Lumbini

Lumbini is the birthplace of the most recent incarnation of Buddha, Siddartha.  The humid, garden city is located about 300km west of Kathmandu, in the plains area of Nepal.  Lumbini's main complex is a long, rectangular waterway, surrounded by roads that connect all the monasteries.  There are maybe 15-20 large and small monasteries from different Buddhist countries around the world.

I got to enjoy a sickening bus ride through the mountains for 10 hours.  It's a very slow and jerky ride, sometimes with terrifyingly close calls to the edge when another vehicle is coming the other way.  The bus stopped a couple hours in at a random lunch stop with all the other buses.  There was actually a pretty awesome buffet lunch for a cheap price.  It was a few more hours through the mountainous terrain, and by this time I was feeling pretty sick.  I get motion sick fairly easily in vehicles, expecially buses lurching through curvy roads.  Eventually the road straightened out and we were in a much flatter terrain.  It was also noticeably hotter and humid.  The bus stopped on the middle of the highway to let everyone out into the bush for a bathroom break.  This is how it's done here.

Good times.

The bus arrived in hot and sweaty Lumbini after 10 hours driving, in the late afternoon.  We were dropped at the gate to the actual garden, so there was still a bit of a walk into the main complex.  It looked small on my map, but I wasn't to be fooled by distances in Nepal anymore.  It took about an hour to walk in and secure a room in one of the monasteries.  I went with the Korean temple, as another volunteer friend had stayed there before and had good things to say.

Korean Monastery

At first I thought they gave us costumes for some reason and was really excited...

then I realized they were mosquito nets and I was even more excited.

The room was actually quite large - I stayed in a common dorm room with three other girls, sleeping on the floor.  It was like an exciting sleepover where no one spoke the same language.  We had three amazing vegetarian meals a day, and even drank tea in the heat.

In the morning the bell rang at 5:45am for breakfast.  We went down for more rice and vegetables, then I hit the trail right away, knowing it would just get more hot and humid as the day went on.  First stop was about 15 minutes south, to the Maya Devi temple and garden, the very place the most recent Buddha was born.  The main site is about 2500 years old.  No photos were allowed in the temple itself.  Other sites within the Lumbini complex are said to be places where previous Buddhas achieved enlightenment.  It is a very peaceful place.

I wandered out of the inner complex and into the town of Lumbini.  There's not much there, and all the businesses are there to cater to the tourists and pilgrims coming to visit.  I was able to secure a bike rental for the day, so I'd be able to go up and down the area much quicker in the heat.

Outskirts

Bikes!

I biked around the west monastic side and east monastic side and saw pretty much all the monasteries.  The bike was a very good idea.  Distances in Nepal are always deceiving.  The monasteries vary from very basic to the extravagant, and they are all stunningly beautiful.  You see many monks going about their daily duties, and the young novice monks will say hello.

  

After lunch (it was about 37 degrees with humidity at this time) I figured it was only going to get hotter into the afternoon, and there would be even more mosquitoes if I waited until the sun went down a little, so I rode north a few kilometres and visited another World Peace Pagoda, the Lumbini museum, and rode along the crane sanctuary.

I got back in time to have dinner outside with everyone, while mosquitoes ate our ankles.

Now because nothing in Nepal is simple, I decided I really, really, really didn't want to take the sickening 10 hour bus ride back home only two days after the first, so I decided to get a flight back to the city.  The man who ran the travel agency and hotel in the town offered to drive me to the airport, which is one town over.  So, the next morning I walked back into town and hopped in a car with an entire family I had just met, and they kindly drove me into Bhairawa.  We hit a huge traffic jam and found out that two motorcyclists had been crushed between two buses when they tried to fit in between on the tiny bridge.  It was a pretty grim scene.

We arrived at the one plane airport with 20 minutes to spare before the flight, but as it turned out it was delayed by an hour anyway.  I was still very grateful not to be on that bus, and also wasn't really feeling well anyway.  It was a 35 minute flight back to Kathmandu, and was unfortunately very foggy and turbulent.  I'm always weirdly happy when I arrive back in this city.