History says, Gautama Buddha travelled from Bodhgaya to Sarnath after his enlightenment to find his five former companions. He found them and the Dhamek stupa commemorates the spot in the Deer Park where Buddha gave his first sermon, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, to these five monks.

Buddha spent his first rainy season in Sarnath and the ruins of the old Mulagandhakuti vihara supposedly marks that place.

The modern Mulagandhakuti Vihara Temple was built in the 1930s by the Sri Lankan Mahabodhi Society. Behind it is the Deer Park (still with deer) and alongside it is the impressive Dhamek stupa.

I’ve been travelling to India once or twice a year since 2003. I haven’t seen that much of the country as I like staying in one place and not moving about too much.

For the first couple of years I mostly travelled down South and stayed in the Tibetan settlement of Bylakuppe which is near Mysore. More recently I’ve been travelling North to Varanasi and staying in with the faithful in Sarnath for a month at a time.

Sarnath is an important Buddhist pilgrimage destination and from October through to March it is filled with lots and lots of interesting people.

The guy on the right in the bottom photo is Christopher Titmuss. I met him and his companions a few times at a tea stall I frequented opposite the Maha Bodhi Society of Sri Lanka’s Temple (Mulagandhakuti Vihara) in Sarnath. The stall owner had real coffee, used an Italian coffee makers and so made halfway decent coffee — a rare thing in India — he also sold nice biscuits.

Anyway, I didn’t know Christopher Titmuss was an Insight Meditation teacher until the third day we we met — I’ve been known to be a tad slow at times for the penny dropped.

He was another reason Sarnath was all a’buzz — he had a big teachathon happening with (I guess) a few hundred of his followers and when you added that to the general Buddhist throng that comes and goes through Sarnath, it seemed to make the place especially alive.

I’m back and I’ll be taking a rest from blogging for a while. I’ve also switched off comments so I don’t have to worry about spammers.

Talk soon!

If you look around this blog you’ll notice that I’ve been a frequent traveller to India over the past few years. I really enjoy the place (I also hate it sometimes), but mostly I’ve been travelling there to work with a school for underprivileged children (Buddha’s Smile School) in Sarnath which is a suburb of Varanasi and spend time with my new found friend Sukhdev Singh (a great cook) and owner of the Sarnath Cafe and his wife Rajan who runs Buddha’s Smile School.

I’m currently in the process of packing for a 3-week trip and I thought I might share some of my packing decisions.

Travelling Light

I’m used to packing light — been doing it for years and so the thought of taking more than a few days clothes doesn’t really come into consideration for me. Other thoughts like: I don’t have any functions to attend. It’s coolish in Varanasi at the moment. It’s unlikely to rain much. These are more the sort of things that help me decide what I’m taking. This trip I reckon on:

4 short sleeve cotton t-shirts
2 long sleeve cotton t-shirts
2 long sleeved cotton shirts
2 pair of cargo pants
5 pair of socks
5 pair of undies
1 warm waistcoat
1 Kashmiri shawl
2 pair shoes
1 Rain/warmth jacket
1 money belt
1 small first-aid kit
1 torch
1 digital camera (Panasonic Lumix FZ5)
1 mobile phone (Treo 680)
1 Mac PowerBook Ti/G4 15″

I decided I really didn’t need my laptop. I can do almost everything I need to do (read, email, write, listen to music and surf occasionally) on my Treo 680.

I’m also packing various medical and toiletries stuff — tissues, soap, toothbrush, comb, ear buds, shampoo, hand cream (no laughing), stuff for diarrhoea, a saline nose spray and some panadol.

Originally, I though I’d get everything into a day bag (my name for a smallish rucksack) but I also have a few presents and some books to deliver so I’ll probably also take a small sports bag that I’ll check-in. I’ll use the day bag for my laptop and camera a change of clothes in Singapore and while I’m there I’ll use it as my, well ‘day bag’.

About 180 million people or 15 percent of India’s population are known as or Untouchable or Dalit