find food somewhere the couple who we had been talking to previously at the bus stop came up to us.
“You’re going to the next temple, right? Well we are going to get a taxi, and if you’d like, you could come with us, and it will make everyones journey cheaper”
“Ok sure!”
We got in and off we went. The couple were Mr and Mrs Ishikawa. They are awesome.
We began heading towards the next temple and we were chatting to the taxi driver. He said that he could do us a deal, and take us to the next 3 temples for 3000 yen each. we all jumped at the chance and Doug and I were feeling good that we were going to travel some distance today. We crossed over into Ehime and things were starting to look up!
We traveled together stopping at the temples along the way, it was quite a nice way to travel and we enjoyed our company.The entire day was somewhat of a blur though, up until now when we had been waiting for a hitch or for public transport we had some time to chill, this was somewhat different. In summary though, we blasted through Kanjizaiji (Temple 40) which is the farthest temple from Ryozenji (Temple 1) distance wise. Here we met a man who was
walking the pilgrimage backwards, the most common reason to do this is to reverse some sin from your past, though some also say that if you do it in reverse you can meet someone who had died and you longed to meet again). We moved on to Ryukoji (41) which was small but a had a nice atmosphere and then up to Butsumokuji (42). By this time we were well aquainted with our travelling companions and the weather had done a COMPLETE 180. Sunshine! We realised that every minute we were in Kochi it rained, and as soon as we left it stopped. Thus Kochi is the rainy prefecture.
The taxi driver was very knowledgable about the local area, and said he would take us to the closest city as part of our fare. This was great for us as it meant we would be around a station at 6pm, so we could head towards the next temple and be ready for the morning. We headed to Unomachi and called ahead, reserving a hotel room. Got some dinner, some beers and settled down to watch some TV 
Oh and Doug set out drying his shoes with a hairdryer for the second time.
