Lakes, Trains & Mountains

Am starting off on the much delayed write up on our Switzerland trip. Let me begin with the reason for choosing Switzerland. Primarily it was driven by Visa and logistics point of view. The French embassy did not have any visa appointments for the next couple of months. And then from a logistical point of view, doing one country in detail seemed to be more practical than multiple countries - Belgium, Holland and/or France. More so, given the fact that returning to London on a Sat/Sun/Mon seemed to be exorbitantly costly. Once Switzerland was chosen as the destination - then it boiled down to the number of days one wanted to go around the country. Once again it was driven by the decent offer on Swiss airlines (the erstwhile Swiss Air - the so called 'most premium' airline back then has been rechristened 'Swiss' with the same insignia and other details; maybe this was the inspiration to call Indian Airlines 'Indian'!). After I froze on the to/fro dates, I got in touch with people who have been there and done that! In this instance, one of my friends - Ramachandran provided details of 'must see' places. Rajesh too helped by asking me to write to his wife's cousin who is a visiting professor in a Geneva university. I also posted a query on one of the travel forums and they 'rubbished' my travel plan saying that I am trying to go/see too many places and that it would be quite hectic. Armed with all these responses and the customary 'Switzerland' book that my flatmate had at home, I planned the itinerary, revising/cancelling some of the hotels that I had already booked.

Now to start off on the trip. Here goes ...

Day 1

We woke up to the noise of rains lashing against the window! After debating about various options, good fortune had it that we booked a cab to go to Clapham Junction station early in the morning at 5 AM. Although I was optimistic of seeing the sunrise, needless to say the sun beat us to it even at 5 AM in the morning! We caught the train to Waterloo and from there tube (underground) to another station - Canning Town. From there we got the Overground (yes a contraption of 2-3 bogies that runs on tracks that do not have stones or the horizontal rails! We were amazed at how nearby the airport was to the overground rail station! We turned left out of the station and yes, bingo, there we were in the middle of the small airport named 'London City'. Check in was uneventful for me, but for Raji, the security personnel made her drink the whole bottle of water, which we carried at my instance! The plane was the small sized one, with seating for 2 on one side and 3 on the other. Much against my expectation, we were served a raisin bun, coffee/tea/fruit juice and one small 'premium' Swiss chocolate. We landed at Basel on time. The first curious thing I noticed there was immigration gates for Switzerland, France and Germany! We got the currency exchanged at the counter for 1.51 for the British Pound. After converting the currency and then completing Immigration/Customs, we went to the baggage counter to register a complaint for the broken number lock (on the blue colour Polo suitcase). There was a shop of the Swiss Rail (called for some reason, SBB CFF FFS!). Based on my itinerary, we purchased train tickets for all the days (the lady was very helpful, extremely bright/intelligent and very courteous - a rare combination!). And to our utter dismay we realised that the currency conversion rate there was 1.70! We decided to try our luck to cross immigration/customs through the 'No entry' boards (we spoke to the personnel there and met up with the first big problem that we would encounter all through the trip - language barrier!). Finally, the lady at the currency counter reimbursed us the entire amount much to our surprise. We went to the SBB Rail counter yet again and converted the currency there and finally were off to Basel Railway station by bus - almost 1.5 hours after we landed!

Basel station looked reasonably imposing from the outside, with lots of tram lines and buses leading up to it. It had lots of eateries at the bottom level. I tried to get a falafel but then the lady there kept repeating something in German - the language they speak here is actually called SwissGerman, Raji kept repeating the question whether it was vegetarian. Finally, the lady got fed up with us and then we left! We got into a supermarket and realised the second big problem that we would encounter throughout the trip - unlike England where all vegetarian food products are marked 'Fit for vegetarians' or 'Fit for Vegan' etc, there was no such concept there. More importantly, the details of the product and ingredients were written in 3 languages - French, Italian and German, but no English! We did finally get some fruit juice and flavoured yoghurts and proceeded to Level 1 of the station. There was a main concourse at Level 1 and at least 16-20 different platforms off it! We got to the platform to get on board a train to Zurich. The trains are all fantastic - they look real glossy. We were off to Zurich and I was curious to find out how much of Zurich would I remember. Yes, Zurich was my first exposure outside of India when DNP (my module manager at Infosys then) and I decided to take a transit visa to explore Zurich for about 4-5 hours that we had between flights (by SwissAir then!). We did pass through some splendid scenery on the way and arrived at Zurich at about 3 pm. We got day travel tickets at the machine outside the tram stop (all information only in German - we had to take the help of someone who understood English and German to buy the tickets) and took the tram to go to the hotel (the only hotel we were staying in, for this trip - all other accommodation was booked in Youth Hostels!).

