Kukai (774-835) was a Japanese monk who founded the shingon school of Buddhism. He initiated an 88-temple pilgrimage around Shikoku Island in 812, and this pilgrimage is repeated by thousands of o-henro (pilgrims) each year. The whole circuit is some 1200km, and therefore well beyond us, but there is a special mini-pilgrimage of temples 71 to 77 near Takamatsu, known as the Maire Path. It is some 20km, and thus a serious day's walk, so we felt it would be a good tester, and interesting besides.
We set off on an 8:15 train to Takuma Station, swapped to a little community bus, and set off up a steep hill to start walking to Temple 71, Iyadani-ji.
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| Our "community bus" |
It was a bit of a heavy beginning with hundreds of steps to climb, but was fascinating. The path is lined with devotional statues, often with red caps or bibs. The temple complex at the top was well spread out with the main temple having a special-feeling cave-like area.
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| View from Temple 71 |
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| These were all along the trail between temples 71 and 72 |
From there it was all downhill, literally. The path headed down through forest and bamboo, before popping out and crossing to temple 72. Each of the following temples were quite different, and the walking was very interesting, passing through farmland, rice fields, little settlements, and larger towns.
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| Typical view between temples |
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| Even temple complexes have the latest mod cons - toilet control panels |
By temple 75 we were getting a bit hungry and weary. We'd been looking for a place for lunch for a bit before we found a nice local cafe where we were the main event, but had a nice lunch anyway. Refueled, it was a pleasant but quite long walk to the last two temples, and a quick leg to a train station and back to Takamatsu. We did at least 22km, about the same as the longest day would be on the Nakasendo Way.
