Pokhara is amazing when you want to psychologically recover - a month or even two are perfect. I stayed for 4 months, and it was too, too much - super boring. Although 3 months of healthy self-cooked food and clean air were priceless.
Moved to India and got infected on the way. I felt scratching throat in the train Gorakhpur to Sarnath, and thought "Am I sick? Please no" I was sort of okay for 2 days, but then fever started, and it lasted for 6 days. Tough considering "+33 feeling like +42" (quoting Google) and no AC in the dormitory.
At last, yesterday was the first day without high body temperature, but headache poisoned my mood all day.
Nevertheless, around 4 p.m. I wobbled to my favorite place in Sarnath:
A Tibetan restaurant (map) at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery.
Chicken momo with chili sauce (130 rupees, 1,3$) - gorgeous! In Northern India, it's often difficult to find a place where they cook chicken deliciously and normally you have to pay 3$ for an awfully cooked dish. After sickness, I especially needed some meat, and, thanks God, I found this Tibetan restaurant. Exceptional momos, even better than in Nepal, with much chicken in it!
What's cool: many visitors are Tibetans, so no doubt the recipes are authentic.
And that's the monastery:
The yard is plain-looking but the decoration of the altar's interior is gorgeous:
I told you about the headache but chicken momos with a glass of hot black tea fixed me up enough to feel okay for a walk. I decided that would help my recovery more than wallowing in bed again.
So what is Sarnath?
Sarnath is a place where Buddha delivered his first sermon. Thus, that's where Buddhism as a teaching was born. For that reason, many foreign and local Navayana Buddhists visit this small town, and crowds of Indian onlookers come to see exotic constructions.
There are many foreign Buddhist temples in Sarnath. However, only Tibetan ones look pretty alive, while the rest serve more as monuments. Some of these monuments are beautiful, like this Japanese temple:
Look at the floor - the natural stone!
Amazing wood carving, many great artifacts there.
At the moment of my visit, there was a drum ceremony of some kind, and the whole temple was immersed in the meditative vibrations.
Vishwa Shanti Stupa, quite modern and replica-like, but not without charm.
Some sort of modern installation on the station road, with kids playing.
An abandoned Chinese structure. But they have another one nearby:
And that's Mulagandha Kuty Vihara (1931) built by Maha Bodhi Society, aiming to preserve and recover Buddhism in India:
There are Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese structures in Sarnath... and hordes of Indian visitors with phones taking selfies. I love certain places in Sarnath but the town, in general, looks more like a theme park than a religious center, with much Buddhist-themed art (on each brick wall) of the lowest taste... It is what it is, but that's great that this place exists as a reminder for such a great teaching as Buddhism.