The Holiday Inn hotel looked decent enough. We were real tired since we had to wake up by 4 AM to leave home. I switched on the TV and we watched Andy Murray losing out to Andy Roddick. After taking some 'power' naps we decided to explore Zurich city ... err town. Once we reached the street outside the station, I remembered that I had seen the building and the road leading up to it. Apparently this - Bahnofstrasse - is the most 'famous railway station road' in the world - now, don't ask me why ... that is what the travel guide says! There were an array of premium/luxury brand outlets - Rolex, Longines, Swarovski etc and there were these huge Swiss flags above the street. There were also these peculiar looking large flower pots - each pot had a different design painted on it and each of those pots carried different variety of flowers. I knew that the lake was somewhere close by since I was by the lake when I had the most delicious apple ever - all those years back - maybe I was very hungry then! We did roam by the lake area, watched the crimson colours painted on the clouds by the setting sun. Oh yes, now there would be a Lindt chocolate building somewhere in this area. And there it was. I could not believe it. Maybe this is what someone would say when they come to Alleppey after 9 years ... that nothing ever changes! We returned to the hotel just in time for the restaurant closing time of 11 pm. We had quite a decent dinner there - the pasta actually tasted good.

Day 2

The next morning turned out to be the start of a beautiful, sunny day. We went back to the Bahnofstrasse and were on our way to visit one of the churches when Raji pulled me aside. Her eyes were shining looking at the fruit shop by the road. We bought quite a few of the fruits there - apricots, cherries and apples .. well they turned out to be what is called as nectarines - probably a hybrid of peach and apple! We walked towards the church spire when I was reminded of the comments of one of the guys who responded to our query seeking direction all those years back. “See Chagall's windows? ... no see ... bad ... should see the windows ..world famous”! I really cannot think of why this specific conversation stuck in memory or why I was remembering this now! We walked inside the church and there they were ... the famous Chagall's stained glass windows - modern art of Biblical characters! I was more fascinated by two kid girls (around 4-5 years old) who were being photographed in pink fluffy frocks on the steps of the church. Apparently this church was called kirschmunster. We also went to the other church - the grossmunster and walked around the lake which looked quite transformed today. There were loads and loads of people all around the lake - many of them were relaxing/sunbathing on some wooden platforms some distance away. There were many people taking out their boats out onto the lake. We had noticed a shack the previous evening because it had McDonalds written on it, but then realised that was the shop for 'free bike rental'. Although we were getting delayed as per our original plan of leaving Zurich for Luzern by 10/11 AM, we decided to give the free bike rental a try. At the shop, the guy there asked us "country?" We said "India". It may sound very cliched .. he said "India ... and hummed 'Awara hoon' and indicated in sign language that he heard the song when he was very young! We got 2 ladies bicycles, Raji being particularly excited. These cycles also had gears and when I started riding the cycle, I remembered that I was riding a cycle after so many years now! We rode around the lake for about an hour, stopped in many places to take photos, and then returned the bikes.

We returned by tram to the hotel (the day travel card is valid for 24 hours, so it really helped!), took our bags and returned by tram to the Zurich station.

We got on the train to Luzern - this was a double decker train. And like the previous day, we had fruit juice and yoghurt for lunch. The journey did present quite a few stunning vistas of lakeside scenery. We reached Luzern by about 5 pm. We got off the station and took help from the Tourist Information Centre (like we did in Zurich) and got onto a bus that would get us to the Lion Lodge (hostel). We had to share the 4 bed (2 bunk beds each) for the night - in all other hostels we had the separate room accommodation. Our room mates for the night did not seem to have arrived. We stepped out and were curious to find a 'Vegetarian only' restaurant opposite the 'Masala - Indian cuisine' joint. I ordered Lemon Risotto (a rice dish) for Raji and a Veg falafel for myself. Raji's eyes fell when she saw her dish - it looked and tasted like a porridge of lemon half-boiled rice. My dish was eatable, but was quite heavy. An old lady who was barely able to walk with the support of walking stick sat on the next table and promptly drank a huge glass of beer! There were all sorts of interesting comments being made by Raji all the time! When the lady who was running the restaurant enquired as to what do we need to drink, we said 'tap water' thanks to the confusion in the hotel restaurant the previous night when it took us a while to understand that the waitress was referring to tap water - she had to indicate with sign language! The surprise at the restaurant came when we were given a bill that included 2 francs for each glass of tap water that we drank! We stepped out and walked towards the lake. And there we were astounded by what we saw. The hills by the lake were painted with an amazing shade of red. I have never come across such a colour in my life. I knew that although it looked too good to be true, it was indeed the colour cast by the setting rays of the sun! I realised immediately that I did not have the camera with me and literally ran as fast as I could back to the hostel. And when I got in, I realised that our room mates for the night had already come in. I sprinted all the way back to the lake only to find that the hills were now reduced to a dull, grey colour! We walked back to the lodge. Our room mates were from the US, on holiday here. The guy said he was interested in Indian music, especially the Sarod and wanted to become a musician. The girl said that she was interested in becoming a psychologist. They were going ga ga about the paragliding that they had done earlier in the day at Interlaken and were literally pleading with us that we too do the same. It was so 'cool', in that typical US accent from down south! They were students whose schedule seemed to be something like - 2 days in Switzerland, 2 days in Germany, trekking off and on the Mediterranean in Italy the next couple of days, 2 days in France and 2-3 days in England! They looked to be too young to be travelling together, and that too, to all these places! We were so tired after another hectic day that we probably slept like logs. Across the floor, the bunk bed had not been slept in!


Am continuing with the Swiss trip ... (maybe it is boring, but am enjoying writing in any case!).

