The cycling trip

So I decided to celebrate my 29th birthday on a cycling trip down Konkan coast. The itinerary had sounded fairly simple - 19kms of cycling on the first day and just about 4kms on the second and so on.

It was a toss up between a more tougher-looking trekking trip in the Vasota forests and this one. I decided to go for this one because I had'nt cycled properly for about 15 years now and was dying to hit the beaches for some time. And looking at the itinerary, I was prepared to be cycling for about an hour everyday and to avoid getting bored, listening to music or heading out for a swim in the sea. Should be a fairly relaxed weekend, I thought.

I could'nt have been more wrong!

For one, we cycled about 100kms in 2 days (hehe, there seemed to be something wrong in the itinerary...not that I'm complaining!). The group was extremely interesting and I got hardly any chance to listen to the music FBP had so painstakingly written onto a CD for me to load on my pod for the trip. And yeah, I got to swim only for a few hours on the second day - but I am sure I couldnt have handled more - with all the sand that has a way of irritatingly getting into everything you take to a beach.

The group was fairly large - about 20 people from various backgrounds (surprisingly, many were involved in finance in some way or the other - hehe, are we getting too many holidays or are too overworked?errrrm!), different countries (4 countries - India, Surinam, Mexico and Netherlands) and a range of ages - from 22 (my guess) to 40 (my guess again).

The bikes were great. I think the hallmark of a good bike is that there is a smooth feel to the pedalling and it hums like a bunch of bees when going fast downhill. Considering that there were quite a few tough uphill climbs, we'd have been better off with geared cycles, but that'd be asking for too much, especially when you get a ready supply of cold water through the trip, a lorry following you at all times to pick up stragglers and get to sleep in tents on the beach.

The trip was organised by Explorers, a bunch of great and enthusiastic young people. So they had organized everything and all you had to do was be there, ready to stress your quadriceps and umm the glutes too (3 days on bicycle seats left em screaming with pain) and brave some sun (Baz Luhrmann made sure we were well protected).

I have absolutely decided to stop being a lazy bum and buy more backup Nikon batteries because the camera folded up after the first day and I was left high and dry, feeling like a fish out of water. Theres this feeling of incompleteness that creeps in for sure when I dont have my cam handy - gotta do something about it!

So we all met up at the Gateway, took a boat to Mandwa, then a bus to Alibaug (hot tip: everyone and their uncles are going to Alibaug on a weekend, so queues dont work when you're waiting for the half-hourly bus from Mandwa to Alibaug) and got our cycles from Nagaon. Our base camp was at Barshiv - about 15kms away from Kashid and 25kms from Murud.

The cycling from Nagaon to Revdanda (about 10kms) was fairly uneventful and the terrain was flat, thus increasing my feeling of complacency about the whole trip (I was wearing jeans on the first day of cycling, for Pete's sake!). It suddenly became uphill from Revdanda onwards and that set the tone for the next three days of cycling.

You are cycling at a leisurely pace and spy the road going up in the distance. You take some deep breaths and push harder on the pedals in anticipation of the uphill slope. By the time you hit the slope, you're already out of breath and tiny thoughts about getting down from the cycle and trudging up the slope flit through your mind. Then you spy the Dutch with amazing stamina cycling up the slope with little effort and you decide to grit your teeth and push yourself harder! Soon you're standing up and cycling, pushing away with all the might left in your thigh muscles. Of course you cant last long that way on the uphill climb and your knees start buckling under you and the lower back starts giving away. You're breathing hard, very hard and your lungs are bursting and your heart is doing a tap dance, threatening to burst out soon enough.

Just when you think you're done and cannot go any further, the uphill ends.

