Sarnath

I spent last night in the (somewhat) suburban town of Sarnath, about 10km north of Varanasi.

It instantly feels like another world though (apart from the beggars/touts/locals), as it is one of the 4 important Buddhist sites in the world, and as such, half of the population seem to be from Tibet. There are temples from many of the major Asian countries, and I spent today visiting Myanmar, Japan, China, Thailand, Korea, India and Tibet- not a bad days traveling!

The town is dominated by a massive stupa pertaining to show the site where Buddha gave his first sermon, and it really is very impressive.

Not much else to say about the place really, as the temples are the only sites, but it was rather more relaxing than Varanasi, and was a nice little trip. There were almost no other western tourists, but plenty of big groups of Buddhists from around Asia.

I spent a few hours watching India beat Sri Lanka in a one day cricket match - with a German of all people. It was a great game, and great company, and it was fun talking to the guy about cricket (one of the few people who knew less than me), but also about his job. He is an education consultant for the UN, and was very interested to hear about Kazakhstan.


Night train to Agra tonight (well- 4pm-6am train), which will be the longest so far. By all accounts Agra is a horrible city, so apart from the major tourist sites, I am not expecting much, but the Taj has to be seen.. its the bloody Taj!