Day 3

We woke up to a very dreary, rainy day! We did notice the painting on the wall adjacent to the building that we stayed in, which appeared to give the perspective view of a continuation of the road and streets! It was so "cool"! We went by the advise of our room mates who had recommended the nearby Glacier Garden - "It is really so cool!” The Gletscher Garten was beside the famous Lion Monument - the statue of a lion being killed by a spear - apparently called the saddest stone monument in the world by no less a person than Mark Twain! The Glacier Garden was a bit different - in that it was found by accidental digging to be the place of a glacier millions of years old! They also had funny looking huge potholes that were part of the glacier and there were also fossils of seashells on rocks - much akin to the concept of people having found sea shell fossils on the Himalayas - solid proof of the fact that all these places were below the ocean all those zillions of years ago. Then, we came upon the "most cool place" - the Alhambra palace of mirrors. This is apparently the recreation of the Alhambra mirror palace in Spain. It was an amazing place, really. At any point in time, one was looking at a minimum of 4-6 mirror images. One could not distinguish between mirror wall and the walking path. We tried a variety of pictures of me taking photos - and mirror images would project a range of reflections all over the place. Finally, I gave up because we could not do justice to the crazy angles thrown by the mirrors on the camera.

There were a couple of real funny mirrors outside in the open air that threw up various contortions of our shapes - one was especially phenomenal - our legs, below the knee till the ankle was shortened - maybe this was the trick Kamal Hassan adopted in Apoorva Sahodararkal! There was this batch of predominantly middle aged ladies who came in front of this mirror and they started howling. A couple of them had this funny kind of laughter which we too parodied and all of us kept laughing for a very long time! We came out of the glacier garden and made the usual rounds of all souvenir shops doing comparative cost analysis of all varieties of souvenirs! We dropped in on a chocolate shop and noticed the chocolate fountain and a chocolate model of the famed Timber bridge. We stepped out and spent a few minutes by the Timber bridge that we walked on to reach the other side of the lake the previous night.

It was still raining outside and after pondering about which mountain to visit, which cable car to take etc, finally we decided to go back to the tourist information centre. They ruled out most of the options - it was too late or it was raining on those mountains and finally we were left with just one option Mt. Rigi. We had to take the boat leaving Luzern in the next 5 minutes and then mountain railway and cable car up the mountain as per the brochure. The boat ride was quite good, but not very eventful. The aquamarine colour of the lake with Luzern town in the distance and surrounded by mountains on all sides made for a lovely sight. We had to get down at a stop named Viznau. I was so caught up by the beauty of it all and also by the assumption that most of the co-passengers were for Mt. Rigi. By the time I realised that the boat had been at Viznau for some time and then rushed to the exit, I came across the boat crew taking out the ropes from the jetty and they apologised saying that we were late and that we would be back at Viznau in 30 minutes on the return leg! We waited and then after 30 odd minutes got down at Viznau. And then realised that the mountain railway train leaves once every hour (we had to take the 7 pm train down from Mt. Rigi to be in time to catch the last boat back to Luzern!). Which meant that we had to take the next train up and we would have only about 40-45 mins to enjoy the views from the peak there. We waited and got on the train and as per the diagrams indicated on the brochure we had to take the cable car from a place called Kaltbad (I called it Katpadi!). The mountain train was on a very steep ascent and the views enroute were simply magnificent. There were only a couple of us on the train for the journey! I went up to the door ahead and from there I could get the engine driver view - something I had always wanted to see since childhood! It was difficult to stand on the train because of the gradient and we noticed the peculiar sight of houses and huts constructed at an acute angle - almost as if to prevent them from falling down! I enquired with the driver if the cable cars are from Kaltbad and he confirmed. We got down and to my astonishment realised that the mountain train went further up on its climb!

My worst doubts were soon confirmed when I realised to my horror that the cable car went only down from there and not up! There was only the mountain train to go up the mountain from there and the next train would come in an hour! I really could not come with an explanation of how things happened this way. I realised that I had observed the cable lift towers a la Gulmarg and had 'assumed' that the cable lift is the way up (as indicated in the brochure!). Now, we were left with only one option which was to walk or to wait for the next train. I was interested in walking up till the next station whereas Raji was telling that she was finding it difficult to walk and was also finding it tough to breathe normally. And climbing all the way up to 'Rigi Kulm' or the peak would take more than 2 hours. While walking down to Katpadi, I was observing that Raji was finding it extremely difficult to get a grip on the ground so as to prevent herself from falling. So, we waited at Katpadi! While waiting, we did enjoy the serene sound of the clanging of bells that the Swiss cows made. Another idea germinated and took shape. "Oh no, not again" said Raji! I realised that the cable car from Katpadi was to a place called Wegiss and the boat would stop by at Wegiss on its return leg from Viznau to Luzern. However, the 7 pm return train would reach Katpadi at 7.13 pm and the cable car from Katpadi to Wegiss would leave at 7.15 pm! We literally had to run from the train station at Katpadi to the cable car lift embarkation point! The next cable car to Weggis was at 11.15 pm (after 4 hours and they say Switzerland is a tourist friendly country!). All this also meant that we would have hardly 10-15 minutes at the mountain summit to enjoy the views! We waited at Katpadi (it was a nice Swiss village - beautiful countryside, greenery, cows grazing - you get the picture, right?!) and then got onto the next train to Rigi Kulm. The train stopped a few yards ahead - one of the guys there - probably a farmer, was loading milk cans (aluminum cans of the Milma variety of yore!) onto a contraption that looked like a separate goods bogie, in front of the train engine!) and then we finally reached Rigi Kulm. I told the driver that we needed to catch the return train at 7 pm that he would be driving down. He asked us to hurry up saying that he will leave at 7 pm sharp!

