Buddha's Enlightenment a "non-event" in India

[plwk]

While most Asian countries are planning to exploit the occasion of 2,600 years of enlightenment of Buddha, seven Indian states having Buddhist heritage have not spent anything substantial to tap tourists from Buddhist-majority Asian tiger economies and China, during the last two decades .complained the Times of India in a signed editorial by Sanjay Sharma.

More here

[cooran]

After 38 years, Christopher Titmuss is ending Retreats in Bodh Gaya and shifting them to Shravasti.

Why End the Retreats in Bodh Gaya after 38 years?
http://christophertitmuss.org/blog/?p=979" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

with metta
Chris

[plwk]

Yeah Chris, that reminded me of my private pilgrimage trip with a friend and when we were at Sravasti back in 2010, where we saw some new hotels up as what our tour guide told us and how this place could use a tourism boost. We stayed overnight in a spanking new & very contemporary looking hotel that we were booked in but there were so many hiccups (I understand the curses of pre-opening a new property lol) and out of the many rooms they had, only us and another guest were the occupants then... we had the whole hotel to ourselves lol

Imagine the same front desk personnel doubling up as our waiter in the restaurant later that evening... and later I saw their personnel sleeping behind the front desk at around 1 am when I came down to inform them that there was an electricity outage... and yes, only two channels were working on the tv and they were Thai channels

[DNS]

Shravasti is nice. The Buddha spent many years in Shravasti.

That is too bad about some of the conditions at Bodh Gaya, but somewhat expected as a place becomes so popular and those things are bound to happen with the increased traffic, etc.