New Years - Lumbini

So, on the 31st of December 2008, Rick, Giedra and I got up very early and travelled in a van to Lumbini, which is right down south, nearly on the border to India. It is a Holy Site as it is the birthplace of Buddha. The bus left around 7.30am, we arrived at 6pm. It was a long day, but I loved the bus ride. We had lots of supplies (pringles, gummy bears etc...) and it was great company and wonderful scenery. We got held up for about an hour and a half, and it was great timing. It was early afternoon, a bit after lunch, really warm and sunny, and we three sat on the top of the van and watched the traffic mount and the people walk past and just soaked it up. When we arrived we had a 30 minute walk through the compound (where all the monastries and temples are, its a work in progress) to get to our (free!) accommodation...in a Korean Monastry. We arrived just in time for a wonderful dinner of vegetarian korean food with everyone else who was staying. We met our room mate, a girl from China, who we ended up taking with us for some of our adventure the next day. We went to bed very early, the first and last new years where I haven't stayed up till midnight in a while! Breakfast, again delicious, was at 6am, then we four walked out of the compound to the very small villiage to hire bicycles so that we could bike around the compound visiting different monastries and temples. The bikes were wonderfully old fashioned, dangerously ricketty and the best fun in the world (except for the sore bums we all had the next day). I named my bike Phoebe (I hope Phoebe at home isn't offended, the last bike I rode was hers, and the bike reminded me of her lots for some reason...). Our first stop was MayaDevi temple, which is the temple which contains the stone which marks the actual birthplace of Buddha. It was really foggy at this point, all my photos look strangely eerie, but I thought that added to the atmosphere of the place. There were so many prayer flags strung up everywhere, I think they are truely beautiful. I might by some and string them up around the garden, with Mum and Dads permission. Heh. Then we went back to the Korean Monastry for (delious) lunch and got back on our bikes to head to the World Peace Pagoda. On the way we visited the Chinese Monastry. Its interesting to study the design of all these temples...I have only really noticed the differences between the different cultures temples when I saw them all in the one place. The World Peace Pagoda was one of the highlights of my day. It was truely beautiful, it wasn't misty by this time and it was really cool just to slowly wander around the giant white dome feeling...peaceful. (See what I did there??). Then we went back via the Tibetian style German monastry, again a highlight for all its paintings and statues, which gave an incredibly detailed story of Buddhas life. We then returned the bikes and caught a rickshaw back to the Korean Monastry, where we relaxed till dinner, then watched our photos on Ricks computer. The whole day was really cool. Being at such a holy place made me really think about a lot of things on maybe a 'higher' level, I thought about where I was spiritually and what I wanted to achieve over the coming year. It was a wonderful place to start the new year. Today we came back to Kathmandu, my eye was doing funny things the whole way back, I woke up and couldn't open it, its crying gunky stuff and it feels really tender. And it looks like I've been punched. No road blocks on the way back though! A french woman called Flo came back to Kathmandu with us and Rick and Giedra went back to placement today so I spent a very enjoyable evening discussing heaps of stuff with her, mainly of a religious nature. Its so refreshing to chat to someone who isn't against Christians, and is also completly happy with her religion, but willing to explore it more (she is Buddist, exploring India and Nepal in order to gain more understanding etc). I've really enjoyed chatting to her. Lots. Now I'm off to the hotel for a hopefully warm shower and bed. Tomorrow I go back to the home to direct the play. 2 weeks till home time. Its going fast. Happy New Year lovely people, I hope it brings you happiness. Look after yourselves, and KEEP COMMENTING! Love.