My Travel Experience to Lumbini Essay
Travelling is really fun. I love travelling to different places. Last year, I travelled to Lumbini along with my family. Lumbini is far away from where I live so reaching Lumbini was not so easy for us. We had to travel a long distance. We woke up early in the morning, packed our bags and headed towards the bus station.
We sat on the bus to Lumbini. Then, the bus started moving. The beautiful scenery on the way amazed us. We were mesmerized by the green hills and mountains. The bus stopped in the midway for a short lunch break. We had our lunch and again, our journey to Lumbini started. After long hours of journey, we reached Bhairahawa (the headquarter of Rupandehi). Lumbini is just 15-20 km far away from Bhairahawa. Actually, we reached there at night and stayed in a hotel. The next morning, we headed towards Lumbini in a taxi. Within few hours, we reached Lumbini.
Lumbini is surrounded by huge walls and compounds. There are many gates from where you can get an entrance to Lumbini. Nepal police guard the area sitting at the entrance. They were checking the identity of the foreign tourists and issuing tickets for them taking some amount of money. They did not take money from us so I came to know that visiting Lumbini is free for the Nepali nationals. I entered Lumbini from one of the gates.
The stupas and monasteries in Lumbini are distant from each other. So, we wandered here and there. It would be better if we had booked cycles for each from outside. Many people were travelling in a cycle but we had to travel on foot.
Lumbini is the birthplace of Gautam Buddha who is also known as the "light of Asia". The main attraction in Lumbini is the Mayadevi Temple. Inside the Mayadevi temple, there is an archaeological site that is considered to be the birthplace of the Gautam Buddha. There are some footsteps printed on the site which is considered as the little Buddha's footsteps. People line up to visit this holy place. In front of the Mayadevi temple, there is a sacred pool where Mayadevi is considered to have taken bath after giving birth to Buddha. This sacred pool is called Puskarni.
We also visited other stupas and monasteries constructed by different countries like India, Singapore, France, Luxembourg, China, Thailand and many more. All of them have beautiful architecture and design. We snapped many pictures with stupas and monasteries for memory.
We stayed in Lumbini till the next day. After that, we returned to our home. I was not willing to leave Lumbini so quicker. But it was our compulsion. My father had to return to the job and (my sister and me) we had to return to school. The memories of this travel experience still flashes in my memory.