We ran and came upon the lift to Rigi Kulm hotel! There were a load of Chinese guys in the lift. We were literally racing against time and on reaching the hotel, I ran out first and noticed a communication tower that was also the lookout point. I asked Raji to stay back saying that I will run up the steep incline to take some photos and that she needn't follow up - she can always have a look at the photos! I do not know from where my lungs found the capacity, but I did manage to run up the ascent. It was very greyish and cloudy and there was nothing much to see - about to rain types, and I was indicating to Raji that she need not climb up and I ran down - we had to get to the train in the next 5 minutes or else, we would be stranded in not being able to get on the return boat! There was this lady who came up to me right then, asking me to take a photo of her in sign language, handing over her camera to me. What's more she was speaking some strange language specifying what scenery I should include! I got her to take a photo of us too!

We were still racing against time, if we wanted to take the cable car down to Weggis. Once again, as if to make matters worse, the farmer once again ate into our time, this time unloading empty milk cans that were loaded from Rigi Kulm. We got out at Katpadi and were left with a difficult choice. To run to the cable car lift or to remain on the train down? I decided to take the risk and told Raji that I would run all the way to the cable car lift and hold the car back for her to come at a reasonable pace. But, if the cable car had left by then, I would signal to her and that she should hold the mountain train back! I guess I would have come close to at least the National record (Indian) for the fastest high altitude 100 m mountain run! I enquired with the guy at the cable lift counter - by now it would be obvious that English was a big handicap - and he asked 'One' or 'Two'! And by the time I could answer, I was hearing Raji shout from outside the tunnel entrance! I confirmed to her that the cable car lift hadn't left (we literally shouted at the top of our voice in Tamil there, but then there was no one around in any case!). We were relieved to have not missed the cable car. I had lingering doubts if the train driver had communicated to the cable car counter guy, but I don't think so. You may wonder as to why we could not inform the cable car counter crew while we waited at Katpadi for the next train. Well, the cable car counter is open only when there is a cable car there - which means that the guy at the counter was also the guy operating the cable lift!

I was mistaken to think that the adventure part ended there. More on that later …. Now, back to the cable car. The view from the cable car was simply phenomenal. There was the dark grey sky above, aquamarine waters of the lake below, mountains painted a dark black and greenery on the ground directly below us. And the cable car was also on a steep gradient of descent. You would be taken high on to the top of the tower there and then would be the descent with a pronounced "vayaru shoo" and onto the next tower. The closer we got to the ground, the more fascinating the green looked! And finally we were down at Weggis. Now came the difficult part of navigating our way out of this place to the boat jetty. I was going crazy taking photographs of the landscape, greenery, grey skies etc and we came upon a road that we had to cross. And there she went down again. I was stunned to see Raji sprawled on the road, her weak right ankle giving way yet again! Thankfully there were no vehicles coming by, or else it could have been a very difficult scenario to visualise! We continued walking, she hobbling by my side. We were almost at the boat jetty when I saw curtains opening slightly ajar from one of the numerous tents by the lake and all I got to see was a glimpse of Roger Federer, yes our very own Swiss boy, triumphantly walking out of the centre court of Wimbledon with the Trophy! We reached the boat jetty in the next couple of minutes and just then it began to rain. And how it rained! We waited for the boat to come by - it came precisely at the time it was supposed to come (8.06 pm or so, anyways, not surprising since the Swiss are world famous for precision). It rained most of the time on our return leg by boat and we reached Luzern by 9 pm. There was obviously no chance of a repeat of the glorious sunset of the previous evening! We had to go to the Lion Lodge to collect our baggage and this was on account of the most irritating policy of the hotels/hostels in Switzerland. Check in time is usually 3 pm or in many cases 4 pm and check out time is 10 AM (how can such a stupid policy be allowed in a supposedly tourist friendly country!). But of course, one has access to free luggage lockers in all these hotels/hostels. We had booked ourselves in the Youth Hostel (the Lion Lodge was run by Backpackers who came into existence as competition to Youth Hostel) for the next evening since they had non-dormitory rooms available. The guy running the Lion Lodge was a Bangaleshi and he adviced us to walk ahead for just 10 minutes to reach the Youth Hostel, to follow the signs on the road. We set out with the luggage and there were absolutely no signs on the road! And with almost no one walking on the road (it was about 10 pm!), it was a real struggle. Finally we came upon a guy who said that he would help us out although he did not know English! And thus, we finally managed to reach the Youth Hostel. We took permission of the guy at the reception to make use of the microwave oven there to cook something for dinner. We were in no mood to walk all the way back up to find dinner. And thus ends another hectic day capped by the adventurous trip to Mt. Rigi!

