Travel Blog-Day 6

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

Day 6: Patna-Bodhgaya

Left Patna at 6am.  It was a very interesting and good day.  The tourist office wasn’t open, so I had to buy the ticket in the Indian way.  Standing in interminable lines, hoping I got the right forms and was asking the right questions.  Well, it was easy enough.  I got a lot of help from people.  They were very kind.  I got the ticket, got on the train, and got to Gaya.  Arriving at Gaya, I was met by the usual touts, the rickshaw wallahs wanting to take me to Bohdgaya.  Of course they knew I was going to Bodhgaya, there’s no reason on earth anyone would come to Gaya except to go through it in order to get to Bodhgaya.

I shared an auto rickshaw with a Tibetan monk who was also on his way to Bodhgaya.  When we got to Bodhgaya, the auto rickshaw driver took me to a hotel where he would get a commission.  A man stopped on his motorbike and asked where I wanted to go.  I told him Mohamed’s Guest House, which was the recommendation in Rough Guide.  The description said, “You will have the opportunity to live in an actual Indian village.”  I had forgotten and Indian village is a cesspool.  Also, it turned out the guy on the motorbike was another tout named Kumar Ashok.  He wouldn’t leave me alone.  I really got the impression he was stalking me.  He went with me to the Mahabodhi Temple, the place of Enlightenment of the Buddha.  He wouldn’t leave.  A young Indian Buddhist monk, or at least a guy dressed as a monk, started talking to me.  A fat, old Thai nun dressed all in white started yelling at him and he took off.  The nun told me to beware of people like him; they simply dress like monks and then try to get money from tourists.  I told her not to worry.  She also told me, with him sitting right there, that this Kumar guy was a bad man.  He didn’t say a word.  Well, I finally ditched Kumar and walked around a bit.  I had lunch at the Hotel Sugat.  It was the first good meal I had since I’d been here.  The problem was, I had eaten so little since I left home and felt so queasy I could barely eat.  I took 2 spoonfuls of dopiaza and rice and one chapatti.  I couldn’t eat anymore.  I left more than ¾’s of the food there.  The wait staff must’ve thought I was crazy.  I went back to the “guest house” and slept until the next day.