Vaishali goes back to the days of the Mahabharata. More recently, Vaishali is the place in today’s Bihar, where democracy had its origins in 600BC. In today’s modern India Vaishali is just an archaeological site but there was a time before Buddha was born when Vaishali was the first republic of the world. Vaishali is well known also because it is the place where Lord Mahavira, the last of the Jain Tirthankaras, was born. It is also the blessed place where Buddha delivered his very last sermon before his enlightenment. Vaishali is also known as the land where Amrapali held her court as the great courtesan of those days. Today Vaishali is spread over an area of 2036 sq. km and the district has 1572 villages. The best way to reach Vaishali is to fly in to Patna which is 56km away and from there take a taxi or bus to Vaishali.

New roads are getting built all over India all the time. Old roads are getting repaired and rebuilt also. Today, Bihar is not exactly in the best situation as far as its roads are concerned. Roads are being repaired and new and fast roads are being built in Bihar. Vaishali is only 642km away from Kolkata but it takes ten hours to cover this distance by road. Similarly, the distance to Cuttack from Vaishali is about 870km and it will probably take more than 14 hours to cover the distance. However, it is also true that the road network is good knitting Vaishali with other cities nearby such as Patna and Muzaffarpur, Bodhgaya and Rajgir besides Nalanda which is 140km away.

Vaishali does not have its own railway station. However, Hajipur City in Vaishali district is the 10th leading city in Bihar. Hajipur Junction is the HQ of the East Central Railway Zone. It is connected to Barauni, Chhapra and Muzaffarpur. It is on the route of the Guwahati Rajdhani Express as well as Vaishali Express and Bihar Sampark Kranti Superfast Express among other important trains. All other trains that pass through Hajipur necessarily stop here as well. There are, for instance, 85 trains connecting Delhi to Hajipur. Hajipur is only 44 km from Vaishali. One can cover the distance by either buses or taxis.

Vaishali does not have an airport. The nearest airport for Vaishali is the capital of Bihar, Patna airport, also known as Jai Prakash Narain Airport. Patna is only 64.3km from Vaishali on the Patna-Siwan Highway. One can therefore take a bus or taxi for reaching Vaishali from Patna after landing. Patna has several air connections with Delhi and Kolkata besides Varanasi and Lucknow as well as Kathmandu. There are flight connections between Patna and other cities too and these include Ranchi and Hyderabad as well as Chennai and Goa. Patna Airport was built in 1973 and today it ranks 22nd among all the busy airports in the country. There are both domestic and international flights to Patna which is under the authority of AAI that has full control over the airport’s operations.

Vaishali is a rather small place. It is therefore quite possible to cover all your various sites on foot. However, there are auto rickshaws available too in Vaishali and one can hire these as well. It might be possible to hire taxis also but this may not be an easy proposition. Lately, Vaishali has seen a fair amount of tourist traffic. For this reason there has been a boom in transportation facilities. One can therefore find traveller buses in Vaishali too nowadays.