day 3

After a brief discussion it was decided that we would depart from rajgiri early in the morning to reach our last stop viz. shikharji . shikharji is a temple situated over a mountain . to visit that place one has to start from the foot before sunrise . so even though we would reach shikharji today we cant do the climbing today . but anyways not much of a thought was given and we departed as early as we could from the place . when we were out of rajgiri i got some details from my friend . (actually i was not able to follow the discussions that took place last evening , first of all i dont understand their language completely and secondly i was feeling sleepy .) . he said that our destination is just about 4 hours away and we have to stay there the whole day and start the climbing the next day . also there is no place to hangout nearby . so staying put in a room with so many people who will again dose off to sleep was a really boring prospect . so i thought really hard and viola came out an answer . i suggested an idea of visiting gaya and bodh-gaya in the way. he gave some more weight age and some how propagated the idea through the group and then the driver was asked to proceed towards gaya . we went though village filled with logged water and reached the temple of gaya where prayers are offered to our ancestors . of course we didn't have much to do there , so we just went through the temple and came out , took some refreshments (lassi , buttermilk, juice etc. and packed some for the trip ahead ) . then from there we headed towards bodhgaya . it had a few really beautiful Buddhist temples . the premises of the temple were beautifully maintained . one sign that i will never forget is one that said : " this is the land where such great humans (who marked the beginning of Buddhism ) walked , and we should be proud that we are born here . so be proud and say we are bihari " . I would have loved to describe the beauty of these structures but find myself short of words to do so . all i can say is that the structures and interiors were simple yet elegant and still majestic . we didn't find any cheap hotel around the place and didn't want to move back towards that waterlogged village so we bought ourselves a dozen mangoes and a pack of sliced bread . then we hit the highway and found a tree large enough to provide shelter to us all . then we sat down under it and had mangoes with bread slices. it was an experience that i enjoyed quite a lot . actually i could never image doing that . but it certainly was a memorable experience. we moved along a decent enough highway with two broad lanes . however our journey was halted by truck that had skidded away from the road and was being pulled out by a crane . it was some sight . at times it was hard to conclude whether the crane was pulling the truck or the truck was pulling the crane . anyways the wait was not too long . once we got way , we sped along the highway . after traveling for around an hour we entered jharkhand . how we came to know about it ?? well the answer is simple that we moved back to the zigzag highway where the vehicles were moving in both the directions though the same lane , changing lanes every couple of miles. anyways it was a long distance to shikharji and we reached the place at around 5 pm . there again we had a dharamshala ( this one being really big , as this pilgrimage means a lot to those following jaininsm ) . we unloaded ourselves in the rooms and rested for a while and then off we went to have a look at the market settled at the sides of the road that slanted considerably . then we went back to our rooms and prepared for a small nap , as we had to get up by 2 in the morning and get ready for climbing the mountain and visit the temple .