You smile to yourself, let out a whoop of joy, settle back on the seat and whiz down the hill, the wind singing in your ears and the well-oiled cycle humming like a bee. You're still breathing hard but you're going back to normal soon and the wind is evaporating all the sweat that you were soaked in. What makes it even more beautiful is when the downhill stretch suddenly exposes the vast expanse of the shimmering sea below you. The view is breathtaking and you forgive the organisers for not having mentioned all those hills in the itinerary:-)

The trip was great on the whole. Barring an accident where one of the young ladies with us lost control on a downhill turn and went careening into the wall between the road and the rocks below. Thankfully there was'nt much damage and she held up pretty well with all the blood on her face and knees till I let slip that she had chipped a tooth. Damn! That seemed to be the last straw and huge tears started rolling down - I must have kicked myself atleast 5 times for mentioning that to her. So anyway, she was back to her cool and collected self after she was stitched up and bandaged.

I have this thing with other people's blood that I REALLY need to do something about. The moment I see someone covered in blood, I start getting a cold sweat - it starts from my forehead, my breathing becomes laboured and soon I'm drenched in VERY cold sweat, ready to pass out unless I dont sit down in fresh air. There's something rather shameful in hyperventilating at a distance from where someone is hurt and I really think I need to see a shrink about this. Thank god my parents' dream of making me a doc did'nt bear fruition - else I'd have been passing out every 2 minutes or so.

The nights were lovely. The only liquor shop in the vicinity served NO hard liquor but, hold your breath, just Wine and Beer! Who in the blazes drinks all that wine in the Konkani villages? So you have rows upon rows of fine port and Zinfandels lining the walls of a measly little shop in the middle of nowhere. The conversations were great - from marriage to life and from Indian culture to Dutch economic policies and liberalism. It could'nt have been better and it was good to hear so many different views from people. It never ceases to amaze me how much deeper most people are than from the first impressions you make about them.

My birthday was decidedly muted - noone on the trip knew about it so I was left more or less alone...I find all the wishing and good treatment a little embarrassing. SMSes are good and the iffy network on the coastal villages made sure I was not too embarrassed saying thank yous to everyone on the phone:-) I did miss family, though.

Am back into the grind now with locked-out quadriceps but feeling much better and fitter than last week. Below are a few pics from the trip from the first day - the cam made sure I concentrated fully on cycling in the next 2 days:

Our first pit stop at Revdanda - little did we know about the uphill slopes that were going to hit us after this

On the way - shot with one hand, with the other hand and the rest of me focussing on tackling the uphill coming ahead

Now THATS a good way to spend your weekend

Chilling out at Barshiv, our base camp

Sunset at Barshiv beach

A quick update

- especially since I'm planning a cycling trip down Konkan coast for this long weekend.

Movies

So I've gone tech savvy over the last few months and am using P2P and torrents to download movies. Apart from stuff that cannot be really named (hehe), I managed to download 'Borat' - the irreverent comedy that has been earning gazellions of $$ and an equal number of protests and lawsuits. I think I've seen Borat about 4 times now and have loved it everytime I saw it. Agreed that there are parts in the movie that are really gross and obscene, but the humour really blows you away. Had I been a Kazakh, I'd probably have slung my AK-47 on my shoulders and made that trip to London to blast Sacha Baron Cohen off the face of this earth!

For readers who'll not get to see Borat on Indian movie screens, it is the story of this Kazakh journalist who is sent to bring back cultural learnings from the 'US and A' for the country. It is a mindblowingly hilarious comedy, has the potential and material to madly upset just about anybody (jews, kazakhs, students from Carolina, feminists and the conservative christians amongst many others) and was played by Sacha Baron Cohen (the Ali G fellow) who apparently shot most of the movie as real clips, without telling the participants what its going to be used for:-D So yeah, its 5 star recommended viewing for those who dont mind some gross action involving hairy butts or extreme racist mentalities portrayed in the movie.

I also saw Guru a while back. I quite liked it. I thought that the acting by everyone was really good. This is the first GOOD movie where I've seen Abhishek Bachchan carry the entire weight of a movie on his own without sharing space with someone else.

The storyline is racy so there are very few boring moments. I quite liked all the songs - esp the 'megha re' in how it was picturised and for the lyrics. I especially liked the 'Gurubhai, Gurubhai' peppy lines throughout the movie (am sure there is a technical name for that but I dont know). The cinematography is pretty good - especially in the songs. A lot of Gujarat portrayed there was actually set in the town of Pattadakkal in Karnataka but it'll look like Gujarat allright to the average viewer. The one song after Guru becomes a father is rather silly and doesnt really make any sense in terms of taking the movie ahead.

