Travel Blog-Day 17

This is a blog about my 36-day trip through Nepal, India, and a little bit of China.  I’ll make one post roughly every week until it’s all finished.

Day 17: Lumbini

I start the day quite early.  The Lumbini Pilgrimage Park opens at 6:00am.  I get a bike from the lodge owner.

I ride into the park and go to the Mahadevi temple.  The Asoka pillar is right next to the temple.  To the north of the temple is the pond, now a tank, where Mahadevi supposedly bathed before giving birth to the Buddha.  North of the pond/tank is a Bohdi tree.  This is not the tree underneath which the Buddha was but, but it appears to be highly revered.

I go into the Mahadevi Temple.  It actually is an excavations site.  The excavation appears to be ongoing.  At one point in the middle of the temple, there is a stone, which marks, supposedly, the exact spot where the Buddha was born.   Whether this is true or not, the place is very moving.  The brick wall next to the stone is covered with gold leaf people have rubbed on it.  This appears to be standard practice.  I saw this in Bodhgaya, Sarnath (for the first time), and Kushinigar.  This was the only place in Lumbini I saw it.

I ride for a while, but it’s incredibly muddy.  I decide to take the bike back, since it’s easier to walk, and the distances aren’t as bad as the guidebook says.  In the meantime though, the gate has been locked (for security reasons).  People can pass through, but nothing else.  I find a guy who helps me out by lifting the bike on one side of the fence while I grab it from the other.

After returning the bike, I go back into the park.  I find that the map in the guide isn’t really quite accurate.  The park is divided into two sections by a canal.  At one end of the canal is an eternal flame; at the other is the Lumbini Museum.  Starting from the eternal flame, the left side of the canal has the Mahayana temples and monasteries.  On the right side of the canal are the Theravada temples and monasteries.  I decide to visit the Mahayana side today and the Theravada side tomorrow.

I walk by the Panditarama International Vipassana Meditation Centre.  Unless one is staying there on a retreat it’s closed.  It does look like a good place for a retreat.   I turn left and left again onto a dirt road, its monsoon so the “dirt” road is actually a mud road.  I go into the Drubgyud Chöling Gompa.  It’s a very beautiful gompa.  A Nepali man sweeping the place let’s me walk around and take photos.  He has me buy a butter lamp for 10rs.  Right next to the gompa, they’re building a stupa.  It looks as if it’s almost finished, but you never know here.  The stupa is quite big and imposing; when it’s finished it will be immense.  I go back out on the mud road and walkabout 50 meters to the Manang Samaj Gompa.  It has a beautiful, huge chörten, but unfortunately, the gate is closed.

I walk back out to the main road, there’s this huge complex that looks unfinished, but usable.  It is completely cement, no color at all and dominates everything around it.  Before I get there, I see the Zhong Hua Chinese Buddhist Monastery.  There’s a great deal of construction going on.  I turn down an even muddier road and ask the construction workers if I can walk through the construction yard to look around.  They say sure.  It’s really muddy.  I can barely get around.  After about ½ hour of this, I work my way around the entire complex to the front.  It seems if I had walked about 25 more meters I would’ve come to the entrance, which is a paved road, no mud!  The temple itself is very beautiful, but the statue inside is comical.  It’s the fat Budai, the Chinese folkloric deity normally associated with Maitreya Buddha, found in Chinese fast food joints in New York.  It is covered in gold and is quite big, but still it’s comical.

Across the road is the giant cement complex I mentioned before.  This is the Korean Buddhist Temple.  I go inside and find it’s very, very beautiful.  A nun is chanting and beating a rhythm on a wooden block.  There’s a Korean woman doing prostrations.  Other than the three of us, no one is there.  This is it.  I grab a cushion and decide to sit down and meditate.  I’m smelly, sweaty and covered in mud.  I try to clean off the mud before I sit.  There’s a well with a pump, so I at least get the mud off.  I sit and try to meditate, but I’m listening to the nun chanting.  She’s really good.  It’s very musical.  After awhile, I know I can’t do this, so I get up and leave.  It says there is a ceremony every 5am and 7pm.  I decide to come to the one at 7pm tonight.

