A Trip to the Birthplace of Lord Buddha

As the days passed, I found myself with only two weeks left in Nepal. My incarnation of traveling was soon to transition. "What would you like to see before you go?" people would ask me.

I want to go to Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha.

We had a three day holiday for Holi, the delightful festival where people throw colored dust at each other. My aamaa agreed to travel with me as our last journey together, at least this time around.

It was a long and tiring trip -- it took about nine hours and four bus changes. As we traveled south from the hilly region of our home to the flat, arid plains of the Tarai, we heard dialects shift amid a rainbow of skin colors; we saw clothing that ranged from intricate saris to tattered rags, we met curious babies and grandmothers eager to show pictures of their grandchildren; we tasted the diversity of life in Nepal-- sweet, salty, spicy, sour, fresh, raw.

I thought of the book Siddhartha and wondered if human suffering had transformed at all since the days of the Buddha, centuries ago.

There are moments in our lives when we feel entirely in the right place at the right moment regardless of all the outward nuances of the bustling world. With my aamaa by my side, we watched the sun set over still waters and experienced the depth of every color through all of our senses. As the evening chant of Buddhist monks from across the globe danced throughout the air, the moving vibration created soothing ripples across the water. Though over seven-thousand miles from the country of my birth, it was in this moment that I felt the closest to home that I have ever been.