Days 8 & 9 – Bodhgaya

Meaghan and I had to take a 1:45am train to Bodhgaya. We were shocked when we got to the train station and saw that there were tons of people sleeping on the heinously filthy floor of station as well as on the even dirtier platform. Some of these sleeping beauties were lucky enough to have cardboard or a blanket under them. Meaghan and I sat back to back on our backpacks with cat-like awareness, protecting our treasured possessions. Both of us sick from a cold we inherited from Michel. I was reading a book and a few people, who were already interested in the two strange looking, pale, blonde travelers, became enthralled in my book as well and came up to stare at it, as if they had never seen anyone read a book before. It is mind boggling how people live here. I feel a mixture of guilt and weariness.

The ‘train guy’ tells us that we will arrive in Gaya at 10am and Meaghan sets the alarm accordingly. We lock up our backpacks and I fall asleep across from a very gassy sleeping woman. I spend the night between moments of sleep and nose blowing. At 6:50am we are abruptly shaken awake by ‘train guy’ who tells us that we are at our station. Wide-eyed and panic stricken, Meaghan unlocks our bags and we clumsily jump from the train in our pj’s.

In Bodhgaya we stayed at the Tibetan monastery, which was a welcome reprieve from the bustle of trains. We spent the day walking around town visiting the 25 foot Buddha and the Bodhi tree where Buddha found enlightenment. Despite the spanse of shopping bazaars outside of the Bodhi tree entrance, it was surprisingly serene inside and filled with unexpected tourists – robed monks from other countries sitting cross-legged in meditation and facing the tree. At the giant Buddha statue we became part of the tourist attraction, which started with two young Thai monks asking to get a picture with us. This drew a crowd who queued up to pose with us as their friends took the pictures. We are now cameoed in photo albums all over south east and south Asia.

We left Bodhgaya the next morning on our train (which was four hours late btw) in the first class car.