Day trippers in Kochi and around, 31.1 km
We bussed into town on the early bird special and after doing some quality control on the local coffee we checked out 5ge weekly Kochi market. Despite the hype we found it to be just another farmers’ market, and certainly not worth adjusting your pilgrimage itinerary for. It was interesting – especially some of the more exotic looking vegetables and fish for sale, but there were significantly more lookers than buyers, perhaps because it is a long weekend. There were a couple of interesting artisan stalls, but with another 830km to walk, buying trinkets was not high on our list. There were a number of families, but most of the strollers contained their precious four-legged family members!
The 2nd phase of the amazing race was getting a bus to somewhere close to where we finished yesterday, and from there we walked to Temple 32, Jenzibi-Ji, which commands a great view over the coast and the (perhaps challenging) entrance to the port of Kochi. Kochi is a river port, with multiple rivers feeding into it, and much of the greater Kochi area is very low lying.
Next up was the walk from Temple 32 to 33, which according to our plan was quite simple: walk a few kilometres then take the free passenger ferry across the river/harbour entrance. As they were scheduled to depart at 10 minutes after every hour, we had a relaxing lunch at the inevitable convenience store then rocked up to the ferry dock only to be greeted by a “sailing cancelled” sign. The sign looked well used, so maybe it is deployed on a regular basis. The only option was to backtrack 1 km, then walk over the very high bridge visible in the above photo. This added about 3 km (and a hill) to our day, and the pathway on the bridge was only 24 inches wide. Due to the traffic jam the cars were literally inching along, so there was no danger from the traffic. One distinctive pink car we passed at the beginning of the bridge was at the bridge’s highest point when we were already completely across and about 1 km further down the road! We’d covered about 2 km on foot while the very pink car had driven 500m, so everything you’ve heard about Japanese traffic jams is true!
Temples 33 (Sekkei-JI) and 34 (Tanema-Ji) were somewhat unremarkable, probably because we’ve been spoiled by some spectacular forest and mountain settings and wonderful gardens. The extra kilometres we’d walked today were taking their toll, so we organized a taxi (using Uber – there’s no way we’d be able to organize a taxi unless the driver spoke some English) and Sam & Max ubered (is this now a verb?) to a supermarket near our accommodation to get dinner provisions while I walked the remaining 9 km.
I didn’t take any temple photos, but here are some roadside scenes from the day:
2saunter 