11/25/16,
“The Lord Buddha”
Lumbini,
Nepal
While the
dateline of Lumbini, Nepal might not be as recognizable as a Bethlehem,
Palestine dateline would be, as the birthplace of the Lord Buddha, Lumbini is
every bit as significant of a location.
Nepal has four World Heritage Sites.
The first that I visited this trip was Kathmandu with its famous,
historic monuments. The second was The
Mountain, inscribed as Sagarmatha National Park. The third was The Jungle, inscribed as
Chitwan National Park. Lumbini, the
birthplace of the Lord Buddha is the fourth and final one.
Tomorrow, I will begin the journey home,
stopping in Kathmandu again to visit Parliament, which is the last bit of the
puzzle that is required for me to able to say, “Nepal Complete.” Then, Sunday, I will spend in Qatar before
flying home. It has been an epic trip so
far, I am almost out of rupees, and my last full day in Nepal now comes to an
end as dusk approaches in Lumbini.
I am
now smoking my 2013 Christmas Pipe, which necessarily has less of a storied
past than the other pipes I have smoked this trip, but it is the same pipe I
smoked in Kas (Turkey), Seoul, and the Drake Passage during my Christmas trips,
and, more importantly, it is the pipe I smoked in Machu Picchu the night before
descending into the sanctuary. Lumbini
is in good company forever joining the list of places where I have smoked this
pipe.
Nepal is one of the most
interesting places I have ever visited, if not the most, and I will expand more
on that theme during the reflective entries and reckonings that are to
come. While most people would not enjoy
the fast pace of my time here, the outline of my trip is easily expandable to
spend multiple nights at each site, and it is an itinerary I would highly
recommend to anyone who wishes to visit Nepal.
It would be borderline criminal to set foot in Nepal without taking the
time to visit each of these four World Heritage Sites this country has to
offer, each one of which is completely unique.
The sites I visited in England were almost all the same, most of them
inscribed for their role in the Industrial Revolution, the same cannot be said
of Nepal, each of the four sites being inscribed for a completely different
reason. The Capital, The Mountain, The
Jungle, and the birthplace of The Lord Buddha.
Four completely different sites.
Uh oh, the electricity seems to have just gone out for the entire hotel,
if not for the entire village by the look and sound of things. Okay, it’s come back on. Hopefully that will fix the Wi-Fi, which has
not been working. It seems to have made
no difference. Okay, back to last
night.
After I closed, I headed down for
dinner, while Raymond went out for his cultural event. This was my Thanksgiving feast, and it was
much the same as my first meal in Kathmandu.
It consisted of chicken and various vegetables and starches, all drained
in the typical curry sauce of the Subcontinent.
It was not much different from a traditional Thanksgiving feast. They even served apple fritters for dessert,
not much different from the apple pie I might have had at home. I went back to my room to get my laptop and to
work on uploading my photos and publishing my entry. It was quite a process with a slow Wi-Fi
connection, but, eventually, I figured out a way to compress the photos I
needed enough to quickly upload them and then publish the entry.
Meanwhile, I heard Raymond’s voice from
across the resort, followed shortly by a member of the hotel staff who told me
that my friend had come back and was now having dinner. I had lit up a Romeo y Julieta, so I went to
join him as I finished publishing, but he was sitting inside, so I sat outside
with my cigar as I worked on publishing.
I finished it just as he was finishing dinner, and we were both so
exhausted by the past two days that we agreed we would go straight to bed, even
though it was only 9 PM.
I fell asleep
almost instantly, the lower elevation being a welcome relief, and slept through
the night, none of my phones notifications waking me up, instead my phone being
overwhelmed with notification indicators when I did finally get up. The same could not be said of Raymond. He woke up at 3 AM and was unable to get back
to sleep, instead walking around the resort for three hours, coming back around
6 AM, insisting that I wake up for the sunrise.
This was not my first rodeo, so I asked a simple question. “Where?”
“Outside.” I asked him if he had
figured out which direction was east and if the sunrise would actually be
visible from that angle.
He went to find
out and came back shortly thereafter to let me know that the trees would block
the view. I wanted to back to sleep, but
it was almost 6:30 AM by this point, and we were due at 7 AM for our canoe
ride. We agreed that we should have
breakfast first, so we asked to push the ride back until after breakfast. We got ready and headed down for breakfast. I lit up a Graycliff, and we started off with
some coffee. I took a pass on the cereal,
but I got toast with scrambled eggs and potatoes. It was quite good. After breakfast, we went for our canoe
ride.
