The pilgrimage on the island of Shikoku, called “o-henro”, can be a life-changing experience. It’s an ancient pilgrimage route, connecting 88 Buddhist temples on the island of Shikoku, in Japan.
The route itself is more than 1000 Km long, walked by hundreds of pilgrims every year. It has been referred to as the “Japanese Camino de Santiago”, though it’s very different from it.
Looking back, it certainly was a great adventure for me. I am happy to share it with you, day by day, from the moment I decided to do it until my return in Berlin.
I hope you will enjoy reading them, as much as I enjoyed walking the Shikoku Henro.
If you have any questions or comment, please do voice them, and I will answer them as soon as I can.
Thank you,
Alessio
PS. You can navigate to the next article by scrolling all the way past the comments, and before the footer.
- Announcing my next travel
- Preparing the equipment
- The language challenge
- The physical challenge
- The mental challenge
- Fighting laziness
- Three predictions for my pilgrimage
- Changing plans
- Silence
- Drowning in a phantom pool
- Day 0: The eagle has landed
- Day 1: Recon and final touches
- Day 2: The walk begins
- Day 3: Small steps
- Day 4: Japan intensifies
- Day 5: breaking the 30s
- Day 6: wrong turns and right people
- Day 7: ups and downs
- Day 8: pacific detours
- Day 9: surfing on the Route 55
- Day 10: the dawn of a crappy day
- Day 11: scratching
- Day 12: a dip in the ocean
- Day 13: chilling in Kochi
- Day 14: the bus that never came
- Day 15: costly mistakes
- Day 16: fate takes, fate gives
- Day 17: over one third
- Day 18: took a wrong turn, found a snake
- Day 19: first casualties
- Day 20: unexpected toxines
- Day 21: flipping the table
- Day 22: silly escapes
- Day 23: running away from the comfort zone
- Day 24: relentless walking
- Day 25: the tunnel
- Day 26: if I had a penny for every time I went the wrong way…
- Day 27: a cold morning
- Day 28: he slept here
- Day 29: feeling fit
- Day 30: up, up, down, down, left, right…
- Day 31: the mantra
- Day 32: Matsuyama
- Day 33: planning ahead
- Day 34: red or blue?
- Day 35: getting ready to climb
- Day 36: the ketchup nightmare
- Day 37: I can see the end
- Day 38: pay to win
- Day 39: from dawn until dusk
- Day 40: getting closer
- Day 41: lock and load
- Day 42: the kechigan’s eve
- Day 43: closing the circle
- The day after: Kyoto
- Back to Berlin
- My o-henro pictures from the DSLR