I wish there was a little more of Turkey portrayed - it covers like only the first 5 minutes in the movie...and for buffs who dont want to miss the Mallika Sherawat number, make sure you're there on time! As for my comments on the item number...while the song was good and Mallika IS really hot, it should have had atleast elements of a belly dance rather than an all out 'babuji, dheere chalo' kind of mood. I mean Champa WAS supposed to be a belly dancer and there was nothing eye catching about the choreography in the dance.

I did'nt find a lot of sexual chemistry b/w Abhishek and Aishwarya - while there was a lot of 'great-friend' chemistry to them for sure. Aish could have done a better job of portraying the strong woman supporting Gurubhai in his weaker moments.

I saw Amitabh Bachchan weeping away on Star News (yeah I still dont have CAS, tarnations!*) and saying that Abhishek has done better than him. I think he was just heaping too much praise a little too soon. While Abhishek was decidedly good, he definitely does'nt match the intensity that Amitabh brought to the screen in his heydays. And yeah, Abhishek really was good in the movie - by his own previous standards. We do see some shades of Amitabh's style - esp in the number of rasping 'hain' that Gurubhai utters. And thankfully this is one movie that he does'nt seem to be carrying just on the basis of his stubble but on his acting.

Mithunda was amazing in his role and Vidya Balan had her moments. For me the best shot and enacted scene in the movie remains her last one where she reaches out to touch Gurubhai.

While the first half of the movie was great, the second half, especially the ending was just a little too lame - I'd have looked forward to some more logical refuting of the charges against Gurubhai than just playing to the gallery-and winning. While the last part in the courtroom reminded me of the movie 'Aviator', I was not very happy with it. Some stronger points should have emerged in Guru's defence. While I surmised that the license raj WAS bad for capitalism, the point was'nt made too clearly.

I also wished they showed more of HOW Guru achieved his success than just showing fast-moving montages of his growing factories and employees. All they showed in small anecdotal clips was how he was willing to go to any length to get his way.

I quite enjoyed the closing shot of Gurubhai in the stadium. It was good to see Abhishek Bachchan not trying hard to look good or hip for once - just realistic.

A much better movie review of Guru can be found here

Random

I have been missing photography for some time now. This cycling trip through Konkan coast should put me back in form now. Its been a while since I went trekking/tripping and am really looking forward to it.

Oh yeah, I ran the marathon too - got a few pics of me taken, trying to run in a mostly moribund crowd which I'll try and post whenever FBP mails them to me - yeah ...she was there with other WSD volunteers cheering us all - which was when everyone was ready to fall with exhaustion.

Shikha's back in the grind after an amazing trip to Pakistan..too bad she doesnt blog else we'd all be treated to some lovely pictures. They got featured on most of the news channels in India and Pak when they met Laloo, APJ Kalam, Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz.

I'm at an amazing threshold right now with two developments that may happen over the next 2 months - one is great for professional growth and the other for personal life. Lets see and I'll keep my fingers crossed. I'll obviously choose the good-for-personal life vaala development if that happens and that may just change many many things for me, forever. Till then, Carpe Diem, people, since no amount of planning ever seems to work for the longer term.

*Update as of today: I do have CAS now, thank ye lords...this review was written and saved as draft about 2 weeks back.

The Swiss Travelogue...hopefully complete

Continued from here

Now that I'm a tad free from work preoccupations, I'll attempt the Swiss travelogue - it'd have been much more detailed had I done it right then, but 4 months later, I have to rely more on images. Its a little strange how I got down to writing about Switz only after this one short honeymoon - wish I'd been blogging back in 2002...I cou'ldve dedicated an entire blog just to picture-perfect Swizerland

We spent 12 days in Switzerland for the vacation and covered most of the country. The good thing was that we stayed in the central region of Switz and its not such a big country, so most of the trips we did were day trips - went out early morning and came back by evening. Since the entire trip was covered on the amazingly efficient Swiss train network, we got the flavour of the whole country, more or less.