Day 4

We woke up to another rainy day. After par taking the breakfast buffet at the Youth Hostel (it was the standard fare - the stone baked (and hard!) Swiss bread, butter, cheese, fruit juice, cereals, yoghurt etc) and being astonished by how much people were swallowing there (!), we took a bus to Luzern station and it was time to say good bye (although we would transit Luzern on our return journey).

Once again the truly fantastic landscape kept me glued to the windows on our journey to Bern, the capital of Switzerland. We did contemplate stepping out of the station, just to have a look at the city, but decided against it, for the connecting train was in about 2-3 minutes. We took the train to a little town called Visp and similarly here too, the connecting train to Zermatt was in a couple of minutes, as laid out in the print out given to us by the friendly railway information counter staff at Luzern. At Visp, the train to Zermatt awaiting us was the 'Glacier Express' or at least it had the words 'Glacier Express' emblazoned on the engine. The train painted in striking red and white looked quite fancy and a bit toy-like! The initial part of this train journey was comparable to the Quilon - Sengottai route, in that there was a rivulet/stream flowing by the side. And then we came upon impressive vistas of snow capped mountains in the distance. The train was definitely going at a very reasonable speed (that has been a major disappointment, not being able to find out the speed of the trains!) and rapidly inching up its way to the mountains. We were able to see snow that looked more like ice at the mountain tops, from not very far. The journey to Zermatt was for about an hour.

Zermatt was included in the itinerary on account of my friend - Ramachandran's recommendation. According to him Zermatt was a small village that was 'smaller and less populated than even East Fort in Trivandrum'! Zermatt is most famous for being the town of the Matterhorn. Matterhorn is the name of a mountain, said to be the most majestic and iconic mountain peak in Switzerland. The travel guide stated that Matterhorn symbolises Swiss Alps and Switzerland much like the Eiffel Tower symbolised Paris. The thing about Matterhorn is that it looks gigantic because of its splendid isolation; there are no other mountain peaks in close proximity to it.

We stepped off the station and began walking towards the Youth Hostel which was some distance away. Cars and other automobiles are banned in Zermatt and hence the local taxis that run are electric/battery powered vehicles.

We reached the Youth Hostel, located on top of a steep incline, to find that the reception was closed until 4 pm (as had been mentioned in their website!). Accommodation in Zermatt was the costliest on this trip and still, the check in/out times left a lot to be desired. And at the Youth Hostel here, accommodation was inclusive of dinner and breakfast. Finally, we checked in at about 4 pm, to learn that dinner would be served only till 7.30 pm, which meant that we had to return from sight seeing by 7.30 pm! We had plans to get onto one of the oldest mountain railways there - the Gornergrat Train. Now, it looked to us that we had to catch the 4.24 pm train so as to spend an hour at the top and return in time to have dinner by 7.30 pm. Once again we were in a race against time! We reached the Gornergrat railway ticket counter by 4.15 pm and I gestured to an elderly person that he could stand ahead of me in the queue - you know, one has to be courteous and polite in Western countries, right! This turned out to be a very costly mistake. The old man and his female companion were chatting up with the counter lady and the clock was ticking away. There was another counter and it was perplexing to see that a similar thing was happening there too - an old couple keeping the counter person engaged. I was getting way too restless and so were the others in the queue. Finally, by the time my turn was up, the time was 4.24 pm and I enquired with the lady if we would be able to board the train leaving right then. Her reply was phenomenal "Perhaps". Straining my neck, I could see the crew of the railway closing the doors after seeing off the train! None of us in the queue were able to get on board the train. To me, it looked way too bad for a country and its people that pride on being tourist friendly. You may wonder as to why we were looking to have dinner only at the Youth Hostel. Well, the options to have vegetarian food were extremely limited in any case, and our hostel being a bit far away, there were not many options around. We were dejected and walked around the town a bit, looking around.

We came upon a herd of sheep making its way through the town centre, herded by 4-5 teenage boys wearing traditional attire. The bells made a very strange but soothing sound. A lady came up to us and spoke about the fact that her children had been to India and wondered if we were Christians. And handed us some book on bible etc … you get the point, right?!

We did get to see good views of Matterhorn. The peak had been covered by clouds and we could see only the black coloured base until then. The clouds cleared a bit to expose almost 90% of the peak. We trudged back to the hostel in time for the dinner. I had contemplated going on a trek till the next point on the Gornergrat track, but decided against the same, since we did not want to take risk with Raji's ankle.

While we were evaluating our options of vegetarian food at the dinner table, an old lady came to us, and told us that the soup tasted very good. When we queried her about our vegetarian preferences, she walked over to the Chef and spoke to him in German who confirmed to us that the soup was 'vegetarisch'; she confirmed to us that the soup was vegetarian but wanted to be doubly sure about the stalk used. She then came over and told us that she had enquired with the kitchen about vegetarian options and that we had to inform them in advance. And that we had to manage with what was available - which was mashed potato, and the desserts. She did enquire if we were from India, while letting us know that she was from England. While we were having our food, the kitchen staff came over and told us that they did have vegetarian options available, which was a veggie dish fried in dough. The dinner was quite decent and filling, with the desserts being the highlight for me. They were simply delicious - one was sweet custard and the other one was a pudding.

