Sleepy and feeling all grouchy, I got woke up at 4am as the train pulled into Gorakhpur Railway Station. Although there are no major tourist attraction in this busy transport hub, Gorakhphur is uniquely situated at the cross road between 2 major Buddhist Pilgrimage sites (i.e. Kushinagar and Lumbini) which would makes it almost a must-pass for all pilgrims. Slept through the 2-hour journey and woke up as the bus turned into Lotus Nikko Hotel in Kushinagar (boy, it was freezing at 7am!). The breakfast happened to be exactly the same as what we had in Bodhgaya.

Holi, a popular Hindu spring festival a.k.a. the Festival of Colours, is usually celebrated by people throwing coloured powder and water at each other (advertisements on Indian tourism always depict people having fun while getting their faces smeared with tikka powder). In rural parts of India, mud (at least that was what we were told) might be thrown instead (there were news that 28 tour buses had their windscreens cracked when people threw mud to it). Thus, the organisers decided to play it safe and postpone the sightseeing to the afternoon. It might be an over-measure on their part; I felt relatively safe (when I took a walk in town) apart from occasional requests to have tikka powder dabbed on my forehead. The organisers more or less made up for the disappointment by having our own Holi party in the hotel premises though most of the trip members were in the rooms doing horizontal meditation. Still, I had to give full marks to the organisers for their enthusiastic efforts.

We finally set off at 2pm (the group was getting really restless); first stop being the all-important Mahaparinirvana Temple. The term "Mahaparinirvana", or the great complete nirvana, occurs upon the death of the body of someone who had previously attained enlightenment. It is indeed a fitting name for the temple since it was in Kushinagar where Lord Buddha passed away 2,500 years ago.

The group continued down the road and came to Ramabhar Stupa, said to have been built on the spot where Lord Buddha was cremated. It was a rather nice place to sit down and ponder about life; even though the afternoon sun was not sparing any efforts in providing its warmth.