A little Gyaan about Switzerland

Switzerland was, in the medieval ages, a motley collection of mountain provinces which were governed by families and constantly competing with each other. The Swiss were renowned mercenaries and fierce fighters in those times and provided mercenaries to fight almost every war in Europe during those times. The violent history of the Swiss is in stark contrast to the studiously peaceful and neutral present.

They were extremely poor till before the World Wars where the Swiss confederation decided to remain neutral and on good sides of all the warring countries. This neutrality meant that it was often a safe haven for escaping people - and the money accummulated by all means - by Nazis and Jews alike in those dark, volatile times. Switzerland was the only stable country which was neutral enough to be trusted with all the money and that is how Swiss banks earned their fame. Cloaked in secrecy and tradition, the Swiss banks are an imposing sight today in the leafy bylanes of Zurich and Bern.

Notwithstanding all their neutral trappings, the Swiss seem to be remarkably paranoid about their security. Every man is a trained militiaman and every house in Switzerland must have a bunker-like feature with provisions enough to last a month, and a gun. The Swiss seem to be very fierce about protecting their neutrality!

The Swiss Army, Navy and Air Force are considered amongst the best in Europe. 'Hold on', you may say. The Navy? Is'nt Switz a landlocked country? Yeah. But dont be surprised by the fact they have an amazingly sophesticated and compact Naval apparatus in all the lakes. Some Swiss whisper conspiratorially that they even have submarines in the lakes - and I would'nt put it past the wily Swiss!

Every man is supposed to bear arms in Switzerland and has to be conscripted into the military early on in life. After a few years of rigorous training, they're sent back into civilian professions, only to congregate at different points in time every year in remote and secret locations in the mountains to train with the platoon assigned to them. Bankers, CEOs, Chairmen, Cobblers, Plumbers and Hoteliers...all often form a part of the same platoon - forgetting for a few weeks every year their real lives and living together and forging lifelong friendships.

The Swiss airforce has some lovely fighter planes and they make it a point to practice many dog-fights in the Swiss Alps. The Swiss have entire airbases hidden in the mountains so dont be surprised to be stopped for a few minutes in the middle of your mountain trek while an F-16 suddenly emerges from a cave-hangar and takes off on its daily sortie.

This was a daily feature in the summers - the constant dog-fights up in the air in the Swiss alps

The Swiss remain amongst the most friendly and diligent people I've met. Dignity of labour is very real in Switzerland and it was one of the rare countries that seem to be above the prejudices of colour.

Accommodation

This was high tourist season so finding accommodation was going to be tough - or so we thought. A good thing about Switz is that it is really well geared to welcome tourists and make the stay as comfortable as possible. Only the prices go up or down according to the season. And yeah, they go up and down quite significantly.

I had made reservations for a studio apartment in a quaint place called Hasliberg - which is about 5kms away from the Brunig station. Brunig station falls on the main line linking East Switzerland (German part) to the Western Switz (French part). It is an hour away from Luzerne in the North East(the main junction for taking trains to North and South Switzerland (Italian side) and an hour from Interlaken (the main tourist town which is the gateway to the Swiss Alps) in the South West.

Our apartment was in Gletscherblick-aptly named since the large french window had an amazing view of a glacier. It was a lovely little place with a cable car going up into the glacier and quaint little villages dotting the hillside and amazingly clean and blue lakes in the valley.

A view of the Glacier from the apartment window

Gods looking down from the heavens

The hosts, Peter, Fiona and their staff were extremely warm, super-efficient and yet non-intrusive..almost setting the tone for our Swiss experience right from Day 1.

