A few years ago, my wife and I undertook a four-week backpacking trip through Nepal and the Ladakh region of India. We visited Lumbini, which is said to be the birthplace of the historical Buddha, and the first of the four pilgrimage sites he identified for his followers to visit in the Mahaparanibbana Sutta.
While most of our time was dedicated to hiking in the Himalayas, I saw Lumbini as a chance to connect more deeply with my burgeoning Buddhist faith. Fresh off a five-day self-guided trek in the Annapurna Conservation Area, we slung our backpacks onto the only bus from Pokhara to Lumbini and found seats towards the rear. We settled in as a six-hour promise became a ten-hour slog southwest from the shadow of the icy Himalayas to the steamy wetlands and flooded rice paddies of Nepal’s border with India.
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