Uttar Pradesh – World Travel

Kushinagar Uttar Pradesh India Travel

WorldTravelDB.com — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 08:01:01 +0000

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.

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Vrindavan Uttar Pradesh India Travel

WorldTravelDB.com — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 08:01:08 +0000

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.

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Varanasi Uttar Pradesh India Travel

WorldTravelDB.com — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 09:01:16 +0000

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.

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Uttar Pradesh India Travel

WorldTravelDB.com — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:01:21 +0000

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.

Known as UP, and often referred to as the cow belt or Hindu belt, India’s most populous state covers the vast, sprawling plain of northern India, bordering Delhi, Uttarakhand (formerly Uttaranchal, was part of UP until it split in 2000), Nepal and Bihar. The mighty, myth-laden Ganges – Hinduism’s most sacred river – rises in Uttarakhand and flows through the state providing a spiritual backbone exemplified by the bathing ghats of Varanasi and the pilgrimage centre of Allahabad – the most auspicious of India’s four Kumbh Mela sites. Just outside Varanasi, Sarnath was where Buddha first preached his gospel of the middle way, and Kushinagar, near Gorakhpur, is where he died. Devotees of a different kind are drawn to Mathura and Vrindavan, the birthplace of the much-loved god Krishna.

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Sunauli And The Nepal Border Uttar Pradesh India Travel

WorldTravelDB.com — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:01:39 +0000

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.

Buses drop you 200m from the Indian immigration office, so if your luggage is not too heavy you can ignore the crowd of cycle-rickshaw drivers.

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Sarnath Uttar Pradesh India Travel

WorldTravelDB.com — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:01:18 +0000

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.

Today it’s one of the four important sites on the Buddhist circuit (along with Bodhgaya, Kushinagar and Lumbini in Nepal), and attracts followers from around the world. An easy day or half-day trip from Varanasi, Sarnath is a green and peaceful place to spend some time and, along with the Buddhist ruins and monasteries, there’s an excellent museum.

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Mathura Uttar Pradesh India Travel

WorldTravelDB.com — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:01:05 +0000

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.

Mathura was once a Buddhist centre with 20 monasteries that housed 3000 monks, but during the 8th century Buddhism began to give way to Hinduism. In 1017 most of the Buddhist temples and Hindu shrines were levelled by the Afghan warlord Mahmud of Ghazni. More destruction occurred in the 16th century when Aurangzeb flattened the Kesava Deo Temple during one of his many demolition sprees and built a mosque in its place.

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Lucknow Uttar Pradesh India Travel

WorldTravelDB.com — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 08:01:25 +0000

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.

The city rose to prominence as the home of the nawabs of Avadh (Oudh). They controlled a region of northern-central India for about a century after the decline of the Mughal empire and most of the city’s monuments date from this period.

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Gorakhpur Uttar Pradesh India Travel

WorldTravelDB.com — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:01:06 +0000

Gorakhphur is uniquely placed at the crossroad between where the Buddha was born (Lumbini in Nepal) and died (Kushinagar), although for many travellers it’s merely a waystation on the road between Varanasi and Nepal. As such it’s a busy transport hub and well set up to accommodate travellers. There are no major tourist attractions in the city, although a Buddhist museum is near the lake on the southern outskirts and the Gorakhnath Temple, devoted to Guru Gorakhnath, is 4km west of the station.

Gita Press (2334721; www.gitapress.org), a renowned publisher, has a formidable range of religious books for sale and a huge art gallery of Hindu mythology on the 1st floor.

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Fatehpur Sikri Uttar Pradesh India Travel

WorldTravelDB.com — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:01:19 +0000

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.

Most people visit this World Heritage site as a day trip from Agra, but you can stay in the nearby town, and the red sandstone palaces are at their most atmospheric at sunset.

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