Transport

There was a half-hourly Die Post (Bus) service to Brunig from Hasliberg and back so transportation from Gletsch was a dream. We had already bought Swiss rail passes from India which ensured unlimited travel on most trains, buses, city trams and most boats in Switzerland. While I dont intend to go into rapturous paeans over the Swiss transport system, it really IS amazing. Once you have figured it out, everything goes like clockwork. We made plans for connecting trains at differences of as less as 2-3 minutes and were never betrayed - and coming from India, it was a culture shock for us. The only time I DID see a Swiss train running late was in Logano - the Italian part and there were constant announcements apologizing profusely for this as if a crime had been committed. And the train was late by about 6.5 minutes - which was sacrilege by Swiss standards! Die Post was celebrating 100 years of its service and we found all the bus drivers extremely friendly. It was a pleasure to ride in those yellow buses. The bus-stands were beautiful too - a representative of how much the Swiss strive to keep their country pretty.

A lovely bus-stand at Gletsch

A word of advice to everyone travelling to Switz - the trains are amazingly well run and make the best use of the train system, right from the airport. Cabs are prohibitively expensive and while we had to take a cab in Zurich because of the huge quantities of luggage we had with us (Shikha's, because she went off to the US straight from Zurich), you must utilize the trains at the airport to get into the city. The Zurich Flughaufen (airport) is a little far away from the main city and the cabs take about 60chf (Swiss francs - while Euro is also used in all shops, Chf is recommended because you tend to lose a little in every Euro transaction). The train station is just a street across from the airport. Go there, get your passes verified/ratified and begin your Swiss journey. The trains are amazingly comfortable and silent. Arrive at the Zurich Main station and plan your onward journey from there.

Swiss train timetables - these were the best thing once we figured it out. Every train station has its own little booklet which shows the times of all trains departing from or arriving at that station. Go to the info counter and pick up your little booklet and keep it with you in case you intend to make another connection at the station. Spend 5-10 minutes to figure how it is formatted and you will never have to fumble around for trains in Switzerland ever again. I've a huge stack of these little booklets but these were lifesavers as we made plans for taking precarious 1-minute connections while in trains across the country.

Tourist Information Centres - every train station has one and unless you have an idea of the place already, it should be your first stop. Get a map of the town and ask the lady for recommendations on places to see. She'll usually pencil out a walking plan on the map - which btw are amazingly well detailed and cover each little twist, turn, corner and alleyway. We did a LOT of walking in the Swiss towns except in Logano and Zurich which had the attractions some distance away, necessiating the use of buses/trams.

Logistically, Switzerland is like heaven. Everything we planned for, happened. On time. It could'nt have gotten any better.

Our trip

It was just lovely - we had'nt planned on doing so much - basically because we had'nt had enough time to plan for the trip from before, with the marriage and Shikha's admission process going paralelly. Apart from the acco and the travel, nothing else was planned and we still managed to do it all:) We had left most of Shikha's luggage at my boss's friend's place in Zurich so were'nt weighed down and feel that being based out of one place while making all the day-trips was a great idea. We could have stayed a couple of days in Geneva and also in Logano and explored the french and italian parts of the country in more detail, but that's for our next trip there - this was good for a first trip:)

Our little village-town was devoid of many tourists - most prefer to stay in and around Interlaken and it was a good place for a honeymoon. We went on long walks across the undulating countryside, crossed little gurgling brooks, explored small patches of forests, made friends with all the superb dogs and random other wildlife and took in the amazing scenery at every turn - in short, lived a few days out of the classic Enid Blyton stories when we did'nt travel to other parts of the country. Below are a few pics from our walks across the countryside - please excuse if the datestamp on the pics are jarring for your viewing pleasure but keeping the dates was important to us and I didnt want to edit them out for the blog - click on the pictures for a little clearer and larger view:

Loved the various hues here - Sunset on Thun Lake

Miniscule purple flowers by the side of the road

nothing great technically but loved the little rose peeping out from behind the fence:-)

Life's a complex cobweb

Took me 10 minutes to get this guy out of his shell and moving - loved the shell colours and fluidity of movement

These were miniscule too - taken in a super macro mode.

