Blogs from Lumbini, Nepal, Asia - page 3

Arrived in Lumbini refreshed and ready for our next adventure. Well we certainly got that! Left Pokhara early and took yet another tourist bus (yeah, right, wheels hanging off and full of locals) to Lumbini. It took around 7 hours but we are hardcore now and have arses made of steel and so those 7 hours were a breeze! Except that we had been assigned 2 very small seats with minimal leg room for me let alone Tony, and we also had to share our limited space with the bus staff who perched themslves on the rail in front (on our laps). It was cosy to say the least! Anyway we arrived in town 22km outside of Lumbini and were rushed off the bus and onto another 'tourist bus'. The fare was reasonable, although Tony misunderstood ... read more

Lumbini is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Kapilavastu district of Nepal, near the Indian border. It is the place where Queen Mayadevi is said to have given birth to Siddhartha Gautama, who was also known as the Gautama Buddha, gave birth to the Buddhist tradition. Everything was easy, after arriving at the Nepali border post. I was given the visa and sufficient days to travel in Nepal. Having obtained the visa, I went to a local tea shop a couple of metres away from the border post. A little girl was serving tea from the pot. As soon as I finished two cups of tea, I realised that I need to get some Nepali notes to pay for the tea. I did not have a single coin in my pocket. The girl did not mind ... read more

So, next we went south- right down south to just a few kilometres from the Indian border. As you can probably imagine, it was BOILING hot!!! I don't know how people in India can stand it! Most people who I had spoken to had said that Lumbini is a fairly empty and non-descript place, which I guess in one way is quite true. The village itself is just like any other village, and there's really not much to point it out as being the birthplace of Buddha. The main attraction in Lumbini is 'The Sacred Garden', an area that has been renovated to commemorate the exact birthplace of Gautama the Buddha. As a garden, it is very beautiful, quiet and well-kept; but the feature that I enjoyed about it the most was it's symbolic significance. In ... read more

We are now in Nepal and have been for over a week now. Our final days in India were well spent although with perhaps a little too much time spent on public transport. Delhi was interesting and amusing to see McDonalds selling Maharaja Macs which we had to try and ended up being a curried chicken burger and altogether not too bad. Delhi, suprisingly was nothing like Calcutta with top brand names appearing on every other street and no way near as much dirt and poverty. Our stay however was swift so we didn't get a chance to really get a feel for the capital. Our final stop before crossing the border was Kushinigar, a quiet spot to the east of Gorakhpur where Buddha is supposedly to have died. Not much was here except a number ... read more

Well hello everyone! After nearly 7 weeks it has been so good to contact people and catch up with what has been going on back home. I cannot explain how wonderful my experience was on the project in Jharkhand and will start a seperate blog entry which i will update when i can about my experiences there, but to do all that now would take too long so i will pick up the adventure from the 18th March, the day i left the project. I got up, as usual, at 5.30, finished packing and my taxi came to get me around 7am to take me to Jasidith, the nearest train station at 4 hours drive away! Some of the kids from my class came to school early to see me off which was very touching and ... read more