Lumbini Heritage Site

A flight of thirty-five minutes takes us to Bhairahawa in the Terai, and a short drive from there to Lumbini. The afternoon is spent in the sacred garden: the Maya Devi temple, built over the marker stone identifying the exact spot of the birth; the Ashokan pillar raised in 249 BCE, which records the emperor's pilgrimage and is the archaeological reason the site can be identified with confidence; the sacred pond where Maya Devi is said to have bathed; and the excavated foundations of monasteries and stupas going back to the third century BCE. Lumbini was inscribed as a World Heritage property in 1997 and is a working pilgrimage site as much as a monument, with monks and pilgrims from across Asia present at all hours. It is at its best late in the day, when the coaches have gone and the light is low.

The morning goes to the wider site. The monastic zone runs north from the sacred garden along a canal, following a master plan drawn up by the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange in the 1970s that divides the area into the sacred garden, the monastic zone and the new Lumbini village. Each Buddhist nation has built its own temple in its own architecture - the Thai, Myanmar, Cambodian, Korean, Chinese, German and French ones among the most striking - and walking between them over a couple of hours is the clearest illustration anywhere of how far the teaching travelled and how differently it was received at each stop. We finish at the eternal flame and the World Peace Pagoda at the northern end, then drive to Bhairahawa for the flight back to Kathmandu.