In 5 days, I will be packing my bag to prepare for the flight home to the UK.
It's going well here, and I am appreciating sharing a decent hotel room with AB, and having a regular routine after 3 weeks on planes, trains and automobiles.
AB is a 69 year old yoga teacher (amongst other things) and is able to do yoga poses I can only get half-way towards.
So we do an hour's yoga each morning. Gyms are not really an option in India (they exist but have rediculously rigid membership rules), so I need to do something to keep fit whilst here. We are also walking everywhere instead of taking rickshaws.
It will be interesting to see how much weight I've actually lost since being here.
Can't wait to get back to the YMCA gym in Cambridge and a decent 25 mile bike ride!
This morning, AB & I had a late breakfast in the hotel and did some touring around temples. We mainly spent time in a beautiful Nepalese temple dedicated to the deity Vajrasatva. It was an exquisite place and full of atmosphere. We also spent time at the Chinese temple, which houses three huge Amitabha Buddha figures, which are 200 years old and came over the sea in a boat.
I am able to be active mornings and evenings here in India now. The afternoons are too hot and I rest in the hotel or do administrative work around our project.
There is much, wealth, splendour and tourist income here at Bodhgaya. The scores of magnificent temples and monastic buildings draw huge crowds. But poverty is also all around. There are substantial slums that are just behind the main streets. This is where the shop workers and street vendors live.
At the very top of our hotel is an area where guests can dry laundry. There is a metal and brick hut on the roof in which many of the hotel staff live.
This is India.
I enjoyed the puja at the Mahabodhi Temple again tonight. There must have been a rhousane people there from many countries. It is a special place in the evenings in particular.
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