Birthplace of Buddha

Next stop: Lumbini, Nepal.

After Chitwan, we travelled by local bus to the historical birthplace of Prince Siddhartha Gautama, who would later achieve enlightenment and become the Buddha. I visited the pond where his mother bathed before stumbling a few steps, grabbing a sal tree branch, and giving birth to a child who as a man shaped a good portion of the modern world with his teachings of the Middle Way.

This was an interesting sidetrip for us. Not many tourists come here. It's more of a place for pilgrims. The sparse accommodations in the little town nearby are very shoddy and dirty -- obviously more for the use of poor pilgrims rather than Western tourists. Still, we managed to get a decent room at the nicest of the cheapies in town. It had stunning views out over the rice paddies behind the village.

A large area around Buddha's actual birthplace has been set aside to preserve its woodland aspect, and quite a few countries have built their own monasteries and temples within this zone. It made for a great place to rent bikes and ride around -- no traffic and no hills. The forests also provide refuge for an interesting endangered mammal, the blue bull (boselaphus tragocamelus). Sarah's sharp eyes spotted several of these weird deerlike animals in amongst the trees. Just north of the protected area is a second protected area, set aside as a refuge by the government of Japan. It provides habitat for the critically endangered Sarus Crane -- there are few of these birds left in the wild. We managed to find three during our time there. They are bigger than a Sandhill Crane with a red head. Amazing! Sarah also found a great path for a run, so I spent a little time looking around for other birds and wasn't disappointed: new ones included Chestnut-bellied Nuthatch, Gray-capped Pygmy Woodpecker, Black Bittern, and Asian Koel.

Because of the lack of tourists in this area, we received a lot of stares (including a guy who took a picture of us). This turned out to be good practice for India, as you'll find out in the next blog. Overall though, it was a nice quiet place for walks and countryside. We had a rather magical experience one night during a walk outside of the village when all of the trees along the road were filled with thousands of twinkling fireflies. It was simply beautiful.