The day we got into Bodhgaya happened to be a day off for the town's university students. Consequently, as we wandered through town at ridiculous-o-clock in the morning, we became an extra-curricular project for four animated boys. They seemed very sweet, so we let them sweep us through the town and recommend monasteries to stay in; we were grateful not to have to think too hard. We even sat down for a chai with them, and chatted a while. But then the real reason for their helpfulness became apparent- they wanted to take us to the cave temples on a motorbike. Of course, this is a very nice gesture, and ordinarily we could have jumped at the chance. The only thing was, the main guy, Sudhir, was a tad annoying and very pushy! 'You go to sleep, then I'll come and meet you with my motorbike, yes? Take you to the cave temples?' We were soon to find out that every student in town wanted to take us to these temples. Another thing about Sudhir- I was wound up that the whole time he COMPLETELY ignored me; he spoke the entire time to Pat- 'I want your hair, brother!'- and grunting whenever I spoke. Our friendship was never meant to be...We were almost tempted by the offer of a boy who had a Canadian sticker on the back of his phone- he was much more humble and a lot less annoying- but in the end we decided to venture to these caves by ourselves.
For a place that the students were insisting was a 'must-see', the auto-rickshaw driver we asked to take us to the caves took a while to understand where we wanted to go. He eventually understood though, and off we went along the bumpy road, the only rickshaw passing through small, farming mud-hut villages and sparkling green fields, rolling on to the mountains. We eventually stopped at a random hill, with our driver (who bless him, had limited English) pointing upwards. Hoping he'd brought us to the right place, we began the surprisingly steep walk up. I wanted to stop several times to admire the sweeping views, but a beggar boy followed us the whole way up, saying 'hello' 50 million times- he was a nuisance, but I admire his perseverance!
As we reached the top, we were surrounded by a swarm of Buddhist monks in white robes. Before we knew what was going on, we were ushered into a hole in the cave, where we were confronted by a big gold Buddha. It was like a sweat-box in there, so I quickly headed out- not without being guilt-tripped out of 100 Rupees first, dammit! As I came out, a bald Tibetan man, set apart from the rest in his white t-shirt and shorts, took a picture as I came out of the hole, and was wetting himself laughing at the result. He had a kind face though, so we took a few pics with him before we followed a sea of white robes down the hill again. When we reached the bottom, we saw our rickshaw driver in a deep sleep, mouth wide open, sprawled out in the backseat of the rickshaw and listening to loud hectic Hindi music. By the time we'd shaken him awake, we'd acquired a procession of colourful beggars behind us, and then around the rickshaw, constantly saying 'hello? brother? hello? sister?' Despite just waking up, our driver's reflexes were quick and we were soon bumping along the road again- this time accompanied by loud Hindi music!
It hasn't been all chaos though. Our visit to the Mahabodhi Temple reminded us of the real reason why we had come to Bodhgaya- to see the Bodhi tree, where Buddha was first enlightened, and thus Buddhism was born. The name 'Bodhgaya' is short for 'Buddha-gaya'- 'the holy city of Buddha'. Sadly, the tree is no longer there, but its descendant is in the same spot, and still has colourful Buddhists flocking around it and chanting quietly. Although inside the temple was a cluster of Buddhists praying to the golden Buddha statue, I think it was outside, in the beautiful gardens, that you really got a sense of the essence of Buddhism. In a few spots, sign-posted as places where Buddha once walked or meditated, you saw Buddhists cross-legged on the grass, alone, heads bowed as they chanted to themselves. In other spots, there was a huge group together, mostly in yellow robes, lighting candles and swaying. It certainly made you walk a little slower, take in your surroundings a little more- yet at the same time more self-aware, with no other tourists around. The outside of the temple was stunning- very similar to the Hampi style.
As I mentioned before, we stayed in the grounds of a monastery. It was certainly a different experience- not necessarily for the rooms themselves, but the sea of maroon/yellow, or sometimes orange robes, that you would see flocking out of the temples at sunset, as though personifying the dusky sky. Probably our most surreal experience with monks has been at the Tibetan Om Cafe, where a group of Tibetan monks sat and watched WWF wrestling as we sat and ate our momos!
That's the last thing I'll talk about before I wrap up- MOMOS! Tibetan dumplings, and one of the best discoveries of the trip- especially spinach and cheese!
Right, that's all for now. We head for Varanasi tonight on the train, at the unhealthy hour of 3.15am- fun fun fun! Varanasi should complement Bodhgaya nicely- along with the latter, it is one of the four significant Buddhist pilgrimage sites in India, for the reason that Buddha gave his first sermon there. We're certainly getting to know a lot about Buddhism- who knows, maybe we'll be donning the maroon and yellow robes in a week's time! See you in Varanasi, where hopefully we'll try our first meditation session! Altogether now- OM....
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