Now is when this whole walk gets really dirty.  I see a sign for the Linn Son Temple.  I try to follow the signs and wind up going through a swamp.  I do get to what looks like the front of the monastery and there’s a sign telling me: “Closed Due To Construction”.  I walk back through the swamp to the road.  I follow the road to the main canal, which is empty.  At one point there’s sign again for the Linh Son Temple, but also for the Great Drigung Kagyud Lotus Stupa, the Nepal Temple, and the Sokyo Gompa.  I decide to take this turn.  The swamp to the Linh Son Temple was nothing compared to this.  It begins to drizzle.  It’s not just muddy, it’s a real swamp, to the point where my sandals are being sucked off my feet.  After about 15 minutes of this, I get to a complex of four monasteries surrounded by a lake with a pretty big island in the middle.  Except for the pathway around the lake, which is total mud, the place is actually very clean.  Linh Son Temple is closed on this side too.  The Nepal Temple and the Sokyo Gompa are also closed, but the Great Drigung Kagyud Lotus Stupa makes the trip worthwhile.  It’s a beautiful complex of buildings with a domed temple in the middle.  Tibetan Buddhist Temples are usually rectangular.  I’ve never seen a domed one before.  It seems very strange.  The murals are stunningly beautiful.  The glass has etchings of scenes from the life of the Buddha on them, not stained glass, but rather etchings.  When I first come into the grounds, I take off my sandals, which are covered in mud.  My legs are covered in mud from my knees down, so taking off the sandals really makes no difference.  This place is spotlessly clean.  The guard looks at me and has me go to a pump well and wash.  I get clean and I feel a lot better.

A fountain, when you first walk in, has a statue of a turtle with a wooden yoke around his neck.  This is a reminder of how precious our human lives are.  The Buddha, when asked if a lower realmed being can be reborn as a human, said yes, it was possible, but it was easier for a blind turtle at the bottom of the ocean to come to the surface and by pure chance put his head through a floating, wooden life preserver, than it would be for a lower realmed being to acquire rebirth as a human.

The gompa has two huge prayer wheels on each side.  The entire gompa is very large, very beautiful, and very clean.

I leave, and walk on the mud path around the lake.  I get back to the main road, am filthy again and decide to go to my room and take a shower.

Around 6:00 I go to the Korean Temple for the ceremony.  It starts at 7:00, but I want to meditate a bit before the ceremony.  I get there at 6:25, grab a cushion and sit.  I normally sit in half-lotus.  In Tibetan tradition, one’s left leg is on the bottom and the right leg goes on top.  A Korean monk comes up to me, point at my legs and says change.  I ask what he means; he says that my right leg has to be on the bottom and my left on top.  I pretend not to understand and he leaves.  It is now 6:35.  The ceremony starts.  I guess schedules don’t really matter.  I’m glad I got here early.  It’s a very beautiful, musical ceremony.  It’s over by 6:55.  If I got there at 7:00, I would’ve completely missed it.

A thing I noticed is how, even though everyone is trying to sing in unison or octaves, a great deal of harmony is going on.  Parallel fourths and fifths are common.  At one point everyone hit a first inversion major triad.  It really makes one see and understand how organum developed in Europe during the Medieval period.  Absolutely beautiful!

Mahadevi Temple at the Lumbini Pilgrimage Park

Ashoka Pillar at the Mahadevi Temple at the Lumbini Pilgrimage Park

Pool at the Mahadevi Temple at the Lumbini Pilgrimage Park

Eternal Flame at the Lumbini Pilgrimage Park

Drubgyud Chöling Gompa at the Lumbini Pilgrimage Park

Drubgyud Chöling Gompa at the Lumbini Pilgrimage Park

Korean Temple at the Lumbini Pilgrimage Park

Great Drigung Kagyud Lotus Stupa at the Lumbini Pilgrimage Park

The fountain with the turtle at the Great Drigung Kagyud Lotus Stupa at the Lumbini Pilgrimage Park

Travel Blog-Day 16

This is a blog about my 36-day trip through Nepal, India, and a little bit of China.  I’ll make one post roughly every week until it’s all finished.

