Day 90 – Bus to Lumbini, the Birthplace of BUDDHA!

After saying good bye sadly to half of our group we joined our new group and this time the brits were definitely outnumbered by the Ozzies!! Joining us were 3 girls and a guy from Oz and a cool couple from South Africa .

The roads were similar to before, dry, dirty and poverty stricken as we headed closer and closer to the border with India. Going to see the birthplace of Buddha was quite an experience and a real privilege to make it here. Beautiful temples dotted the landscape around and we learned of how his mother had given birth to him under a famous tree (I think!) that was now a shrine of coloured bunting and flowers. Locals sat praying cross legged under trees around…. We saw the outline of where he had rested as a baby, carefully under lock and key in a glass cabinet. Yet another additional experience that we may have missed if not been on the trip and this particular route.

Heading out of the museum a scruffy bare footed young girl no older than 5 or 6, looking tired and covered in mud continually begged and begged to mum and Ian and wouldn't leave them alone as we walked, it really was so sad to see… We then got to our hotel which by all accounts, considering we were only a few metres from the border was actually really nice . The new part of the group was in high spirits as they were just starting their trip but the rest of us were exhausted!! As two of the girls explored the streets on a cyclo, we looked at a few side shops in the dusty streets, then after realising this really was a yukky border town, went to rest. What was amazing though was the hundreds and hundreds of lorries all lining up for hours and hours to the border, it was incredible to see, we just hoped that we wouldn’t be sitting in that queue in the morning!!! Krish informed us later it would be much quicker to walk over the border and get our bags taken across in cyclos, phew!! We would be really sad to leave Krish, he had been the most amazing guide and friend too, we just hoped that our new Indian guide would be just like him!!

That night we slept awaiting the prospect of INDIA in the morning……