Our original plan for India didn't include a visit to Bodhgaya. In fact, we'd never even heard of the place before the damned "tourist information" in Delhi (blog entry Everybody Lies). The small town of Bodhgaya is known for the Buddhist temple built on the site where Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the Buddha, sat meditating under a bodhi tree and eventually reached enlightenment. Since we'd already visited Lumbini, where the prince had been born, and were g...

Varanasi… One of the holiest cities in India and one of the oldest in the world. It's the place to be born, to live and especially to die in, since (according to Hindu beliefs) doing so will liberate you from the circle of endless rebirths. We just had to see it! We arrived by night train from Khajuraho and settled in Elvis Guest House by the ghats, the concrete steps leading in to the river Ganga. Our cozy little guest house seemed bigger than it actually w...

Being far away from home also means being far away from the comforts the familiar place offers us. I suppose this is especially evident as we started our trip from Nepal, and continued then to India. Both of these countries are really far away from the normal life we are used to. The cultures are totally different, and the living conditions and wealth of the local people seem to be from a completely different planet than in Finland. And sure we haven't even seen ...

About Khajuraho… It's not that special, really. The temples we saw were definitely worth seeing, they are really well preserved and taken care of, also the area around the western group is very well maintained, and the park is a nice place to stroll around. Other than that, there wasn't that much to see. There would have been a national park nearby where one can see tigers, but we already did a similar thing in Nepal, and it would have cost a whole lot more her...

As the picture shows, we did see the Taj Mahal. Our next train was leaving at 23.20 so we had to make sure that our sightseeing would keep us occupied for as long as possible. That's why we didn't start until 12 o'clock noon, at the time of check out from our hotel. We had stayed the night in Idea Inn, a comfortable and clean hotel picked by the travel agency. The bed was the best on our trip so far. After checking out we left our backpacks at the hotel and let o...