Day 16: Kushinigar-Gorakhpur, Sonauli, and Lumbini

Woke up at 4:15, showered, meditated, packed my stuff and left the monastery.  The guard at the gate asked me for money to open the gate.  I said no, he shrugged and opened the gate.

I went to the highway right outside the city gate to wait for the bus to Gorakhpur.  Mr. Roy said the first bus was around 6:45.  The time was 5:30.  I figured, I’d just sit and see what happens.  A guy with an auto rickshaw starts talking to me and telling me, there are no busses to Gorakhpur, I have to take his auto rickshaw.  He tells me it’s only 600rs.  The bus is 37rs.  He keeps telling me there is no bus.  At 5:45 a bus stops, I ask if it’s the bus to Gorakhpur, the driver says yes.  As I’m getting in the bus, the auto rickshaw wallah is saying no, this isn’t the bus to Gorakhpur.  I love India, it makes me smile.

There is practically no traffic and the driver is speeding like mad.  We get to Gorakhpur at 7:00.  I walk about 300 meters, find the bus to Sonauli (the Nepalese border), get in the bus and wait.  It finally leaves at 8:00 after they driver packs the bus like a sardine can.  It turns out to be a local bus, making stops everywhere.  It also starts to rain; pour is actually more like it.

A Swedish guy named Zacharias is on the bus.  He says he’s been living in Mumbai for 12 months and trying to break into fashion design. He’s going to Kathmandu.  His sister lives there.

We get to the Indian/Nepalese border.  At this point its not just pouring out, it’s a deluge. Zacharias and I find a cycle rickshaw.  The guy is great; he takes us through Indian customs and waits for us, then through Nepalese customs and waits for us.  He waits for us to change money.  He had asked for 20rs Indian.  We gave him 100rs.  He was with us at least an hour and really helped us out in the pouring rain.

Zacharias and I have lunch and wait for the rain to stop.  I get a cycle rickshaw to the bus station for Lumbini.  I get there and jump on a bus.  The driver is packing it to the stuffing point.  An old lady who is so old or in such pain or both actually crawls onto the bus.  There are no seats left.  She’s standing there stooped over.  Meanwhile the driver is still packing people onto the bus.  I get up to give my seat to the old lady.  She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.  Someone says something to her in Nepali, pointing to the seat.  She points at me, shakes her head no and tries to make me sit.  I get her to take the seat.  The driver is still putting people on the bus.  I can’t breath it’s so packed.  I finally get off.  There’s another bus right behind with no one on it.  The driver from the first bus says I’ll have to wait an hour for it to leave.  The driver from bus B says no, just 10 minutes.  Bus A leaves.  Bus B leaves 10 minutes later and is practically empty.

I get to Lumbini and find a room.  The proprietor of the lodge says they are having a celebration because his 6-month old son is having his first solid food today.  He invites me to the celebration.  The food is excellent.  Home cooked Indian/Nepali food.  It’s just great!  I walk around Lumbini.  Its one street, literally.  At one end is the entrance to the Lumbini Pilgrimage Park at the other the Lumbini Bazaar stops and there is a traditional Nepali village of thatched huts.  It’s very peaceful and quiet.  Everyone is deeply kind.  Lots of water buffalo.  It is a beautiful, quiet, peaceful place.

Ceremonial Bell at the Gateway into the Hinayana Monastery Portion of the Lumbini Pilgrimage Park

Lumbini Village

Sakyapa Monastery in Lumbini

Thai Monastery at Lumbini Pilgrimage Park

Travel Blog-Day 15

This is a blog about my 36-day trip through Nepal, India, and a little bit of China.  I’ll make one post roughly every week until it’s all finished.

Day 15: Kushinigar

I got up at 4:30 again, had trouble sleeping last night.  There is no breeze, so the ceiling fan simply pushes around hot air.  I’ve been drinking sprite like mad.  I usually don’t drink soda at all, but it’s the only thing that is somewhat cooling.  Even the water is hot.

I went to the Mahaparanirvana Temple this morning to hear the Cambodian monks chanting.  It was very beautiful.

