Day 14 - Rajgir, Nalanda to Vaishali

I was picked up today a little before 8:00 am.  It took about 2 hours to go the 70kms from Bodhgaya to Rajgir.  I was not expecting to walk up to the temple on the top of this huge hill, but the chair lift wasn’t working.  I’m not sure how far up it is, but it is a long way and very steep.  It was worth the climb though.  Next to the stupa is a temple and a monk was banging a drum.  It was a great place to meditate.

After the climb up to the stupa we visited the Pippala caves, where the first Buddhist council was held.

We also visited the Lakshminarayan Temple complex that has some hot springs.  Lots of people were taking a bath and a guy had me say a prayer as he poured water from the springs onto my hand.

We then drove about half an hour to Nalanda, which is where there was a large Buddhist monastic university that had some very large libraries and was the most revered universities in ancient India.  It must have been something in its time.

After Nalanda we drove the 146kms that took around 3 hours to Vaishali, where I’m staying at a not such a bad place, although there are huge spiders on the ceiling.