Lumbini

Our last stop in Nepal was Lumbini, the birthplace of the Lord Buddha, the founder of Buddhism.

After having seen the different types of Buddhism in China, Tibet and Nepal, it was really great to finally see the place where Buddhism originated. Lumbini isn't actually a real town, but rather an area with monasteries and temples. The main area is allegedly the exact point of where Lord Buddha's mother, Maya Devi, gave birth to him while holding the branch of a tree. The area was filled with plenty of pilgrams, from all over Asia and from around the world.

Lumbini covers an area of 1.5 x 5 km, most of which is home to monasteries that Buddhist nations around the world have built. It was really interesting as many of these monasteries have been built quite recently and they all seemed to reflect the style of each country and how Buddhism is practiced there. We were able to rent bikes from our hotel so we were able to see most of the area (a number of the monasteries were under construction) in one day.