We found flowers everywhere we went - big or small. Worker bees trying to milk their quota of flowers for the day

This is probably how we'd want to retire

The best part about Switz is that its an amazingly Dog-friendly country - you see them in the trains, in the malls and in restaurants too! Our own ageing Kate from the apartments

Its a rare Swiss house that wont have flowers - the most pretty ones, growing in perfect orderly profusion

The undulating countryside

Places we saw

While its impossible to describe each city we went to in great detail - simply because we went to so many and I did'nt write an account the same night, I'll attempt to list the more prominent places that we went to. We wanted consciously to feel the culture and did not restrict ourselves to only the picturesque places as most other tourists do and tried our best to explore the cities and their cultural history in the limited time we had.

So while we did the usual touristy stuff - went to Jungraujoch/Titlis/Pilatus, took innumerable cablecars, trekked on the mountains in the Italian part, we also visited every church of prominence, most of the more popular castle-museums, many many art galleries and the old part of every town which was always a maze of cobbled streets, pleasant roadside cafes, lovely and soulful music being played by people on the roads and the beautiful fountains (special mention: Bern - I cannot even begin to list all the lovely fountains we went to, there!). I'd never seen Switz earlier from a tourists' point of view, so this was a first.

It was the Swiss National day on 1st August and we were treated to a profusion of the plain-but-pretty swiss flags and bells everywhere we went. We took a cable car into the glacier to a village called Bidmi where they were having late-night fireworks by the lake. People from villages around had congregated to watch the fireworks and celebrate the national day. Just before the fireworks started, there was silence all around and to my shock, a very familiar tune wafted through the air to set the mood. Guess what? The Swiss were playing the tune of 'Yeh Haseen Vadiyaan, Yeh Khula Aasmaan' from Roja in a god-forsaken place up in the mountains away from anywhere and where we were the only tourists. It was simply mindblowing, hearing AR Rahman's composition in Bidmi of all the places.

The fireworks on the lake with Yeh Haseen Vadiyan playing in the background

The Swiss light fires all across the mountains to celebrate the national day and use complicated signals to signal to other villages that all is fine. This tradition carries on and we were pleasantly surprised to see a huge turnout of people to celebrate the National Day with gusto - not a common sight in India for sure where its just a holiday.

Amongst the bigger towns, Luzerne was a life-saver - we found my laptop's cable which could match with the Swiss sockets - Shikha had to complete a few HBS modules before reaching there. It was the junction for catching a train or a ferry to all parts of Switzerland and is by far the best connected town in the country. All major trains run through Luzerne including the Golden Pass Panoramic express (which goes across the most beautiful stretch of mountains and rugged passes across Switzerland - crossing Brunig passes, Interlaken and Gstaad to the French side and through lovely vineyards terminating in Montreaux- a lovely city on the fringes of lake Geneva, more known for the SUPERB Jazz festival and yeah, its proximity to Vevey - the original Swiss chocolate destination) and the Wilhelm Tell express (which originating from Luzerne, is a combination of a paddle-boat and panoramic train rides to the Italian part of Lugano/Locarno and goes through the famous Gotthard tunnel which was cut out of a huge mountain in order to reach the Italian side more quickly).

The transport museum is a place worth visiting in Luzerne. Take a bus from the station to the museum and then walk back along the lake Lucerne - its a lovely 3-4km walk. Cross the street into the old part of the town and take in the beautiful and famous Octagonal water towers that make Luzerne a huge tourist attraction

Octagonal Water towers. These are like bridges across the river that feeds into the lake. Made of wood and stone, the passage is lined with flowers (as usual) and beautiful paintings depicting historical incidents.

The Glacier Express was amazing too and we really wished we had time enough to stay on in St Moritz. Travelling on all these trains, including the Jungfrau network meant that we had our fill of almost everything scenic that Switz had to offer though we plan to explore the French side in more detail the next time.

