Kathmandu: Nepal will soon launch a bus tour from Lumbini, the birth place of Lord Buddha, to different Indian cities having important Buddhist pilgrimages, to lure over a million tourists to the country during the Tourism Year 2011.
The Eco-tourism Buddhist Circuit pilgrimage tour will start from Lumbini in Western Nepal and take a round of Indian cities Bodhgaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar before concluding at where it started, said Nepal Tourism Board chief Prachanda Man Shrestha.
The ten-day tour aims to promote Nepal's tourism, which had suffered a lot during the decade-long insurgency, by luring Buddhist pilgrims from around the world, Shrestha said.
The pilgrims would get to see Buddhist stupas, chaityal, monasteries, mahaviharas, arts and architecture and religious literature from different parts of India and Nepal during the tour that would cost around 400 US dollar per person.
At the initiative of the Nepal Tourism Board, two 42-seater deluxe buses will be arranged as per the packaged tour programme that would start its trial run in November.
The regular bus service will start from January 2011 to coincide with the Nepal Tourism Year.
Lord Buddha was born in Lumbini some 2,554 years ago and he got enlightenment in Bodhgaya, preached his first disciple in Sarnath and died in Kushinagar of India.
Though Buddha was born in Nepal, the country has not received its proper share from the Buddhist pilgrimage tour due to lack of publicity and lack of connectivity, the minister claimed.
Through the packaged tour Nepal aims to get its share from around 300,000 Buddhist pilgrims who are currently visiting mainly Indian cities annually, Shrestha said. |