While we were having dinner, the British lady came over and enquired if we were enjoying our dinner and that she was very happy that we did have vegetarian options. She wondered if we had plans of going out after dinner and when we replied in the negative, she queried if we would be open to generally sit around and discuss. We said yes and she confirmed to meet us in the cafeteria in half an hour! After the initial exchange of pleasantries - she did tell about the Gornergrat Railway that she went on, that it was splendid and that the only other thing she wants to see in Zermatt was the goats that pass through the main town (!) - and it almost looked as if she wanted to get over it soon so that she could discuss about something important - she said, Now, let us talk about India!

She said that she has been considering travelling to India for some time now and that she had not been able to bring herself up to make that decision. Apparently, her son has been fascinated by India and has visited India multiple times. So have many of her friends. And so, her first question to us, what is the inflation rate in India? I was stumped! She added, how many inflation rates do you have and do you include mortgages into calculating inflation! My head was beginning to spin. But this was not even a starter compared to the main course! Is India's population declining and if so why? I told her in that context that the averages are not a good parameter and that there are 4-5 states in India (the 'bimaru ones' for us - namely Bihar, MP, Rajasthan and UP, right?) pull us down. And she confessed her poor knowledge in statistics and asked me as to what the difference was between Median and Mode! I never would have thought, even in my wildest imagination, that my mathematical skills and IIM exposure would help me stand up to this old lady, and that too in a place like Zermatt, in Switzerland while on vacation! I had to finally ask for a piece of paper to put out a data sample and convey to her what my understanding of Mode was! I fervently hope now that, that was right! I was telling her that for example people are getting married at a later age now and hence that should explain a slower rate of population growth in urban India. She continued at such a level that we had to really dig deep to come up with seemingly convincing, logical and fact-based answers to her 'grilling'! I stopped midway and asked her what and who she was, whether she was planning to write a book on India or if she was an economist! She spoke about how she has been involved in community development, planning, slum resettlement etc in the UK and how/why she has been interested in these aspects of the developing world, especially India. She was some lady, to say the least! She then proceeded to say how she met with 2 people from India the previous evening in the same hotel (so this was a daily thing for her, then!). She said that one person was settled in the US working for some IT company and that the other guy was from Bangalore who was very ambitious and wanted to emulate the other guy by going to the US. She was also telling us how the first guy was giving the airs of 'been there, done that, have made it big in life' and how the second guy was fascinated by the first. To her, these represented 2 different views/perspectives on India, and how she thought that these were the only 2 possible aspects of India and she was concerned that now we (especially I) come along and confuse her with a 3rd view on India, a more "intellectual" view of India, she said. I told her that there will be more than 1 billion different views of India, and that is why even for something like cricket, people say that there are more than 1 billion experts of cricket in India. I could devote a lot more space to her here, but I guess it would make much more sense conveying our feeling/admiration about her, in person!

My mind's eye did go back in time (as it always/usually does) to another conversation with another firebrand lady - on a train journey - TN express, Chennai to Bhopal en route to Lucknow. There was a young girl working for Green Peace, an SBI Branch Manager (his previous assignment was in SBI, New York) and the 2 of us, besides this portly looking middle aged lady. She ripped apart the Green Peace activist saying that there can be nothing called 'Sustainable Development' and that this was one of the new oxymorons bandied around. Then she turned to the SBI Manager and asked him what he thought about the Barings Bank collapse! She put forth her own views as to what actually happened! Turning to us, she rubbished how we guys fall prey to Philip Kotler and his thoughts on Management in fancy coloured diagrams that are basic common sense! Am telling you, she trampled upon all of us. I remember asking her what or who she was and she refused to tell! Finally, she accepted that my guess of her - a civil servant was right. I had persisted then to know if she was from the IAS. She wanted to know how or why it mattered. I had told her that I wanted to know that if she was from the IAS, how come she was travelling in Sleeper class and not in AC! That was the only moment when she laughed me aside and told us that she was not from the IAS. She refused to reveal her name although I had argued that we could find it even otherwise - from the railway reservation chart!

Day 5

We woke up to another cloudy day. We were wondering if we should do the Gornergrat Railway or the one that I had wanted to do based on my research on the internet - what was called the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise (the Brit lady said that she did not have enough money to enjoy the 'Paradise'!). After the confusion of where to go, we finally decided that we should try out the Paradise, primarily because we did not make it to Gornergrat because of the lady at the counter and so probably it was not 'meant to be'. At the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise ticket counter, I enquired if we would be able to enjoy the same because of the clouds. The guy there clicked on the PC at the counter and showed us how cloudy it is at the various points on the peak and informed us that if we went up now, we would not be able to see much! I had read from the internet too that they cameras at the top of various mountain peaks and all hotels/hostels/ticket counters have access to these websites to show the tourist in advance what to expect! We waited outside the ticket counter for about 30 minutes or so and noticed a variety of people getting onto the cable car lift (by the way, in case you are not able to relate to this, it is exactly what a ropeway is!) with all sorts of shoes, skis, skating equipment and what not. There were even kids dressed in snow sports mode and carrying skis etc!).