I was still smoking my Graycliff
at that point, and it was an epic experience with the two of us, the guide from
the hotel, and the driver alone on the river in our canoe. It was not the type of canoeing that I did in
Kentucky, instead it was a leisurely experience that required no effort from
our end. Going down the river, I felt
like we were in scene from Rambo, and we both expressed a mutual interest in
going to Vietnam, though we agreed that Mongolia ranked higher on our travel
list for our next country in Asia.
I lit
up a Bolivar Brasil Exclusive to honor the fact that we bought it together in
Rio. I should also add that this was the
same cigar I smoked in Saltaire, though I forgot to record it in my MAN entry. We saw more flora and fauna throughout the
ride and then walked back to the hotel after our ride. We finished packing and then headed out in
the car we had arranged to take us to Lumbini.
We stopped in the village to get some more souvenirs and some snacks for
the ride. I also bought a large bottle
of Old Durbar whiskey.
Once we got on
the road, I lit up an Ardor and started sipping from the bottle. I did not care that it was before 11 AM or
that I was drinking whiskey straight from a fifth or that I was smoking a pipe
in the back of a car. I was on holiday,
as they would say here and in any other country that learned English from the
Brits instead of the Americans. I drank
and smoked as we continued along the road, enjoying the view, wedging the
bottle between my leg and the car door between my infrequent sips of
whiskey.
About halfway there, we stopped
for a break, which I did not think was necessary and would have much preferred
to have kept going to allow more time in Lumbini. I opened the car door and heard a crash. Reader, remember where I had been keeping the
bottle of whiskey? Yes, it fell out of
the car and crashed to the ground. It
was not expensive, but it was actually the most expensive thing I had bought
since arriving in Nepal. It was easily
replaced, too, but I felt foolish for my mistake. I was smoking a Montecristo Open Eagle at
this point.
We headed out back to have
some coffee and enjoy the view, but the coffee had a funny taste, so I couldn’t
finish mine. I did, however, get a much
smaller bottle of whiskey for the rest of the ride and for tonight, figuring
that I would get another bottle at Kathmandu airport, but I then remembered I
couldn’t even do that, since I am not allowed to bring alcohol into Qatar, so
the bottle would have been lost anyway.
We got back on the road, and I lit up a Carlos Torano.
We were soon in Lumbini, which was certainly
the most touristy place we had been all trip.
We settled into the hotel for a bit and then headed down for lunch. They did not have any Nepali food on the
menu, but, being situated between India and China, they did offer Indian and
Chinese food. I opted for Chinese food,
sweet and sour chicken to be precise.
Somehow, even that tasted of curry.
It was now 3:30 PM, and we were now short of time, due to having tarried
so much en route.
We walked from the
hotel to the monument, a temple located on what is considered the birthplace of
the Lord Buddha. Obviously, the exact
location is not known, and it is widely debated if he was even born in Lumbini
at all. We walked to the temple, and the
crowds of tourists and pilgrims grew larger the closer we got. We had lit up a pair of H. Upmanns after
lunch, and I doubted our ability to smoke once we entered the monument
zone. I was right, and it had the same
rules as the Taj Mahal: no shoes, no smoking, even outside. Fortunately, we were able to recreate the
angle of the inscription photo from outside the gate, but it was not the exact
right spot.
We tried to sneak in with
our cigars, but we hadn’t gotten tickets yet, so we were turned away. I got us two tickets, and we returned, another
crowd having appeared. When Raymond
learned about the no shoes policy, he did not want to go in, and I was told I
could not enter with my cigar. Instead,
he waited outside with my flip flops and cigar, and I went in. My feet are quite dirty as I write this, and
it was fair price to pay. With ease, I
found the exact spot of the inscription photo and took a picture there before
heading back out. We walked down a
different route to leave, trying to find souvenir shops, but no one knew what
we meant.
Eventually, we made our way
back to the entrance and found the souvenir shops, us each getting what we
wanted. From there, we walked back to
the hotel, and I ditched my cigar as we arrived. We went back to the room, and Raymond took a
nap, while I went out to the balcony, where I sat down, it up my Christmas
pipe, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that we can
get dinner and figure out what’s going on with the Wi-Fi so that I can publish.
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