Japan – Shikoku and Kyushu

Japan - Shikoku + Kyushu

12.11.2017 - 21.11.2017 506,5km

Just four minutes cruise and we stood on Mukaishima island, where we joined the 60km long route known as Shimanami Kaido. It‘s the most famous cycling route in Japan. It’s spectacular road and bridge network connecting the island of Honshu with the island of Shikoku, it spans six smaller islands in the process and features bike and padestrian lanes for its entire length.. The entire route is very well marked by a blue strip on the road, approaches to the bridges are always separate from motor vehicles.

There is a mild climate on the island of Shikoku, and maybe it is the reason to grow the citruses, especially tangerines. We were surprised by the low price of this fruit(2kg for 2USD) because we had not found cheap fruit or vegetables in this country (one banana or apple ranges from 1USD or more). We enjoyed every single tangerine.

During sunny days, we cycled bridges one by one. We enjoyed the amazing natural scenery which was created by the Inner Sea and the deserted beaches and bays. Visiting the onsen made the day even better . Elderly ladies in the onsen were unusually sweet to us, apparently we were pleasant distraction for them. One of them liked us so much that she gave us a bag of tangerines when we left. Why not, we though, we had the whole bag bought and the next couple of them we collected under the trees, but we couldn’t refuse the vitamins . We spent the night on a little island, where was just a free camp. In the morning, we had a conversation with the monk who was here on the pilgrimage journey .The Shikoku pilgrimag is one of the oldest long-distance pilgrimages in the world. The standard walking course is approximately 1,200 km long. There are 88 Buddhist monasteries on the way. Before we left the monk gave us bag of tangerines, what a surprise.

Through small villages we came to the town of Imabari and the traffic was busy again. We quickly did some shopping and went to the sea where was the free camp right on the beach. Katy was on cloud nine when she realized that nobody else was in the camp and we whole beach was ours. With a bottle of white wine, we watched the beautiful sunset and were preparing for the next day. The next day was unfortunately raining. We did‘t want to ride in the rain, so we stayed and solved urgent issues like air tickets and visas to Vietnam.

It cleared up soon and we could go on. In Imabari, the famous cycle path ends, and from this point the country wasn’t much interesting. We were looking forward to putting up our tent on another beautiful beach, but the spot was more than tragic. The beach was stony and so narrow that it would be dangerous to put up a tent one meter from the sea. One experience with a tide and water in a tent in Norway was enough. We remembered a recent meeting with a monk who mentioned a nice place to camp. It was less than 20km from us. We had cycled 95 km, and we were pretty tired, but nothing could be done, we sucked it up and went on. We artived in the dark, put up a tent and went to sleep. In the morning, we found out that besides the giant palm under which our tent stood, the campsite wasn‘t  supernice, the restroom was closed, and the sea shore was full of scrap. But it accomplished its purpose, we slept well, and that was the most important thing for us.

The western part of the island was unexpectable more hilly. The sky was overcast, cool, and a strong wind was blowing. It was hard enough to get to the ferry that took us to the last Japanese island - Kyushu. The weather was bad on Kyushu. It was like the winter was comming (by the way, there is a snow on Hokkaido for a while). The tangerines price rose, people weren’t so warm, and there were again big cities. There were also many roads not allowed for cyclist what we didnt’t expect.

Near Fukuoka we were already exhausted, and the camp we were heading to was on the hill. We felt sick when we just imagined to climb there. We started to look for a hotel, but we didn‘t know that the price for Saturday night is many times higher than on another day. The cheapest hotel was 270 USD, which just gave us enough energy to ride up the hill. Alternating cycling and walking of 7 km took us two hours, there was no asfalt only the gravel or mud. When we finally reached the top, the smiling Japanese, who just left his tent, came to us and told us that it isn’t campsite and we should  go to the hotel. Our foreheads were dripping with a sweat and we looked very angry. Katya said him in Czech: "Oh no honey, I am going to sleep here!" And she was looking for a suitable spot for a tent. I tried to communicate with him, but the gentleman was clear. So we were, what an idiot. He saw two girls with loaded bikes who obviously didn‘t come up by the cable car (no one was there) and had no understanding. Then a younger Japanese man appeared and tried to soften the older one up. Eventually he suggested that we could pitch a tent on the gravel but we had to get out in the morning. We quickly put up the tent and went in, because the "old" kept watching us and it was very unpleasant. We left in the morning before 8am and when we saw a lot of tents on the meadow after 100 meters we were incredolous. We absolutely didn‘t understand why the „old“ didn‘t send us here last evening and made such an obstruction.

The last days of our trip in Japan were perfectly planned. We wanted to spend the Sunday in the hotel (Sunday is the cheapest), spruce ourself up , wash the clothes, boost some energy. On Monday we wanted to pick up the cardboard boxes for the bikes, go to the airport, pack everything nicely, spend the night in the airport hall and depart on Tuesday morning. For a moment everything was really perfect, even a washing machine in the hotel was free and we felt great. Then that moment ended becouse we found out that Fukuoka airport isn‘t open 24 hours. We couldn‘t spent there the night. The next night at the hotel was inevitable. But how to get to the airport with all our stuff in time if we will stay in hotel? A regular taxi is too small, a bigger taxi is for group of people, not for super large luggage in Japan.The delivery service also refused us or didn‘t even want to deal with our problem. So we solved it on our own way. First we went by bicycle without panniers to the airport to see if there is a luggage storage. There was one and they were able to store our bikes packed in a box. Then we cycled back to the city to pick up the boxes that we cut, put on the bikes, and then went on foot back to the airport. Everybody looked us as we were crazy, but anyone offered to help us. We packed and stored the bikes and went back to the hotel. It was long day. In the morning, we called a taxi and with the panniers we finally got to the airport and said goodbye to the Japan.

What did we like?

K - Colorful scenery, smiling people, thermal springs, heated tolitet seats

P- food, especially dezerts, free campsites, landscape

What we didn‘t like

K - free camps (often in the hills), language barrier – they don’t speak English even at the international airport, spiders

P – communication –they don’t speak english, Japanese have a completely different non-verbal communication, strict adherence to the rules, they have a completely different mentality that one has to get used to or can’t stand it