2012 / India & Nepal / Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Lumbini

I wasn't keen on blogging about India this soooon because I have like 600 photos of places I don't remember their significance of :( Honestly... after a while, all the places begin to look like one another. On my own part I was not interested too oops. But, I got down to editing the photos anyway because there are only so many things you can do on the Internet before you get bored.

It was a pilgrimage btw.

And the skies in the following photos are not overexposed - there's just no sun. (Does this make sense?) It was misty everyday.

@ Bodhgaya, Bihar:

The only plane at the Gaya airport was the one I came from. 3h flight to Bangkok > 2h wait > 3h flight to Gaya and it was already 4.30PM according to Singapore time but (no) thanks to different time zones, it was only ~2PM in India after that long journey!? Luckily I slept throughout that 8h because I didn't sleep the night before.

This is the Mahabodhi Temple where Buddha gained enlightenment. We came here immediately after leaving the airport because it was on the way to the Burmese monastery.

Still at the Mahabodhi Temple, but this is on our second day in India.

Crowded as you can see ~~~

This is the hill on which Buddha meditated for a week.

This photo was actually taken on the last day when we went to the Mahabodhi Temple for the last time. but a chronological order would break the flow of things. Anyway, this is the Bodhi tree under which Buddha gained enlightenment.

This is a Japanese temple.

This must be the ruins of a palace...??? I don't know whose palace it was, but it was somebody's palace lol.

On the third morning we hiked up to this mountain/cave. This was where Buddha meditated for six years without food and all. Uhm dhukkastriya? Idk how to spell it man.

Had to get in through that small door/@ Varanasi, Uttar PradeshThe next town after Bodhgaya where we spent a night at. It was a 5-6h drive I think?

I think this was where Buddha's five disciples thought he had given up and left him. Something along those lines.

@ Sarnath where Buddha gave his first teachings? 

Inscriptions on the remains of a Asoka pillar

Say hello to Indian traffic, where everybody drives in every direction in every lane and drivers honk like free just to notify other drivers/people of their cars' presence.

This is Ramnagar Fort!!! Thanks Wikipedia.

The blue sky looks fake because it is fake. It's my lens filter.

Sunset over Ganges RiverAgain, the sky wasn't entirely real... the orange was my filter too. BUT!!! The sunset was really, really beautiful in real life and I couldn't capture that./@ Sravasti, Uttar Pradesh

Where Buddha gave his teachings

/

@ Lumbini, Nepal

Out of India to Buddha's birthplace!

A shop in India near the border

This is the gate through which Buddha left his worldly life. That's what the description on the board there said.

Where Buddha was bornSorry the photos are dark because it was dark. It was almost sunset la. /@ Kushinagar, Uttar PradeshWhere Buddha passed away... I can't rmb which site though :(

/

@ Patna, Bihar

Look at all that mist!!!! Can you imagine how cold it was :(

One of the Asoka pillars

Remains of Buddha

How our room at the monastery in Patna looked like! And it was pretty much the same for all the other Burmese monasteries we stayed at. Bed, thin mattress-like thing, mosquito net... that's what all the wires and strings in the air are for. Yea.On this note, I would also like to add that I ate Burmese food for every meal in India. And in Nepal too.And lol my mother's face 

/@ Rajgir, BiharDidn't stay here for the night though. We just passed through this town and stopped at wherever we had to. 

Nalanda University from Before Christ!?  

/

@ Bodhgaya, Bihar

Back to Bodhgaya after one big round~

/

• Most of the time was spent travelling rather than at the places themselves. Crazy five-hour bumpy rides... I almost broke my head from hitting it against the window so many times. 
• Felt like Myanmar in India because the tourists/visitors to these places of worship are mostly from Myanmar and Thailand. Plus, we stayed at Burmese monasteries and ate Burmese food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Damn it felt weird speaking English again when I met Ollie yesterday.
• IT WAS MOTHEREFFING COLD?!?!?!?!? It got colder everyday as we got nearer and nearer to Nepal, and Nepal was the COLDEST of them all. Like duh, Mt Everest is there. It got warmer as we went further and further away from Nepal, but Bodhgaya seemed to have gotten colder when we returned there. 8 degrees on the day we left, and Bodhgaya was the warmest town of them all. 
• Rather inappropriate time to say this but DAMN I want to curse whoever the fuck invented the water rationing water heating system. Stop doing that!!! In Kushinagar, there was hot water so I was finally going to shower after some 4-5 days. Initially, the hot water is SO DAMN HOT you could freaking cook instant noodles. After that minute of scalding hot water, all the rest of the water was cold. Like, ice cold cold, not even like Singapore's room temperature water cold. The second last thing I want to do in that cold place is to be naked (the last thing being showering with cold water). Ugh. Worse still, that was my second experience with this stupid shitass of a system that doesn't come with a warning!!! :( Last year in Sapa, Vietnam I had to shower with cold water and after showering, I wanted to clean up the mess I made in the bathtub and god damn it, there was hot water. !@#$%^&*()
• In Varanasi, we saw a urinal out in the open and people just peed in the public. That was rather... disturbing.
• While walking on the streets of India,  I couldn't decide if I should look at the crazy traffic for fear of my dear life or at the ground for fear of stepping on animal waste...
• Indian mango juice is really nice.