This is the second of four important sites in the life of Buddha, the first one being Lumbini in Nepal. This is the site where Siddhartha Gautama acheived his enlightenment beneath a Bodhi tree, and was thus transformed into the Buddha. Mahabodhi Temple is the site where this happened, so needless to say many Buddhists visit this; and a sea of dipping maroon and saffron coloured monks can be seen every morning around the temple as they worship. As at Lumbini, there is also a plethora of temples around the village built by different countries.

But the real attraction for me here has actually been witnessing some real Indian village life. I stayed in a place in the middle of the brightly coloured but basic village houses watching children playing in the streets, adults sitting around chatting or cooking in their doorways. Wish I could have stayed here longer, but the transport is turning out to be much slower than I'd hoped, so I lost half a day sitting on a bus and I have an important train to catch later today.

Another treat was watching the sun set over the plains of Bihar, which I saw from the bus as I approached the town, so I didn't managed to get a photo. The Ganges River only drops 200m all the way from Pakistan to the huge river delta in Bangladesh, which accounts for the flatness of the huge Gangetic Plain that makes up much of Northern India. I will be travelling over more of it in the coming weeks, so I doubt that it will be the last impressive sunset I will see.

Posted from Darjeeling, November 25th 2010.