Shikoku holy sites, day 5 + Ryuuga caves

Temple #25 is the ugly duckling of the tour, refurbished and concreted. We still wrangled a good photo out of it though.

From oversized feet to oversized sandals.

This wonderfully sculpted garden stretched all the way up the hillside on both sides of the steps.

The wee buddha with bibs are apparently cared for by people who've lost children. I'm not sure about the knitted hats, that seems to be a Shikoku specialty.

Ryuugadou is the most impressive limestone cave I've ever been to, with narrow winding cracks that haven't been over-engineered for tourism leading to some really impressive sites. I like caves, so please forgive me for cramming in a lot of similar (?) photos.

Winding sheets.

Beautiful columns.

Over-enthusiatic lighting.

Alien-esque flows.

Is that a chest-burster I see?

Dragon feet.

This reminded me of a whale's jawbone more than anything else.

The cave even came complete with 2000 year old relics coated in limestone and therefore impossible to remove.

We are both nearly hit by an insane truck driver. We were going at 70kmph on a 50kmph limit winding single-lane road with 'overtaking forbidden' markings. After veering round Hozumi he overtakes me on the inside, swerving off the road slightly and pushing me into the oncoming traffic lane. Bastard.

We stock up on books and food for another rainy day, which surpasses our expectations. The river level rises by almost two metres and our tent comes close to being flooded, but by sheer luck we set up on sufficiently high ground.