October 16th, 2019
We got up early after not sleeping and hit the road for Lumbini. We tried to eat breakfast at the hotel but that didn’t really work out. I ordered “cheese toast” because I thought that sounded pretty straight forward but I was wrong. What came out was untoasted white bread with some sort of coleslaw filling in between the pieces. I asked if this was “cheese toast” and they said yes. I couldn’t eat it as I was too afraid that having some mayo-based thing with raw vegetables was too risky for bacteria. We had a cup of coffee and got on the road.
This was a somewhat stressful ride as there were many windy, mountain passes full of trucks and buses. The trucks either try to run you off the road, or you are stuck behind them breathing their exhaust and dust with the only option being to pass on a blind corner. I was really relieved when we made it to Lumbini a few hours later.
I had looked up a hotel that came recommended as I did not want another one like last night. They unfortunately were full when we got there and pointed us in the direction of another place we should try. We went there and it was a nice room, but $31 a night was definitely the most we have paid in Nepal. I didn’t care though because I wanted a comfortable place. The bed was nice and the room came with bottled water and had good WiFi.
We unloaded our stuff and washed the dirt off our faces which were black from the bike ride and got some lunch. It was early in the day so after lunch we headed to the temple complex where Buddha was born. Lumbini is a highly important pilgrimage site. The area surrounding the actual birth place of Buddha is huge and full of temples from all over the world. There are temples built by all different countries and we walked over six miles exploring them. There is a huge facility dedicated as a World Center for Peace and Unity which I thought was really cool.
We also walked a very far distance to the huge pagoda built by Japan dedicated as a World Peace Pagoda. It is a huge white pagoda that you can literally see for miles. Although it looked extremely far away, that is what I wanted to see the most out of all the sites in Lumbini. I didn’t know anything about it except reading on a sign it was a World Peace Pagoda. The beauty of it drew me there. Days later, I looked it up online to discover it is actually called the ‘Shanti Stupa’! How crazy is it that I was drawn to it before even knowing it had my name?
It was very hot, and we were tired and thirsty by the time we came back from the Shanti Stupa. It is crazy that we went from being afraid of frostbite to 90-degree weather in just a couple days. I definitely didn’t need to pack my puffy jacket on this part of the trip. I was burning up because to go to all the religious sites I had to wear long pants, and the only thing I had to cover my shoulders was a hoody. We finally made it back to the hotel and had a nice shower and laid in the nice bed until it was dinner time.
This was the nicest hotel we had stayed in, but unfortunately it was another terrible night for sleep. Turns out the room was infested with mosquitos and Brendan and I both got hundreds of bites throughout the night. It felt like bugs were crawling all over us and I became so itchy it was impossible to sleep.