I ate a thali at a street side place.  Sort of strange.  The guy asked if I wanted rice and chapatti. I answered yes.  I got a whole bunch of chapatti, but no rice.  When I was finished, the guy’s son asked if I now wanted rice.  I’ve eaten many meals in India; never have I gotten rice after I was done eating.

Sat and talked with Mr. Roy.  He told me how Kushinigar is a magical place.  Sometimes, at the Mahaparanirvana Temple there is a sweet smell in the air that smells like nothing anyone can describe.  He said he’s also seen lights in the air above the temple at night.  It would be beautiful to smell and see these things myself.

Mahaparanirvana Temple

Stupa on the site where the Buddha was cremated, with Nissa in the foreground.

Travel Blog-Day 14

This is a blog about my 36-day trip through Nepal, India, and a little bit of China.  I’ll make one post roughly every week until it’s all finished.

Day 14: Kushinigar

I got up at 4:30, showered and went out.  I walked all over. Kushinigar is basically one street, 2.5 kilometers long in the shape of an upside down “L”.  I went to all the monasteries that were open.  I visited the Mahaparanirvana Temple.  This is the temple where the very famous statue of the Buddha reclining on his deathbed, laying on his right side, is.  It is covered in gold leaf and is 9 meters long.

After I left, two kids started following me, a boy Ranjin and a girl Nissa.  They were very polite and didn’t want anything except to walk with me.    I spent all morning with them.  They went with me to every temple.  Whenever there was any kind of guard at the entrance, they wouldn’t let Ranjin and Nissa in.  I told all the guards they were my friends and I wouldn’t come in if they couldn’t.  The guards let them in.  This show of loyalty seemed to impress the kids, especially Nissa, who is incredibly cute.  The traffic here, while not bad compared to the rest of India, is still heavy with crazies who honk their horns and then would think nothing of running you over.  I kept Nissa and Ranjin on my left side walking down the “sidewalk”.  They seemed to like that someone was caring about their safety.  At the Thai Monastery, an old monk walked out of the front gate and in perfect English started talking to me asking the usual questions, “where are you from”, etc.  He asked if I had eaten, I told him yes, and he said he was going to the temple, but please come into the monastery.  He left, I turned to go into the monastery and an Indian guard wouldn’t let me in.  The guard had seen me talking to the old monk.  I didn’t quite get it.

After we spent the morning together, Nissa and Ranjin left to go home.  They actually wanted nothing.  Meeting them made me miss my son very much.

Walking back to the Chinese monastery, I saw my first elephant on this trip.  He was working at the Thai monastery.  Good looking elephant, too.  Big pink ears, he seemed happy.

Got back to the Chinese monastery, took a nap, went and had a thali for lunch and came back to the monastery.

I sat and had some chai with Mr. Roy.  He’s quite a nice guy and very knowledgeable about the area and Dharma.  He’s originally from Assam, but lived for a long time in Kolkata.  He also taught school for about seven years in Nepal.  A genuinely nice man.

The heat is very oppressive.  It is as if there is a blow dryer on you all the time.  It’s actually not as bad as I remember it in the past, but much worse than the Yucatan Peninsula was last year when I visited with my family.

Reclining Buddha in the Mahaparanirvana Temple

Nissa of Kushinigar

An Elephant Working in Kushinigar

The Wonderful Mr. Roy, proprietor of the Yama Café in Kushinigar

Travel Blog-Day 13

This is a blog about my 36-day trip through Nepal, India, and a little bit of China.  I’ll make one post roughly every week until it’s all finished.

Day 13: Gorakhpur-Kushinigar

Got into Gorakhpur at 9am.  Went to the bus station, which was easy enough, for the trip to Kushinigar.  I was told the busses for Kushinigar were at the end of the road.  Halfway, a bus tout stopped me and asked where I was going.  When I said Kushinigar, he said this was the bus.  I asked “how much”, he looked into the air and said 50rs.  I kept walking.  Got to the end of the bus “station” It’s not really what we in the West would consider a “station”.  It’s a road filled with busses, that’s it!  Well, at the end of the “station” there was the bus for Kushinigar.  It was 37rs.

