Written by Dave

Takamatsu to Tokushima – Last day on Shikoku – (71k, 480M)

We had a good night’s sleep in the WeBase. It’s an ok hotel other than the price being too high, but that could have something to do with the holiday. And there is the little minor point that I could barely sit on the toilet without hitting my knees on the wall in the all-in-one bathroom. If you are taller than me, say 5’-10” or more, maybe try a different hotel – haha.

The ride out of town was fine for traffic. It would have been a lot worse had it not been Saturday morning of a three day weekend. The roads were narrow city roads, without much of a footpath for the first 20k. And the last 15k, they were pretty much the same. There isn’t a lot of open countryside between Takamatsu and Tokushima. I’d Ibeen kind of dreading today’s ride since way back in the planning stages, as I figured it would be full on traffic the whole way. It wasn’t as bad as I imagined, it rarely is.

We picked up a new riding friend today, kind of, sort of. There was one climb about in the middle of our ride. We were just reaching the bottom of the 5k climb and a chap pulled out from a fruit stand. At first we thought he was Japanese but it became clear that he wasn’t when he spoke. He was actually from the Philippines. He’s been here for 5 months, is here on a 3 year working visa and is working as a welder.

He had a somewhat fancy Bianchi bike (he said it was a second hand bike) but was riding in jeans and tennis shoes. He didn’t have a helmet. He was clearly a new rider but when he asked if he could join us as he was also heading to Tokushima, we didn’t see any harm and said yes. The climb had a pretty good shoulder/footpath so it was safe to have him ride sort of beside us. Riding our normal speed, we’d normally ride too fast for folks like this guy but there was no dropping him. Nancy motored up the hill and he hung on without seeming to make too much of an effort. He did however, stop chatting when it got steeper. There was a 1.8k tunnel at the top that was uphill most of the way. He flicked on his taillight at the start and kept up right to the top.

Once cresting the hill his speed dropped dramatically and we lost him, with us just coasting down the hill. Our bikes are clearly heavier than his so maybe that was the issue. It’s also possible that he didn’t feel safe riding at speed down a hill. Either way, that was the last we saw of him. We never got his name or a photo, except one when I stopped on the uphill to take a state line sign photo. It was just so odd to think how unlikely it would be for his and ours circles of life to intersect in any way – except they did, if only for 30 minutes or so on the side of the road climbing a hill in Japan.  It would have been nice to hear more about his story, but it unfortunately didn’t work out.

We only made a couple stops today and Komoot diid a pretty good job getting us out of one big city and into the next. There was a spell on a dike road where we road on a shoulder less road, looking fondly at a parallel traffic free off-dike road. The off-dike road lasted the entire 10k of dike. Hindsight would have had us on the quieter road.

We stopped about 5k from the hotel for a 1-2-3 onigiri lunch and to check for a specialty coffee shop. We were pleased to discover that there was a Starbucks in the station, right next to our hotel. We rode straight there and killed the hour required before checking into the JR Hotel Clement. This is one of the few hotels that had a check-in time of 2pm – most are at least 3pm and some even 4pm.  And they are generally pretty strict about the times too, so it was nice to actually get into our room at a reasonable hour.  Nancy sweet talked the bikes into our room at check-in. I keep saying that she should handle all the hotels because she does so well. She keeps saying that I have to do all of them in the next English speaking country in which we travel.

We cleaned up and decided to check-out a festival that we saw only 500 meters before reaching the hotel. I looked on-line but couldn’t find a reason or name for the festival. We walked over to it, walked the entire main festival area and the best I can tell it was a “Festival of Give the Children Sugar”. Wow, there were a lot of kids, but even more, there were tons of booths selling sugary things. We had a few snacks but retreated to a safe distance pretty quickly.

Last night in Takashima, udon was our focus. Tonight, not that far away in Tokushima, the focus was ramen. Tokushima Ramen features a rich, soy based soup topped with thin, spicy pork belly. Tokushima ramen is billed as one for serious fans of the craft. We took guidance from the hotel staff and tried out a hole in the wall spot where you order and pay at a machine outside in front of the shop, then queue up to be called when they have space inside and your food is almost ready. It was a nice way (for Nancy again) to order as no wait staff were needed. And the ramen, tasty again, probably different than any we’ve had before. If we lived here, we’d go there again.

Tomorrow is our last night out on this trip. We are taking the ferry (last one) back to Honshu and then riding to a camp ground not far from Osaka. This all seems like a good idea to me as it will give us a place to give away/recycle the last of our gas cylinders. There is some rain forecast but as of now, we are sticking with the camping plan.