After three ridiculously long, filthy days on local buses, we finally landed in relaxing (by Indian standards) Bodgaya, the home of the bodhi tree under which Buddha attained enlightenment. The trip here was complicated by a dearth of train tickets due to it being school holidays, so we've ditched our plan to visit Calcutta and will instead start our journey west.

From India

Being an important Buddhist (and Hindu) pilgrimage site, Bodgaya has temples built by Buddhists from around the world. Haviva has taken to calling it the Epcot center of Buddhism, which is pretty apt. You walk down the main road past temples that look like they were shipped in straight from Thailand, Tibet, Burma, Japan, etc. Each has monks and staff from their respective countries, so it's quite an international scene during the busy season, we're told. Of course, the current sweltering weather and impending monsoon has scared most of them off for now.

From India

During our wanderings we met a nice Indian monk who is studying at the Thai temple. He took us for a little tour and sat us down under our very own bodhi tree to teach us a little. I'm not sure we found enlightenment, but it was most interesting.

From India

Tomorrow we're heading to another holy place, Varanassi. We managed to get ourselves a cheap non-AC seat on the three hour train, so we'll get to find out how it compares to the cheap seats on the bus, I guess.