We also noticed that clouds were clearing a bit and paid for the 'Matterhorn Glacier Paradise'! We got onto the cable car that took us up for about 10 minutes and then boarded the next cable car further up. This cable car was a huge one that waited until it was more or less full - about 30-40 people would be my guess and was run at fixed times. On this cable ride, the views changed dramatically. There were spread across us, a range of snow clad mountains. These were not snow 'capped' ones, but were drenched in snow top to bottom! There was also a glacier running along, that melted into a river further downstream. The brightness of the snow was very intense and was almost blinding to the eye.

We got off and realised that there was another cable car that took us further up! By now, it was getting into the realms of incredulity, as to what we were getting to see! Like the previous cable lift, this was also a huge one and we waited for about 10 odd minutes before we embarked to the top. The views en route were simply breathtaking. It was almost as if you were on a helicopter just above the ground, in the lap of all these snow mountains. Somewhere among these was the Monte Rosa massif - the tallest mountain peak in Switzerland! I was searching for the Matterhorn and realised with some surprise that we would not be seeing the Matterhorn, since we were actually on its 'lap'! And the other side of it was all probably hidden by clouds. We got off the lift and walked along what looked like a long tunnel. There was a board indicating the steps to a view point. There was a lift (a conventional elevator) and we had to queue up to get into that. We reached the top and then stepped out to view what is simply indescribable. There was snow all over the place and steps leading up to a view point. For some reason, we had not carried the woollens - the gloves, cap etc were left behind at the Youth Hostel in Zermatt. (We had carried lunch packed from the Youth Hostel, and fruits, which we decided to leave behind in a locker at the entry point of the cable lift). The cold was barely bearable and it was very very windy. We did walk up the steps and took loads of photos. There was this board saying 'Highest ski lift in Europe' that meant definite photo ops! I did want to walk on snow - this has been something of a burning desire for a long time now - from the time I got to 'see' snow by the roads in Montreal, 'felt' a light snow fall the day before my return from Ottawa, 'came' upon snow everywhere on the runway in Zurich, 'touched ice' at Rohtang Pass and 'saw' the Himalayas from up close last year in Kinnaur!

I did finally step onto the snow, there were people getting onto skis and skiing off into the snowy wonderland, people on snow scooters, there were a group of people climbing up the mountain peak on one side - it looked like small specks on the white mountain face, suffice to say that people were engaging themselves in all sorts of snow activities there. I was quite fascinated of so much snow at this altitude - remember Matterhorn peak is itself only 4200 m (odd) and we are only at about 3000 m here! Chitkul in Kinnaur valley where I stayed overnight was at 3,450 m and was at the 'foothills of the Himalayas'!

We spent some more time in the open and realised that the wind was picking up and so were the clouds. We stepped off and into the restaurant they had there. Thank God they had heating in there. By now, Raji was literally shivering from the cold and had picked up a headache. I was feeling mostly okay, except for the uncomfortably chilly breeze outside the restaurant. It had also started snowing while we were up there outside, and the snow picked up a little bit in intensity when we were here in the restaurant. For the next 30 - 40 minutes, we went out and came back into the restaurant 3-4 times and finally realised that we better get started on the return journey or else we would be too late to get on the train from Zermatt! I did also notice that the top most point of the cable car which we got out was also the exit point for Cervinia in Italy. People ski into Italy from here! I was reminded of the climax fight that happens on these cable cars in 'Where eagles dare' (the novel more than the movie!) and also of a range of Dev Anand and Shammi Kapoor songs!

We bade 'alvida' to the Swiss Alps and got off onto the cable car and then the subsequent one and the subsequent one (Zermatt village did look very small, though not as small as East Fort from up there!). We got to the bottom most point and looked at Matterhorn, the peak was still shrouded in clouds, it was almost as if the lady was unwilling to take off the veil to show us how her face actually looked!

We got back to the Youth Hostel, munching on the fruits that we had bought earlier on in the trip and had the packed lunch after we reached the hostel. We had to pick up the luggage (thanks to the 10 AM checkout policy) that we had packed, and were off to the station.

Since we had the tickets to Interlaken via Brig/Visp, I decided to take the risk and wanted to see how Brig looked like instead of just stepping off onto the connecting train at Visp. We were told that it would mean a net delay of 1 hour in reaching the final destination - Interlaken. We realised much to my disappointment that Brig was just the next stop (after Visp) and I had wanted to see the 'longest railway tunnel in the world - the Gotthard tunnel' en route (as per the travel guide). From Brig, we got onto a train that would take us all the way back to Spiez (close to Bern) and from there we had to take another train to Interlaken. This train journey was simply amazing; we had views of lovely valleys and green countryside from an elevated position. After once again going crazy not knowing what to capture and what not to capture on the camera, we finally reached Interlaken at about 8 pm. It started raining when we were stepping out of the station and hence we waited for a while for the rains to subside. We got to the hostel - Backpackers Villa in about 10 minutes. For some reason I liked the hostel layout and amenities very much, except for the not too friendly front desk staff. The view of the mountains and the greenery from our room was splendid. But then, the greenery in Interlaken is so "cool" as explained by our room mates that first night in Luzern! I stepped to the other side off the corridor and saw the splendid sight of the rainbow! Wow! It was simply too beautiful. The hostel did provide shared kitchen amenities and amidst others who were cooking various varieties of noodles, and mostly non-veg stuff, we too did manage to cook! While Raji was cooking, I stepped aside to see the wonderful colours of sunset being painted on the mountains! I ran all the way up to the room to grab the camera only to realise that the camera had been in my pocket all along (remember Kutchu in Std II English textbook who searched for his spectacles while he was wearing them all the time!). I ran back and stepped out only to see the greyish skies for the second time in the trip. It simply was not meant to be!