Instead of a two-hour ride, it really was three hours, because of all the road construction, which seems to be going on everywhere I’ve been.

I get there, I find Café Yama, which Lonely Planet recommends if you need any help or have questions.  A Mr. Roy is the owner.  I walked in, hadn’t slept all night; it’s burning hot.  I must’ve looked horrible.  I asked if he knew anywhere I could stay?  He recommended the Chinese monastery next door.  The Tibetan monastery was being renovated and had nothing.  I went to the Chinese monastery, found a Vietnamese monk (why Vietnamese I don’t know) and got a room.  A pretty good room too.  Other than the Vietnamese monk, I am the only person here.  As far as I can tell, and Mr. Roy thinks this is true, I am the only Westerner in Kushinigar right now.

I had lunch at Café Yama.  Mr. Roy’s wife made Tibetan Thukpa (noodle soup of sorts) for me.  It was the best I’ve ever had.  I went to my room, took a nap, awoke at 7pm, went and had a sprite, came back and went to sleep.

Map of Kushinigar

Thai Stupa at Kushinigar

 

Travel Bog-Day 12

This is a blog about my 36-day trip through Nepal, India, and a little bit of China.  I’ll make one post roughly every week until it’s all finished.

Day 12: Varanasi

Went to Dasaswamehd Ghat at 5:3am.  It was hopping.  The Ganges had completely overflowed because of all the rain.  People were swimming, chanting, and pretty much everything you can think of.  Very interesting.

I went walking down Bengali Tole in Godaulia today and saw Rob from Cambridge.  He wasn’t high.  He didn’t even look at me.  I said “Hi, Rob, do you remember me?”  He answered no.  I told him, that I was the guy who helped him out two days ago, getting him a room, etc.  He said, “Oh, yes, you look familiar, thanks, cheers.” And walked away.

I left Eden Halt tonight at 9:00pm to go to Varanasi Junction, the train station to catch my train to Gorakhpur. My ticket was for the 11:15 train.  I got a cycle rickshaw to the train station.  It started to absolutely pour sheets of rain out of the sky.  My poncho was deep in my backpack.  By the time I got to the train station, I was thoroughly soaked.

The train, like I said, was scheduled for 11:15.  It didn’t show up until 1:00am, and was supposed to arrive at Gorakhpur at 7:30am.  We didn’t get there until 9:00am.

Dasaswamehd Ghat

Dasaswamehd Ghat

Dasaswamehd Ghat

Beautiful Little Girl in Varanasi

Travel Blog-Day 11

This is a blog about my 36-day trip through Nepal, India, and a little bit of China.  I’ll make one post roughly every week until it’s all finished.

Day 11: Varanasi-Sarnath

I got up and went to Sarnath today, the Deer Park, where the Buddha gave his first teaching.  It was different than what I remembered, but then everything seems to be.  There never was admission before, but now there is.  It was very nice to be there.  Except for one Southeast Asian monk, four Thai nuns and two Japanese women, I was the only one there.  There was a slight drizzle, really a gentle mist in the air.  It was not hot.  The experience was very, very wonderful.

Sarnath is about ten to twelve kilometers outside of Varanasi.  I took a cycle rickshaw to get there.  The rickshaw wallah seemed to be quite sick and constantly coughing.  Whenever there was any kind of upward incline he just couldn’t make.  I kept getting out so he didn’t have to cycle so hard.  On the way back, I got another cycle rickshaw.  This guy, even though he appeared older than the first, was singing the whole way back.  It started to pour, it is monsoon season, I put on my poncho and am fine, the rickshaw wallah didn’t seem to care at all.

I went to a music store and was talking to the owner about sitars, Mohan Veenas and stuff.  He kept getting phone calls.  I asked if anything was wrong.  He told me, he was renovating his house and was having trouble with the contractor.  He said they don’t show up on time, telling him what they can’t do, and keep raising the price.  Go figure, contractors are the same everywhere.

Dhamekh Stupa at Sarnath

Monk studying at Sarnath

Dhamekh Stupa at Sarnath