Update: In the last episode, the writer befriended two Japanese pilgrims and began to immerse himself in their culture as he embarked on his two-month Buddhist pilgrimage, reaching Temple 12, Shõsanji, after a long, hard climb.

Shuji Niwano was waiting for me in the foyer of the Shõsanji temple shukubõ. It was 6 a.m. on the fourth day of my trek along Japan�s Shikoku no Michi, the Way of Shikoku. I had slept well, waking at 5 o�clock to find the aches and pains from the previous day�s climb to Shõsanji - the 12th of the 88 temples on the pilgrimage route - had faded to some minor stiffness in my legs and a few tender spots on my feet. So far, no blisters. I was relieved. I needed to walk nearly 30 kilometres that day. I figured a few minutes of walking would rid me of my stiffness.

"Ohayo gozaimasu," I said when I saw Niwano-san. "O-genki desu ka?" "Good morning. How are you?" I had met him and his son Jun a few days earlier. Like me, they were trying to walk the 1,400-kilometre pilgrimage route.

"Ohayo, Sibley-san. Genki desu." "I am fine."

"Asagohan wa nan ji desu ka? I said, remembering the phrase for "what time is breakfast?"

"Roku-ji han," Niwano-san said, looking at his watch. "6:30." He invited me to join him and Jun for breakfast, just as he�d urged me to join his table for supper the night before.

We had nearly half-an-hour before breakfast and I gestured to Niwano-san to join me if he wished.

"Kohi hotto," I said, employing what I took to be pidgin-Japanese for hot coffee. He thought it was funny. We put on outdoor slippers and stepped into the chill mountain air. After only a few days on the road I had become enamoured with the vending machines found on most every street in Japan, relying on them as a source for bottled water and the solution to my caffeine requirements.

"Oishii," I said after my first swallow from a can of hot Georgia Au Lait. "Delicious." My efforts at Japanese got another laugh out of Niwano-san, but I sensed he appreciated them.

We headed toward the temples and looked down the mountain slope to the valley below. The thick mist glowed white in the morning sun. In the distance, a series of mountain ridges marched to the south and west and a breeze blew up the slope and swirled around us, cool and humid. It made the hot coffee even more pleasurable.

By 7 a.m., we - Niwano-san, Jun and myself - were in the foyer of the shukubõ, pulling on boots and shouldering packs. I grabbed my walking stick which was already showing signs of wear; the bottom of the staff had splintered and frayed from three days of pounding and the sides were chipped from scraping against rocks. I noticed that with few exceptions most of the other staffs were in pristine condition, a sure sign their owners were travelling the pilgrimage route by bus or car.

Some 100,000 Japanese make the Henro Michi - as the purists call the Shikoku temple pilgrimage route - each year. Most go by bus or car; maybe a few thousand walk the ancient trail. As I tightened the straps on my knapsack, two men, other walking henro - pilgrims - joined us. We had been introduced at supper last night - Goki Sayama, a retired banker from Sendai, a city north of Tokyo, and Murakoshi Takashi, a businessman from Hokkaido, Japan�s northernmost island, who was using his vacation to walk part of the path.

Both wore traditional henro garb - a white, hip-length vest, conical straw hat, a white pouch, and, around their necks like banners, a three-inch wide strip of purple cloth known as a kesa. Of course, they also had the kongõ-tsue, or walking staff. The characters for dõgyõ-ninin, which means "we two together," were inscribed on the hat, staff and pouch, while the phrase namu daishi henjõ kongõ - "homage to Kõbõ Daishi" - is written on the staff and the robe. The phrases refer to the belief that every pilgrim is accompanied by the spirit of Kõbõ Daishi, the ninth-century Buddhist priest who founded Shingon Buddhism in Japan and established the Henro Michi.

Sayama-san also had a polished juzu draped around his left wrist. The rosary consists of 108 beads signifying, according to Buddhist doctrine, the number of bad or misleading karmas to which humans are prey. The rosary is used to count off the recitation of mantras, incantations of spiritual power. We exchanged greetings and bows, and as they walked toward the temple for morning prayers, I wondered what bad karma such an elderly, dignified-looking man was trying to expiate.

Jun called my name. "Will you walk with us?" he asked. I had enjoyed their company a few days earlier but I didn�t want to impose.

"We would like that. To walk together." Niwano-san said. "Please, you can call me Shuji. That is my given name."

"I will be your Japanese teacher," said Jun.

I knew I was being granted an honour. People in Japan are very formal and you do not presume such intimacy as using first names unless invited to do so. It was at that moment, I later realized, that my Shikoku adventure assumed a different sensibility, began to take on a psychological dimension different than what I had anticipated or imagined. I knew, of course, that I would meet other pilgrims and enjoy their company. But I also assumed I would walk alone most of the time, engaged in a monologue with my own psyche.

Shuji Niwano was asking me to be part of a group, to make my pilgrimage a dialogue. Part of me hesitated; I liked walking alone, losing myself in my thoughts. On the other hand, I wanted to absorb as much of Japanese culture as I could. By accompanying Niwano-san I would have doors opened to me. As well, Jun turned out to be a good teacher, eager to provide the Japanese word for objects we spotted as we walked or identify items of food. But even as Niwano-san made his offer of companionship, I sensed there was another reason for his wanting me to join him and son.

"I would like that, Niwano-san," I said. "Domo arigatõ gozaimasu. Thank you very much."

"Do-itashimashite. You�re welcome. And please call me Shuji."

I bowed and thanked him and said he and Jun should call me "Robert."

"Good. Better than Sibley-san. Too hard to say."

We headed down the mountain to Dainichiji Temple, or Temple 13, some 26 kilometres away. I would not be laughing by the end of the day, but right then, in early April, with the cherry blossoms in bloom, the trees gaining their first blush of green and shafts of sunlight falling through the cedars, walking was a pleasure. A woodpecker and a nightingale competed for the title of most haunting sound in the forest.

After about two kilometres, we reached a small trailside temple sheltered in a grove of cedar trees. According to tradition, it was here at Joshin-an, or Cedar Staff Temple, that the Shikoku pilgrimage has its origins, and like many religious traditions it began in sin, death and redemption - in this case, the death and salvation of the first pilgrim, Emon Saburo.

The story goes that one day a bedraggled monk repeatedly appeared at Saburo�s home to beg for food but each time was turned away. Saburo, a rich man known for his greed and cruelty, tried to hit the monk with a stick and smashed his begging bowl. The monk - Kõbõ Daishi, of course - did not return. Soon afterward, Saburo�s eight children became sick and died. The grieving Saburo realized he was being punished. Full of remorse, Saburo set out to find Kõbõ Daishi and beg forgiveness, but was unable to find him despite repeatedly circling the island. Worn out and near death, Saburo struggled to climb the path to Shõsanji. But at the moment of collapse, Kõbõ Daishi appeared on the trail - just in time to forgive Saburo and bury him, marking the trailside grave with Saburo�s staff. That staff, legend says, grew into the tall cedar beneath which I stood drinking a Pocari Sweat.

The Daishi�s presence is reinforced by the trail markers that line the Henro Michi. All along the route, I would see signs showing a red-painted silhouette of a henro or stone pillars embossed with a pointing hand. Sometimes, though, the markers are little more than a red ribbon tied around

a tree trunk or a plaque hanging from a branch. You have to pay close attention. Miss a sign, take the wrong turn, and you could end up wandering a mountainside far from the pilgrim path. That�s apparently what happened to a woman and two children we encountered.

Walking with Shuji and Jun, I almost inevitably ended up ahead of them, at least early in the day, because being taller, my legs were longer. So it was on this morning.