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Completing The Buddha Circuit: Balrampur-Sravasti-Taj Mahal
We awake on Day 7 of this 8-day tour with our train silent and stationary at Balrampur station, the sky grey outside and the early morning cup of chai clanking its way down the corridor. Amongst the Punctual group we have bets on how much we’ll miss the 6.30am departure time by: Lovely Malaysian Lady wins with a punt at 7:05 which proves to be out by just one minute. Thirty four minutes late. Here we go again. Of course we have some very decent people with us on this train as well as those who have surprised us with their behaviour: Malaysian Lady and Pretty Girl are just two…
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Birth, Death & Border Horrors: In And Out Of Nepal
The wheels of the Buddha train are still rolling as we finish breakfast and wander back to our compartment: evidently there has been some sort of delay overnight and we finally trundle into Nautanwa station about two hours behind schedule. Nautanwa is the end of India’s railway line, the border with Nepal just a few miles away. In spite of the extra two hours to prepare, and in spite of strict instructions to disembark quickly, about ten of the Dawdlers are late, and finally – finally, after 30 minutes waiting on the coach – Little Miss Selfie, the most incorrigible of the Dawdle group, bowls up as if it’s all…
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Absent Karma On The Buddha Train
The culture shock of India is nowhere near as powerful second time around, it’s that first time in the country which really knocks you sideways and shifts your understanding of what constitutes normality. This being our second time, we knew what to expect. Indian cities are cacophonously noisy, an endlessly discordant soundtrack of car horns, motor bikes, revving engines and raised voices. While the ears get battered, the assault on the eyes comes from the constant chaos and manic overcrowding, but the sense of smell suffers at least as much as any other part, so much so that just inhaling is an occupation fraught with danger. Never mind the putrid…
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In The Footsteps Of Lord Buddha: Bodhgaya-Rajgir-Nalanda
Fittingly, our journey through the life of Buddha starts where it all began, in the revered town of Bodhgaya. It was here that Buddha experienced The Enlightenment, meditated at length to define the principles of a life “free from ignorance, craving and suffering” by attaining a state of nirvana through meditation, and set in motion the path which was to become Buddhism. It was in this modest town that Siddhartha Gautama, Lord Buddha as he was to become, troubled by the direction of his life, sought solace by taking some time out to think things through and rationalise life, the universe and everything. This period of contemplation incorporated abstinence from…
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A Taste Of Delhi, And On To The Buddha Train
“Please wear this for your identification”, he says, handing us a white baseball cap with the Indian Railway Company logo emblazoned on it. “And carry this too”. A bright yellow pouch bag. Classy. Now, we’ve always smirked at people on cruises being shepherded around sites with their colour coded labels or whatever – now here we are setting off on this adventure with uncharacteristic white headgear and an even more uncharacteristic yellow bag, all for the purposes of being in that very type of herd which we thought we’d never be part of. Well, there’s a first time for everything. But before all this, we arrive in India’s capital city…
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Seeing The Light?
When Matt the weatherman peered out of our TV screen and into our living room the other day, we pricked up our ears to pay attention: we’d heard the s-word. Snow. Now that’s a complication we don’t need when we’re heading to Heathrow on Thursday. Matt, though, doesn’t scare us too much, because although it’s going to turn colder everywhere (“Arctic freeze” according to those sections of the media which are incapable of understatement and love the odd shock tactic), the snow is more likely in the North. By Sunday, both the forecast and the messenger have changed. Matt has become Darren and the cold down south has become “mild…
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It Dropped Into My Inbox And….
Our 2017 trip to India incorporated an overnight sleeper train journey from Agra to Varanasi, and for reasons we can’t quite explain we have never unsubscribed from emails from the India railway company. Recently, one of their emails landed and I did one of those double takes. “Michaela, listen to this……” Now, anyone who knows us, knows that we don’t like to be organised by others, we like to travel completely independently and sort things for ourselves. It gives us freedom, and of course it’s hugely cheaper. It’s also true to say that neither of us are what you would call spiritual, and we’re certainly not religious. So why would…
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Questions About Travel
Travelling the way we do, in regular lengthy stretches, is not something everyone is fortunate enough, well enough or even inclined to do. Whatever your chosen style of travel, there are some questions which all of us who do so are asked on a regular basis. Like… What do you miss about home? Answer: very little. My stock answer is “proper English ale” which is true, I do find myself craving a good pint sometimes. Michaela meanwhile goes straight for the roast lamb and mint sauce. With both of our families being scattered around the country, we always make a round of visits on our return and probably don’t see…
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Photo #20: The Reality Of Poverty
No matter how much you know before you get there, the poverty you will witness on your first trip to India will still shock you to the core. So many people live on the city streets that there are entire runs of pavement which have become temporary homes, and every sheltered area such as a flyover or an underpass is occupied by families. This photograph captures a typical scene, and the very fact that it is typical, is itself shocking. Multiple families live here, on an active railway line, running for cover as each packed train rumbles through, right in the heart of Kolkata, just yards from 5 star hotels…
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Photographic Memories #19
As every traveller knows, when you look back through old travel photos, many of them trigger wonderful memories. With lockdown incomplete and travel still on hold for a while, we currently have no new adventures to blog; we do though have many such memories… Photo #19: The Sundarbans This photograph is special to us because of the moment it represents, possibly one of the most exciting travel moments of all our experiences to date, capturing an auspicious point in one of our most adventurous journeys. At this stage of our first trip to India, we had now left behind the amazing cities of Delhi, Agra, Varanasi and Kolkata, and were…
