I discovered the birthplace of Lord Buddha wasn’t too far away from where I crossed the border, only about 40 km, so I decided to pay a visit. I made only a short tour of Lumbini, a small village where Lord Buddha was born, taking a few hours to visit the ruins of the ancient village and the stone marking the exact spot of birth and to take a look at some of the temples and monasteries built nearby. It seems just about every school of Buddhism had built (or are in process of building, like the Koreans and Sri Lankans) their own monastery or temple near Lumbini, so I had darshan of half a dozen amazing, beautiful, awe-inspiring temples. I’ll post some photos of them later. I didn’t feel really like being on a pilgrimage in here, as I only took a few hours to see the place and rode around with a rickshaw (it was just too hot to be walking around as the monasteries were spread out a bit apart from each others). I guess I haven’t really transcended the differences between religions as I didn’t feel the same kind of touch on my soul as I would in Badrinath or Vrindavan - or maybe Lumbini just isn’t the place with the strongest energies when it comes to Buddhist pilgrimages. Too bad I didn’t have time to visit Bodh Gaya (place where Buddha became enlightened) in India. Oh well, I’ll check it out the next time I go..
In the afternoon I returned to Siddhartanagar, a bigger town on the main road near Lumbini and spent an hour or two on the ‘net trying to figure out where to go and what to see in Nepal. I ended up going the most likely route - heading from Siddhartanagar to Pokhara, one of the most popular destinations in Nepal. Nepal has a lot of far-away, beautiful countryside and hill sites, but most of them are far-away and off the beaten path because it’s impossible to go there except by walking! I’ll try to find some nice smaller places too, but for now I’ll stick to the main roads and destinations. I ended up staying for the night at Tansen, between Siddhartanagar and Pokhara, as it was getting dark by the time I got off the ride coming to this town. Now it seems I’ll end up staying for another night here too, just because I’m too lazy to pack up everything right after unpacking. I had a good lesson and a nice lila from the Lord - yesterday I made a mistake of eating at a restaurant and recieved some instant karma; a stomach ache in the morning and bad dreams in the night. Learning - or more like re-learning - from this, I unpacked my stuff in the morning when I had planned to go and set up the altar of the Lord properly and went out to get some fruits for offering. Later, after taking the prasad, I decided to take a walk outside, wanting to find out if there’s anything special to see in this town. Walking in a random direction I ended up on the top of a hill, and saw a small temple there. This was actually one of the first temples I see in Nepal, they’re not as common as in India (maybe because many people are Buddhist or Maoist). The temple was actually built right next to a house, being a private shrine of the people living in the house. I went in and asked if I could have darshan, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that the deity inside was none other than Lord Krishna! The people of the house were kind with me, letting me into what appears to be their family shrine and also giving a bit of prasadam to me. After taking the prasadam a jeep drove by and the people inside asked me where I’m going and told me they’d give me a lift - but instead we ended up driving to Srinagar (not the one in Kashmir :), a beautiful and quiet hilltop nearby. After a half an hour of enjoying the fresh air and shanti of of the hilltop with them and taking a little walk in the nearby forests, we returned to the jeep and they dropped me at my guesthouse. The Lord allways fulfills my wishes, I should only learn not to make too much of arrangements of my own and to surrender more. Hare Krishna!
