At the Kautilya Society Guest House in Varanasi, we met two young Indian students who were doing some work at Banaras Hindu University (BHU). We chatted with them over breakfast and lunch and were delighted we could finally have a conversation with some locals who didn’t have ‘making a sale’ as their main agenda for… Read More »
Most visitors to Varanasi, whether they are religious pilgrims or mourners cremating their dead, will make a visit to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple – the focal point of Shiva worship in the city and one of the most important Shiva temples in all of India. Vishwanath is one of twelve so-called Jyotirlinga sites. The Jyotirlinga,… Read More »
After three nights in Assi Ghat we decided to move further north to a guest house behind the Brijrama Palace Hotel near Darbhanga Ghat. The new location would allow us to be closer to two important Hindu sites in Varanasi – Kashi Vishwanath Temple, one of India’s most famous Shiva temples and Manikarnika Ghat, the… Read More »
The city of Varanasi has been a cultural centre of northern India for several thousand years and is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. Situated on the sacred river Ganges and located more than two hundred kilometres west of Gaya, Varanasi is a major religious pilgrimage site in India. In Hinduism… Read More »
Some time between the sixth and the fourth century BCE, Gautama Buddha, a young prince from a family with minor royal lineage, made it his goal in life to find answers to the problem of ending universal suffering. Leaving the security of his family home and adopting the life of an ascetic, he headed to… Read More »
From Ajanta Caves, we took a bus north to the city of Jalgaon and booked into a small but pleasant hotel. It was cheaper than the government run ‘resort’ we’d stayed in on the outskirts of Fardapur, and a much nicer place to stay. The owner had proudly renovated the original building in a white… Read More »
Our main reason for being in Aurangabad was the city’s proximity to two large systems of ancient rock-cut temples known as Ellora and Ajanta Caves. Both sites were away from large cities and towns, built in to natural escarpments in the landscape and located nearly one hundred kilometres apart. Natural caves had been used as… Read More »
Entering the arrivals hall of Aurangabad airport in India, I was greeted by a man called Mr Ashoka who was holding a sign with my name printed on it. He spoke very little English but I knew he’d been sent by the hotel I had booked several weeks earlier when I was still in Nepal.… Read More »
Before returning to India, I spent three nights at the Karma Travel Home in Kathmandu, located in the central tourist district of Thamel. It was not only the same hotel but the same room that Clare and I had stayed in on our previous visit. We’d liked it for its older-style, a quality we look… Read More »
For most of January I was in India and Kim was in Nepal. I left Kathmandu for Delhi when 2018 was just five days old. Three days later I boarded an overnight train from Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin station for a small town called Warora in Maharashtra, central India. I’d been looking forward to the journey.… Read More »