Blogs from Lumbini, Nepal, Asia - page 2

Day 40 Varanasi to Lumbini (12th Aug) So today was another early start, as we have a border crossing into Nepal. We are all ready for a change now, too. Hoping for a bit of R&R in Nepal. So as we were about to leave Varanasi at 0700, LJ (our tour leader, for those who forgot) jumps onto the coach and in the space of less than 2 minutes, informs us that he has a family emergency and will be leaving us today, we will be met at the Nepal border by our Nepal Guide and have to otherwise manage by ourselves in Nepal, that Ozbus will be in touch with us, nice to meet you and goodbye. It was so sudden that everyone was in shock. We all sort of looked at each other as ... read more

Xmas Day was an early start as we had several hours drive to the Nepal border. We crossed at Sounali then styaed in Lumbini that night. Great trip through the countryside, but fairly slow as usual- its difficult to get up to 40km per hour, with the state of the back roads, the number of villages to go through (every few kilometres, and the ever present buffalo, goats etc on gthe roads (not to mention the fact that even onb the highways, no one turns a hair if someone drives down the road on the wrong side - its sometimes just the quickest way to get through!...Anyway, we just love all of this, particularly the country roads...and it was clear that hardly anyone seems to use the roads we were on, because we didn't see a ... read more

We got a night train from Varanasi to Gorakpur (north India, on our way to the boader with Nepal). The people in Varanasi train station must have know we were to be leaving India because they pulled out all the stops to give us an extra 'special' send off......late train, begging by the poorliest children we've ever seen, so much staring, drunks, people wanting photos of us, constant ''hello, where are you from?''.....we were even sketched by somone. We were warn out afterwards! 3 hour chicken bus north from Gorakpur to Sunauli, the boarder town between India and Nepal. It's like a big truck stop so we didn't linger. Got stamped out of India by the arrogant, sour faced Indian Immigration Officials and then stamped into Nepal by the smiling, welcoming Nepalese Immigration Officials......we liked Nepal ... read more

A knock on the door awoke us around midnight. Myself and my roommate both being slightly anxious about opening a door to some random knocker in the middle of the night, hid behind the toilet door for protection (it seemed a good idea at the time) as we called out asking who it was. It was Javed our tour leader, calling an emergency meeting. We instinctively thought we were in trouble, and were about to be told off and kicked off the tour in front of the whole group - how humiliating! Lucky for us we weren't busted for some unfortunate travel crime, instead we were told Maoist rebels had called a strike in our area and we had to get out straight away. We packed in record time and within 15 minutes we were in ... read more

Hello everyone, sorry it's been such a long time since I blogged last. I have been very busy and moving around a lot and it has been hard to find places with the internet. Lumbini was a very spiritual place for Buddhists as Lord Buddha was born there. The city contain lots of Temples and monestaries from different countries around the world. I didn't have enough time to see them all, but I did manage to see the Mayanmar (Burma) temple, Korean, Japanese, German, French and Thai temples. It was very interesting and extremely beautiful. I stayed in a guest house in a little village outside of the main city. The owner was very hospitable and cook me dinner. A traditional Nepalese dinner is called a Thali. This contains a little rice, dhal (lentils), veg, lime ... read more