We arrived in Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha, yesterday after about eleven hours in the minibus. It was interesting crossing the Nepalese border. One of my companions told me that they make bugger all in Nepal and have to get most stuff sent from India. Well, the queue of lorries on the Indian side was unimaginably long. Miles and miles. Most of the lorries had no drivers in them and I guess they must be stuck there for days on end. I hope Brexit doesn't turn out like that!
The driver of our minibus has, apparently, a very good job as far as jobs go around these parts, but you'd have to be a tough guy to drive on a journey like that. He was driving in the dark for the last couple of hours and the roads were often poor, and the traffic, of course, murderous. Even if I could drive, I wouldn't drive at night here. No way.
On the way, we stopped for a while at Kapilvastu, which was the capital of the Sakya in the long ago, and the place where the Buddha was probably brought up. There was another lovely park there with the odd stupa ruins, and two very nice looking ponds with some kind of pink lotus-like flowers growing.
I thought there was nothing much in Lumbini, but I'm so out of date. There's a huge park with temples from all over. Eric, our main man, says the foreign buddhists were given free land to build their temples and there are, apparently, a lot of them in the complex. But I did not see them. After the recitation and meditation we do in these places, I just found a tree to sit under and stayed there till about three in the afternoon. Then I tried to get back out of the park without getting lost, which I managed. A tuk tuk took me back to the Zambala |Hotel.
On the road here, the fields seemed to be used for grain growing, but the stubble is set on fire and that can't help the pollution. Someone said they saw a blue sky today, but I'm not convinced it was a proper blue sky. I looked at the moon tonight and it was a sliver of redness. Still can't believe how polluted this country is.
When I was doing tai chi this morning with Hannah, she spotted a crane sitting on a leafless, stump of a tree, and it looked positively prehistoric.
Before Lumbini we we in Shravasti, a place where the Buddha spent twenty four years during the rainy season. Another inspiring place with a very nice park and lots of archaeological stuff. Mainly what they seem to have unearthed in these places are composed of red brick. You had to pay 300 rupees to get into the park, but in the evening (we usually do two pujas a day) we went to a famous ruined stupa up the road. It grew dark and the man had to ask us to leave.
Despite all the travelling, I'm managing to do at least four hours of meditations a day. I've had a single seat in the minibus all along so far (It hasn't a safety belt so I don't feel guilty) and I've managed to get into a half lotus, so the journeys have been fine. In the mornings on the bus, I've usually started with two hours meditating and half an hour dozing.
Tomorrow we're heading for Kushnigar. Cool to be in Lumbini during Armistice Day. This trip has been great so far. Really inspiring and the folk have all been really, really nice although, of course, they have trouble with my accent. Most of them have some English.
The driver of our minibus has, apparently, a very good job as far as jobs go around these parts, but you'd have to be a tough guy to drive on a journey like that. He was driving in the dark for the last couple of hours and the roads were often poor, and the traffic, of course, murderous. Even if I could drive, I wouldn't drive at night here. No way.
On the way, we stopped for a while at Kapilvastu, which was the capital of the Sakya in the long ago, and the place where the Buddha was probably brought up. There was another lovely park there with the odd stupa ruins, and two very nice looking ponds with some kind of pink lotus-like flowers growing.
I thought there was nothing much in Lumbini, but I'm so out of date. There's a huge park with temples from all over. Eric, our main man, says the foreign buddhists were given free land to build their temples and there are, apparently, a lot of them in the complex. But I did not see them. After the recitation and meditation we do in these places, I just found a tree to sit under and stayed there till about three in the afternoon. Then I tried to get back out of the park without getting lost, which I managed. A tuk tuk took me back to the Zambala |Hotel.
On the road here, the fields seemed to be used for grain growing, but the stubble is set on fire and that can't help the pollution. Someone said they saw a blue sky today, but I'm not convinced it was a proper blue sky. I looked at the moon tonight and it was a sliver of redness. Still can't believe how polluted this country is.
When I was doing tai chi this morning with Hannah, she spotted a crane sitting on a leafless, stump of a tree, and it looked positively prehistoric.
Before Lumbini we we in Shravasti, a place where the Buddha spent twenty four years during the rainy season. Another inspiring place with a very nice park and lots of archaeological stuff. Mainly what they seem to have unearthed in these places are composed of red brick. You had to pay 300 rupees to get into the park, but in the evening (we usually do two pujas a day) we went to a famous ruined stupa up the road. It grew dark and the man had to ask us to leave.
Despite all the travelling, I'm managing to do at least four hours of meditations a day. I've had a single seat in the minibus all along so far (It hasn't a safety belt so I don't feel guilty) and I've managed to get into a half lotus, so the journeys have been fine. In the mornings on the bus, I've usually started with two hours meditating and half an hour dozing.
Tomorrow we're heading for Kushnigar. Cool to be in Lumbini during Armistice Day. This trip has been great so far. Really inspiring and the folk have all been really, really nice although, of course, they have trouble with my accent. Most of them have some English.
I say!
ReplyDeleteTwenty four years of a rainy season is a long rainy season!
MM III
Why doesn't the photies appear from the phone to the computery thing then?
ReplyDelete