Of course, the Golden Pass Panoramic remained our favorite - we had to take it everyday to get out of Brunig to anywhere else and it IS a very beautiful and well managed train

We took the Golden Pass Panoramic almost every day out of Brunig and it was super fun, having the entire almost-empty train all to ourselves on the return leg to Luzerne late at night

One of the rare 'We-were-there' pics from the trip, hehe - Montreaux

The Golden Pass Panoramic is designed to maximise your viewing experience

Bern as a city was a superb cultural experience - especially the old part and you must ONLY walk through Bern. The cobbled roads, Einstein's house, the AMAZING cathedral with its stained glass paintings, breathtaking architecture, and the fountains (special mention: the Ogre Fountain which was a little disturbing - showed an Ogre gorging on children) were simply amazing. The museum was great and I ran out of camera battery at the opportune moment - something that was to plague me through Switz and I again make a mental note to buy many backups. I also discovered that the way I spell my name to someone made her write it as PRENEW. Phew.

We loved this Cathedral in Bern and spent time just sitting here, gawking at the amazing architecture

While the stained glass paintings were amongst the loveliest ever, the best one I saw was in teh Zurich Landes Museum - will post its pic if I manage to find it from the 1000+pics I have of Switz!

Amazing attention to detail in even the smallest thing was what characterized the Swiss for us - a roadside tap

The famous Bear Pit - after which Bern is named. Bears have been kept in this pit since the 12th century. My dad had brought back pics of these same bears when they were tiny tots in early 1980s - look how they've grown now! Next to the Bear pit is a pub - I forget its name...while DO have the Beer there, PLEASE also go into the basement where they brew their own Beer and have explained it with superb and funny pictorials

Einstein's house in Bern - he was a common clerk...phew!

The Ogre Fountain - the most intriguing/disturbing piece of architecture I've ever seen

Montreaux was nice - because of the Chateau De Chillon - an old old fortress which has been converted into a museum. Lord Byron was also imprisoned here in the cellars and you have him scratching his name on the walls in futile desperation. I just loved the way the Swiss have maintained their historical monuments. Shikha and me had a little tiff here because I wanted to spend more time in the Chateau exploring every nook and cranny and she wanted to press on toVevey- Lausanne and Geneva. The best thing to do in Montreaux is to take the boat on Lake Geneva and get off at the Chateau and then carry on on the second boat after you've finished exploring it.

The Chateau de Chillon

Lord Byron - inspired by our own Indian Graphitti artists while interned in the Chateau cellar for writing seditious poetry

The Royal Potty - no need to flush, it goes straight into the lake, 70 feet below

The stubborn mule that I am, I made sure I photographed every nook and cranny and poked my nose in everywhere while Shikha fumed about missing the boat to Lausanne-Vevey-Geneva

Geneva was a non-descript city - not very terribly interesting - it just has a few average museums and galleries and is more of a multilateral-agency town.

Our favorite place in Switzerland remains the Italian side. It is a sudden and welcome change from the regimented North and East which had a heavy German influence and the airy-fairy West, which had a French influence. Lugano, Locarno and Ticino were so relaxed that we let our hair down as soon as we reached there. The Italian influence was unmistakeable...everything was chilled out, people were taking their siestas on the roadside cafes, dresses were more colorful, accents more guttural, the weather more sunny and the mood much more festive in general. The change in weather was noticeable. You cross the Gotthard tunnel and everything is different. Its as if you've stepped right from the Swiss Alps into sunny Italy. The lake Como is just HUGE and has mountains all around it. We've sworn to have more time and an Italian visa the next time around so that we can slip into Italy through lake Como. There is'nt much to do here except trek a lot in the mountains bordering the lakes, ogle at the tanned ladies and take in the sun and the amazing Italian food...and of course, partaaayy! I was almost hoping we'd miss the return train and get to stay on in Lugano for a couple more days...much to Shikha's chagrin - she's the one who needs to cover everything and without her, I'd have been happy just lounging around in one corner of Switz:-D

So we had this strange sense of Deja vu - thrice over, while on the Wilhelm Tell Express. This church is somehow passed thrice within 20 minutes and we were like, 'hey, didnt we see a church like this 5 minutes back?', till a kind couple explained to us that it was the same church from different angles:-D

By lake Como - we got super chilled in keeping with the mood - off came the buttons as we tried to merge with the crowd:-D

The funicular up to Mt Bre - Lugano. Amazing trekking trails down this mountain - mucho recomendedo

Lake Como from one of the trekking trails on Mt Bre

Phew. Theres so much more to write about and I'm almost getting a crick in my neck now, but I'll plod along and lets see how much more I can write in this one sitting before I finish my travelogue - albeit incomplete.