Day 6

We woke up to another cloudy/rainy day. We spent the morning scouring the souvenir shops and for a change, buying stuff too! We also went into the costly Swiss watch and jewellery show rooms and got surprised in return! The paragliding was always going to be 'iffy' considering the cost and the weather made the decision all too easy. We obviously could not go to Jungfraujoch (the 'Roof of Europe'), the highest point in Europe accessible to non-mountaineers, I guess. The clouds did clear a little for us to have a splendid view of the mighty Jungfrau. It almost looked as if the white drapes of the saree that the glacier was, was unfolding down from up there!

And by the time we got to the Tourist information centre, we realised we only had a couple of hours at our disposal if we wanted to catch the 'Golden Pass' train on our return journey to Luzern. We checked at the counter as to what we could do for 2 hours and were told that we could have a look at one of the lakes - Lake Thun. Interlaken is the place between two lakes Lake Thun and Lake Spiez. We got onto a bus to a place called Neuhaus and went to the lake nearby. It was a huge lake and needless to say aquamarine in colour. I turned back to see that Raji was not beside me. Oh yes, there she was besides a tree and holding onto the fruit. It was surprise, an apple tree there! She did point out fig and apricot trees too! As it was drizzling, the boat ticket counter was empty, but then a guy came by and we bought tickets to get one of those pedal boats out. We were the only ones out on the lake then! Pedal boat in the lake was much similar to our Nainital experience. But then, when the sun did come out, the colour of the lake alternated between aquamarine and emerald green and the sun truly did light up the background greenery. We were on the lake for an hour, returned to the hostel to collect our luggage and walked it down to the station. Only to find that the Golden Pass runs not every hour as expected, but every alternate hour!

We waited at the station and finally got onto the train. I had read on the internet and on their brochure that the Golden Pass and the Glacier Express are 'panoramic view' trains, in that they have much larger glass windows and also have, glass windows on the roofs! But then this train did not have the panoramic roof, for some reason. But our disappointment was more than made up by the splendid scenery that was in store for us! We passed Lake Spiez (I did manage to skimp across to the other platform and yonder to get to see how Lake Spiez looked, while we waited for the train), from ground level and then climbed up and then down and up! What made the trip even more special was the fact that there was a routemap of the train on the tray by the window and one could relate to where we were at any point and shift to this or that side windows for views in advance! I would have taken more than a 100 photos on that train journey, as we went past wind and rain swept countryside, Swiss cows grazing, churches, lakes, valleys, mountains, until we passed Mt. Pilatus and reached Luzern! From Luzern we took the next immediate train to Basel since it was about 8 pm and we were already getting late! At Basel, we got off the station and realised to our irritation that we had to walk all the way back and over onto the other side of the station and had to walk about 10 minutes to get to the Youth Hostel. We bought bread/cake from the supermarket at the station which we had for dinner. We did the packing up as we had to leave early in the morning to get to the airport by 5.30 AM so that we had sufficient time for the flight departing at 6.45 AM!

Day 7

We woke up early at 4 AM and were on our way. There was some confusion about bus/tram and finally a Sri Lankan guy gave us directions as to the bus we need to take from the bus stand for the airport. We kept waiting and after about 5 minutes, this guy came back to us all the way and directed us that the bus we were waiting for was actually waiting at another point! As they say, there are these people who are probably godsends who turn up to help you at the right time! We got on board the bus and reached the airport in just 15 minutes!

Return journey was uneventful except for one minor thing (!). I was fascinated by the name of the airport - Basel, Mulhouse, Frauberg Euro airport (Basel for Switzerland, Mulhouse for France and Frauberg for Germany!). We noticed a Sri Lankan couple who had sought directions from us when we had gone to the Visa Application Centre early in the morning for applying for the Swiss visa in London! The view of the clouds spread across as a carpet and the beautiful countryside in Europe and England and the River Thames meeting up with the North Sea at the estuary were among the last beautiful pictures of this hectic and wonderful trip.

Immigration desk at London was a breeze, thanks to a smart and proactive gentleman officer and we were out of the airport and onto the 'Overground' in a jiffy. From there, a tube that was filled with office goers - men in business/formal suits and ladies in all sorts of crazy attire (!) took us to Waterloo station (close to my office). Then the usual bus ride home and then we were home ... err home away from home, for the time being!

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much (or at least even a fraction of!) as I did bringing forth the places, the scenery and the memories associated with the entire journey, probably, the hectic vacation of a lifetime.

August 2009