Category: Uttar Pradesh

The last of the four main pilgrimage sites marking Buddha’s life – the others are Lumbini (Nepal), Bodhgaya and Sarnath – Kushinagar is where Buddha died, breathing his last words: ‘All things must pass. Work out your own salvation with diligence’. According to a Buddhist text, when he died ‘the earth shook, stars shot from the heavens, the sky in the 10 directions burst forth in flames and the air filled with celestial music’. Devotees from several countries have built temples here to accommodate monks and the pilgrims who visit this holy site. The sites of interest are strung out along Buddha Marg, a peaceful, green area of town with a suitably reverent atmosphere.

Dusty and crowded Vrindavan is where the young Krishna indulged in pranks such as stealing clothes from the gopis (milkmaids) while they bathed in the river. Little now remains of the legendary forests and pastures, but pilgrims still flock here in droves from all over India, and in the case of the Hare Krishna community, from all over the world.

Few places in India are as colourful, charismatic or spiritual as the bathing ghats lining the Ganges in Varanasi. The city of Shiva is one of the holiest places in India, where Hindu pilgrims come to wash away a lifetime of sins in the Ganges or to cremate their loved ones. Varanasi, previously named Benares and Kashi (City of Life) – it was renamed after the Varuna and Asi Rivers, which meet here – has always been an auspicious place to die, since expiring here offers moksha (liberation from the cycle of birth and death). The city is the beating heart of the Hindu universe, a crossing place between the physical and spiritual worlds, and the Ganges is viewed as a river of salvation, an everlasting symbol of hope to past, present and future generations. The magical but sometimes overwhelming city is where the most intimate rituals of life and death take place in public on the city’s ghats. The accessibility to the practices of an ancient but still living religious tradition is what captivates many visitors, and a walk along the ghats or a boat ride on the river is one of India’s most absorbing experiences.

Uttar Pradesh doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like Rajasthan, Kerala or Kashmir, but as a travel destination this expansive state looms large, thanks to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, and the enthralling city of Varanasi.

Straddling the India–Nepal border, Sunauli is a dusty town that offers little more than a bus stop, a hotel, a few shops and a border post on the Indian side – most travellers make the border crossing as soon as possible. A few more facilities are available in the Nepali part of Sunauli, but Bhairawa, 4km away, is a more substantial settlement.

Buddha came to Sarnath, 10km northeast of Varanasi, to preach his message of the middle way to nirvana after he achieved enlightenment at Bodhgaya. He gave his famous first sermon here to a handful of followers in a deer park, which has been recreated. In the 3rd century BC Ashoka had magnificent stupas and monasteries erected as well as an engraved pillar. When the Chinese traveller Xuan Zang dropped by in AD 640, Sarnath boasted a 100m-high stupa and 1500 monks living in large monasteries. However, soon after, Buddhism went into decline, and when Muslim invaders destroyed and desecrated the city’s buildings, Sarnath disappeared altogether. It was not rediscovered until 1835 when British archaeologists started excavations and Sarnath regained some of its past glory.

Braj Bhoomi – the ‘Land of Eternal Love’ and the name given to the region where the popular god Krishna is believed to have been born and spent his early years – existed only in the collective consciousness of Hindus until it was rediscovered by 16th-century scholars in the physical world in and around Mathura, 58km northwest of Agra.

Liberally sprinkled with British Raj-era buildings, the ruins of the historic Residency and boasting two superb mausoleums, Lucknow oozes historical interest, although you have to go looking for it in the sprawling congestion that characterises the capital of Uttar Pradesh.

This magnificent fortified ghost city, 40km west of Agra, was the short-lived capital of the Mughal empire between 1571 and 1585, during the reign of Emperor Akbar. Akbar visited Sikri to consult the Sufi saint Shaikh Salim Chisti, who predicted the birth of an heir to the Mughal throne. When the prophecy came true, Akbar built his new capital here. Although a brilliant Indo-Islamic masterpiece, the city was erected in an area that suffered from water shortages and was abandoned shortly after Akbar’s death. The well-preserved palace buildings and the still-used mosque are a superb reminder of the Mughals at their architectural peak, and you can wander around other ruins scattered behind the mosque and the mint.