After discovering the holy city for Hindus, we had to explore the holy town for Buddhists, that is Bodhgaya. It is place where the prince Siddhartha sat for his long meditation in which he faced his deepest demons and became enlightened.
We were lucky to be hosted by Praveen and his family in a tiny farmers village, 3 km away from the centre of town. Every evening we would come back from town in complete darkness on the narrow path, shortcut for adventurous people. We absolutely loved these 3km of peaceful cycling.
We visited a powerful site, a 30m high statue of Buddha. For the anecdote, we had to take out our shoes when close to the statue. The stones of the floor were black and had been bombarded with sun rays all day. In short, in front of Buddha we practised non reaction to pain and non attachment to the comfort ( and the wise idea) to wear shoes!
Behind this temple is the tree where Buddha got enlightened. We preferred not to take picture of that place where people worship and meditate all day long. Strangely we also witnessed a surreal scene where a female Buddhist monk kept on shouting and pointing at a security guard just beside the temple. Her anger was very much contrasting with her fellow monk smiling trying to solve her issue.
The last day we visited the root institute for wisdom. Indeed , it is a perfect place to get wisdom with a very welcoming atmosphere, a brilliant library and a refined court yard. They offer meditation retreat which must be very nice to attain, if you are into that kind of stuff.
Dharma bums on bikes 