Blogs from Patna, Bihar, India, Asia

In the recent past, I had missed Patna's development track. Last visit was in January 2016. I was looking forward to a newer Patna. Lovely to see that the traffic system has improved. There are traffic lights working everywhere. Traffic police was active. The airport is getting more organized. Amazed to see that people accepted the changes as well. Amazed to see the new museum. It's the biggest museum in this part of the world and has the caliber of Asia level. The Sanjay Gandhi zoological and botanical garden was ever well maintained. There is a new park also which has started new Patna Sachivalay. The park is well maintained and is very clean. Definitely more such parks are needed and surely it will come. There were new restaurants which had also opened in almost all ... read more

We finally made it to the Birgunj/Raxoul (Nepal/Indian) border crossing after about 10 long hours of riding in our taxi. Our driver had no idea what the protocol was when it came to exiting/entering countries. He drove us straight through the border and past both visa stations. Once we finally got him to understand what we needed to do,(ie. actually present our selves to the officials who handle Passport, Customs, Immigration control, both on the exiting of Nepal and the entering of India). It is never advisable to run a border between two countries the way our driver casually did. We had to turn around and attempt to cross the border back into Nepal unnoticed. This had us a little concerned, but we made it through with no problems. Once we got our passports properly stamped ... read more

It's decided Patna is the Milton Keynes of India. As a city it seems to exist only for itself, it's got nothing to appeal to an outsider there are only a handful of restaurant and no cafes. (I wanted to sit somewhere cool and just have a drink, I had to settle for a burger bar in a weathered shopping mall) It seems to hate pedestrians, not unusual in an Indian city but in a very Milton Keynesian way; the roads are all straight and long, intersecting at crossroads, with no pedestrian crossing points. At the weekends the roads go similarly dead and quiet, not as dead of course, even a Cotswold hamlet musters up more activity than Milton Keynes. There is absolutly nothing to see as a tourist (I was warned of this, but I ... read more

When travelers in India think about Buddha they mostly think about Bodhgaya, where he became enlightened... But he spent a lot more time in India than just getting enlightened in Bodhgaya... For instance he also died here, on his way back home... And so I decided to take a look at some of the other places of significance in Buddha's life... First stop, Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh, this is where Buddha died and amazingly for a place where such an important event took place, hardly anybody seems to visit it... I was the only western tourist around, and most people seemed surprised to see me... Kushinagar is a nice and small village with quite a few Buddhist monasteries, a crumbling stupa said to be the place where Buddha was cremated and a beautiful golden deathbed statue ... read more

The bathroom here poses a bit of a safety hazard. Not only is the power point for the geyser directly opposite the shower, leading to a potential water/electricity interface, but the cord hangs over the squat toilet, leading to a potential McCabe throat/cord interface while I'm taking a leak. The Indian Rail website was still awash in a sea of wait-listed seats, so I decided to try directly at the station using my foreign charms. A bit of grovelling at the reservations manager's office seemed to produce the desired effect - even though I had a wait-listed ticket, he assured me he would make sure I got a seat. I exited while tugging my forelock. There doesn't appear to be much to see in Patna. I saw no other foreigners while I was walking around, and ... read more