My alarm was set. Five in the morning, right at the break of dawn. I was spending the night in a thatched roof farmhouse high above the Iya valley, a spectacular land of deep river gorges, dense pines, quaint villages and cherry blossom trees. I woke up quickly, eagerly anticipating a sunrise that would sweep across the rugged valley below me and slowly rise amongst the balmy mountaintops in the distance. These were the lost lands of Japanese myths, of woods where a group of shamans came to flee persecution from Nara in the ninth century and the defeated Heike warriors infamously spent their final days in hiding. The icy wind bit into my face as I stepped out onto the porch of the Japanese chalet (being Swiss, such mountain-bred comparisons are inevitable) and I held my breath as layer upon layer of a ghostly, mystical mist began lifting from the hills in front of me and dissolved into the rising light.

Shikoku is the smallest of Japan’s four main islands, comparable to the size of Taiwan, and is nestled between the Seto Inland Sea and the Pacific Ocean; it is also the least populated and subsequently least traveled region of the country. It’s a place that remains a mystery to most foreigners, and, as I learned during my time in Japan, even to most average Japanese citizens. People would goggle at me in surprise when I told them I was planning to spend a few days road tripping around Shikoku, and their startled reactions made me wonder whether I wasn’t going a bit too far this time.

Its isolation makes Shikoku a dramatic destination to traverse by car. You’ll hardly come across any other vehicles – save for dozens of abandoned, dilapidated buses which seemed to crop up everywhere on the side of the road – and one particular road, Rte 381, skirts along the banks of the turquoise Shimanto-gawa River deep inland. I rented a car from Takamatsu, a city on the north coast of the island with arguably the prettiest gardens in the whole country and where a group of jolly pensioners pulled me into their afternoon dance, and drove west towards the Dogo Onsen (Japan is peppered with onsen hot springs and it’s a cultural experience which you can’t afford to miss out on). These particular onsen are the oldest in the country and their history stretches back thousands of years. I approached them by nighttime, and countless yukata clad bathers were strolling in and out of the dark, wooden three-storied castle.

After a night spent steaming, scrubbing and bathing in a room full of naked Japanese strangers, I was invigorated and set off south striving to reach Rte 381 and enter the mountain gorges. Along the way, I kept passing resolute, solitary figures donning conical straw hats and colorful staffs, striding determinedly on the road. Shikoku is home to the famous 88 Temple Pilgrimage, one of the few circular pilgrimages in the world and a daunting 1200km long. It follows the path along which Kobo Daishi, one of the leading fathers of the esoteric Shingon sect of Buddhism, studied and trained. The modern day pilgrims wear white jackets emblazoned with characters reading dogyo nin meaning “two traveling together”, in the belief that during their walk they are accompanied by none other than the spirit of Daishi. Each leg of the journey represents a different path in one’s own spiritual journey, flowing from awakening, discipline, and enlightenment to nirvana. The pace and beauty of traveling by foot imparts the pilgrims a meditative state of mind, with many seeking to reflect on their lives and march alone with their thoughts along the empty roads.

As I neared the river bank, the scenery became increasingly crevassed and layered. These were forests unlike any I had seen before. They were filled to the brim with different kinds of trees, with different densities, colors, tones, tempers, leaves and contours. Bright emerald stalks poked out next to autumnal reds and bamboo tufts that looked like ghouls breathing into the air, with large patches of moss green and glorious flashes of pink blossom in between. And then out of the blue, I arrived at the Shimanto-gawa (one of the last free flowing rivers in Japan) and was astonished to note that the color of the water was a profound teal turquoise, at once bright and obscure. It wasn’t a shade of mountain river I was used to, usually impenetrably dark and menacingly cold – this water looked silken and there was something gelatin-like to its texture as it poured over the rocks. I was filled with the urge to jump in and get closer to what I was seeing. I parked the car and leaped in, my breath cut short by the freezing water as I let the luminescent liquid flow over me.

Rte 381 led me right to the southern tip of Shikoku. I was told that I had arrived too late for the annual bullfighting competition – not a glorious Spanish toreador bullfight– but rather a Japanese form of bovine sumo wrestling where two ginormous bulls try to kick each other out of the ring. The surf, however, is year round and I ended up walking down a vast white beach called Ohkinohama where the pick of the region’s surfers come to ride the Pacific swell. A group of friendly young locals were just returning from their afternoon on the waves and happily lent me a board as I tried, and failed, to catch one myself. I silently gave myself an A for effort.

I noticed on my map that Temple 38 of the pilgrimage trail wasn’t too far away, and decided to go check it out. The road led into an ancient, overhanging forest that made me stop in my tracks in awe. It felt very, very old. The trees were contorted into all sorts of shapes and faces and the canopy overhead was rich with old vines and shrubbery. Eroded stone steps led down the rock face and the entrance of a torrii gate greeted me at their base; I placed a small piece of pink quartz I had in my pocket in the donation basket and climbed up the bluff. In true Shinto tradition, the temple itself was minute and coincidentally there was a large, smooth globe of the same quartz right in front of the shrine. In that moment I was struck by the fact that I too was a pilgrim in my own right, and by how far I had travelled from home to arrive to this lost temple on the southern tip of the Japanese sea.

Shikoku is also known for several culinary delicacies, amongst which are the best udon noodles in the country often served in their simplest form as kake udon with a mild broth and topped with scallions. A specialty in the southern region are fried octopus balls and here I found a small quirky shack with octopi sketched all over it belonging to an old hunchbacked man. He pasted oil onto a small circular grill and mixed the octopus rice balls with different vegetables, frying them to a crisp. They were delicious, bursting with flavor, and I had to stop myself from eating all he had and instead start driving to make it to Oboke by nightfall, a small town in the Iya valley close to river rapids. On the way, I drove past another wrecked bus, this time more violent than the first. This was a collapse. The debris of a destroyed house lay shattered around the cracked bus, and its windshield read that it had been destined for a city called Kochi. I stood there for a while, trying to piece together what had happened and what could possibly have made it fall in that way, for the building around it to be lying in the mountainside. It looked like a landslide had carried away house, bus and all, and with a chill I was reminded of the sheer force of the mountains I was driving through.

I would recommend Shikoku for a certain kind of traveler. One who’s looking for an adventure (whether it be navigating a surfboard, kayak, river rapid or mountain trail), one who doesn’t just want to check off famous pagodas, bright city lights and well-trodden tourist trails, but who also seeks to discover snapshots of genuine local life seeped in tradition, pilgrimage, epic landscapes and the feeling that they might just be the only person to be stepping foot in a place since a very long time.

Highlights of Shikoku Island

• Spending a night in the traditional thatch roof houses of the Chiiori Trust, in the mountains of the Iya Valley
• Road tripping along the scenic Rte 381, which scales the Shimanto River, one of Japan’s last free flowing waters, with towering mountain cliffs on the other side
• Bathing in the Dogo hot spring in the castle town metropolis of Matsuyama, reported to be the oldest in Japan
• Embarking on a spiritual journey along the 88 Temple Pilgrimage O-Shikoku
• Strolling around Takamatu’s Ritsurin Gardens, lauded as the best gardens in the country for its delicate bridges, ponds, streams and impeccably manicured trees and tea houses
• For the adventurous outdoors, hiking up Mt Ishizuchi, one of the highest peaks in West Japan, or rafting along the Iya Valley rapids