Lumbini, bandipur and Besisahar

After we were dismissed from our schools, we decided not to kill time in the house, and instead head out on part one of our adventure to the unknown. Round 1: Lumbini-birth place of Buddha. After 9 hours on a series of 3 hot hot hot Nepali buses we got down to the terai (flat part of Nepal) and boy they aren't lying. One thing i have learnt out there is that things aren't done by halves. When they say hills, they mean mountains, when they say flat, they mean that on a clear day you can see a good 30 km! We hopped off the bus and wandered over to The Lumbini village lodge, a nice place, although hundreds of mosquitoes (thank god for malaria tablets and executive mosquito net) and in Sarah's case..... bed bugs. Lumbini was nice enough within the walls of the sacred garden and Monastic zones. Really chilled and to be honest i could have sat under the bodhi trees all day next to the monks and various other repeating the mantras continuously. On the first day we went to the Mayadevi temple, which enshrines the exact spot of Lord Buddhas birth, pinpointed by a marker stone housed in bullet proof glass. the wall next to it is covered in gold leaf left by pilgrims. We spent a long time just sitting doing not very much. Apart from anything else it was just too hot. A good 40degrees in the midday sun. On the second day we hired bikes to cycle around the monasteries that are dispersed pretty few and far between. Most of them are still in the process of being built and Lumbini as a sight is pretty shabby, just every now and then with these great beautiful structures rising out of the ground. On the most beautiful was the Chinese Monastery, which apart from the Nepalese one looked to be the only completed one in the West monastic zone. Opposite however was being built the most enormous Korean Monastery, whcih at the moment is still a concrete monstrosity. I think i'm going to have to come back in 10 years and see how it looks! Other than them the Nepalese and Royal Thai Monasteries were the most impressive, the royal thai being made completely white marble. (I dont have a picture of it as my camera is currently up the mountain and Ed went back early so has no pictures on his camera card.)

Our next stop on the magical mystery tour was Bandipur, a defection free zone by it's own admission. The town is a typical traditional Nepali town, however Unicef have stepped in to save it from becoming over ridden by pollution and litter and so now it is remarkably clean! And absolutely beautiful. We had a nice time there visiting the cave, an old haunt for tigers apparently! A bit of a tour around the temples, playing giant chess whilst drinking mugs of black tea, and going on adventure to a random tree in a skirt and flip flops. This happened because magnus and sarah had gone on an adventure once we had got back from the cave and had discovered a huge rock that if you stand on it you get a 360 degree panorama of the surrounding valley (on a clear day). Just down from this rock was a large tree. We were told flip flops were suitable attire. Lets just say the flip flops came off and the inner 7 year old tomboy was released once again when a spot of rock climbing (yes in a skirt) took place. I enjoyed it a little more that i let on at the time!

Back down the hill to Dumre and a trip to Besi to see Pip, Will and Fe. It was nice to spend some time with them, see where they lived and go chill down next to the river. Again i have some photos, but Ed doesn't so hold on 2 days!

And that took up pretty much 1 week, back to Gorkha for the last couple of days before we set off to Pokhara for our next adventure.......!