Interlaken is a pretty city - very very touristy but worth staying in, if you like being connected to everywhere and have a lot of options within easy reach - recommended for the cautious traveller. It has a little everything for everyone and Indians can be seen in profusion here.

I found this VERY amusing about Indians and this probably includes me. We tend to ignore other brown people in such places and are almost angry at the sight of them - as if they've intruded into our own personal heaven. While they'd smile at every passing firang in a new-found cameraderie for every human being walking on the face of this earth, they'd studiously ignore the other Indians in the same train and it certainly takes more effort to smile at them too:-) I dont know why and tried to get over this mentality - but almost every brown person I encountered was the same, so I didnt feel so bad.

Interlaken has this 'last sex shop in the Swiss Alps' which looked very intriguing but evertime I went for a peek, it was closed :-)- everytime happened to be a Tuesday, I think, for 2 consecutive weeks...so I finally gave up.

Interlaken is the gateway to the Swiss Alps - the famous Jungfrau peaks are accessible from here. Junfraujoch (pronounced 'Yungfrau yoch') is the highest peak in Europe and has the highest railway station. The train almost goes on a steep vertical ascent here and the last leg of the journey is through a 1-hour long tunnel cut inside the Jungfrau mountain to reach the peak. Amazing.

All the touristy stuff is available here - finish your souvenier shopping in Interlaken. We brought the most amazing Swiss knives - a profusion of tools and implements springing out from one innocuous looking red jacket. I brought a ranger swiss-knife - which remains the costliest knife I've ever brought in my life - and I love collecting knives, mind you. There are different swiss knives for different people - not the standard 6-tool one we get in India for Rs395/- with a teeshirt:) Mine has 28 different things. There was one for computer nerds and another for fishermen that interested me...amongst hundred of others on display.

Dog and man go leg-in-leg in Switzerland

Tired but really happy

We went careening through the air and the only thought in my mind was, 'I hope the bugger does'nt run away with my camera and atleast takes the picture well'.

Everything for everyone, especially the Indians who are a hot favorite in Switzerland

Jungfraujoch - top of Europe

I went on a trek, leaving a lightheaded-with-altitude Shikha behind and immediately ran smack in the middle of an approaching snowstorm. For a few minutes after this I could'nt see my own hands in front of me. Stayed put hoping I would'nt be covered with snow and have to be rescued by St Bernards!

Us. Shikha's hand prints are a little botched coz she was shivering uncontrollably with the cold:)

Shikha fell a little ill while coming back from the altitude-sickness and the steep descent of the train back into Interlaken and it was really tough on the poor girl, holding back from retching all the way. I spotted many concerned boyfriends/husbands tending to their ladies on the train so it seems like a common problem with the ladies while there. You have been forewarned:)

We returned straight from Jungfraujoch to Zurich, having checked out of the Hasliberg apartment in the morning. Shikha was'nt feeling too well all along and still had a module on finance to finish in the 1.5 days we had remaining in Switzerland. The Boss's friend was an extremely gracious host and made sure we were really comfortable in Zurich. We had checked our luggage through to Zurich in the Hasliberg Post -office (I thought this was an amazing service - just check your luggage in any post-office for a fee and take off for a couple of days and receive it safe at Zurich before you catch your return flight). On our last day in Switzerland, our host took us across Zurich. The best place was the Landes museum and yeah, I finally managed to find the stained glass painting that I liked so much

The painting depicts a scene from the Last Supper..I was particularly intrigued by Judas (in Yellow robes) sitting with a pained expression and with a little devil hanging by his pockets, urging him to betray Jesus.

A close-up of the pained Judas with the devil hanging from his pockets

It remains a wonderful experience and was a very good flavour of all that Switzerland has to offer. It is a lovely place - not only because of the breathtaking scenery but also because of the sheer diligence and warmth of the Swiss who leave no stone unturned to ensure that being in Switzerland is heavenly.