To Shahrukhland and Kajolberg

This is a post on the Europe Trip day 5 afternoon. The previous post in the series that covered Lucerne is here..

After lunch in Lucerne, we were off to Engelberg. It was like a small town (maybe Village) on the base of Mount Titlis. A few people who could not climb high altitudes were dropped off by our guide to spend the afternoon there. The bus started climbing after that brief stop and we were treated to some amazing scenic views and we reached a parking lot of epic proportions. 

This was the gondola ride up the mountain. The Gondola takes you up to 10000 feet. Then there is a five story building with multiple restaurants where you get out of this ride. It is a rotating Gondola and that means amazing views of the mountains and everything below as we go up.

There were 8 people to a carriage and we were joined by another Desi family from Chicago and made pleasant conversation. They had grown up kids, with the youngest just finishing college and when we got out the guide promptly said "okay. We have fixed time here. There are many activities here. you can go through an ice canyon, go to an ice flyer to 13000 feet and then go for a walk on the edge of the ice. we will wait here. The last gondola down for you to make it to the bus on time is at 4:15 PM". 

Given how the traveling Narayanan family had done with such hectic schedules over the last 4 days, we accepted the challenge and walked to the ice flyer. On the way to the ice flyer, we saw a cutout that made Mt. Titlis a household name in India. 

I knew what had to be done. Gave the camera to our tourguide who was Swiss German and she goes "yes of course. you have to take a picture in front of Shah Rukh and Kajol!".. she said it so matter of factly as though they were local Swiss names. The world is full of wonders I thought and asked San to pose.. She was happy but for some reason, could not bring out the inner Kajol on time! Eventually for some strange reason she was doing that pose in front of the Hogwarts Express in UK and I was doing a facepalm! Where were we?! Yes.. Kajolberg..

We walked to the ice flyer. There were snow flurries falling pretty heavily... and then we had an adventure of a lifetime.. which is a post in itself. So we will skip the ice flyer for now and move on. 

We barely made it back to the five storied building again and were greeted by the sight of Pav Bhajis, rice, pickles, papad etc.  

While the family went for it, I grabbed a hot cocoa and while we were eating there was a realization that we were about to miss the ride down. So we scrambled and made our way back to the parking lot. Our guide was nice. She said "you can get some Chai and Samosas and other Indian snacks at a restaurant outside the ticket counter. We are still waiting on some folks.". So off we went and got Chai Samosa.

Life comes full circle I thought. Many years ago, we had Maggi noodles at ~10000 feet in the Himalayas at Manali and that was a Swiss company product. Now we were having Chai Samosa in Switzerland!

The panoramic view of the mountains from the parking lot was amazing..

Then the bus filled up and we were back on our way to Zurich and were treated to more scenic views.

The bus dropped us at 7PM. We went to a mexican place after going to our new Air B&B and dropping off the luggage. We had booked one walking distance from the bus terminus for the night. We went in at 7:20 and the waiter was nice enough to let us eat as long as we were out by 8 as it was a reservation only place. The food was amazing, the wall decor had some kind of masked wrestler photograph everywhere.. and were back in the Air B&B. On the way back we went to an Indian grocery store run by a Sri Lankan Tamil, saw a Sari Store, a bunch of Indian restaurants and realized we were in Little India in Zurich!

There was laundry to be done.. using a German washing machine in the basement that looked ancient and some precious sleep to be had before another all day adventure the next day. 

Here is a tip. Air B&B laundries are not reliable. After making multiple attempts to dry the clothes after washing, the thing promptly gave some fatal error. There was no one to help in that place at 11PM and I had to translate using google translate to find that it was a fatal error. 

While the family was sleeping, I hauled a bunch of semi wet clothes (practially half of our luggage) and put a cloth on every possible exposed surface in that Apartment. There were bras on the kitchen cabinet hooks, jattis on the TV.. think you get the picture.. I created surreal art and went to bed praying. Set an alarm for an hour earlier than we had planned. San woke up and I gave her the bad news.. 80% of the clothes had dried completely! 20% still needed some help. So we used the iron box and ironed out the moisture for an hour and were all set! 

Back to pictures and videos..

A video of most of the afternoons trip..

We were not coming back to this place the next night.. it was going to be another all day trip that ended in a different city! 

Breathtaking country - Switzerland

On day 5 of the Europe trip, we were in Switzerland. It was the beginning of three hectic and interesting days. We flew in from Venice to Zurich on day 4. 

The previous post in the series is here...

We had an interesting time at the Venice airport. One of the downsides to having status on United and Star alliance is that they allow only yourself and one guest to go into the Lounge. I told the family that it did not feel right for me to take one of them in and have the other two sit outside and I would rather have all of us sit outside together. The rest of the family unianiously called me an idiot and said if they were in my shoes, they would go with whoever was most eager to come. Wish they would have a system where they could take more of the miles or money and let two extra people in. Given my food allergies and the fact that I dont even drink Coffee or Soda, that whole lounge thing is wasted on me. The little one did come in with me for a few trips and got some dessert cakes "to go" for her mom and sister.  Then we mostly spent time in the regular gate area and wandering around the shops till we realized that the France Argentina game was on. There were huge shouts and cheers and the entire airport sounded like a football stadium. 

We watched the game almost to completion before it was time to board. It was a small "rinky dinky" flight to Zurich and the gate agent forced us to check in our bags. We were greeted in the flight with some soccer ball swiss chocolates ..

and a wonderful view of the Alps though the clouds. We watched the sun set over Zurich as we landed (see timelapse in the video.. one of the most memorable landings we have seen recently) and waited for almost 90 minutes to get our baggage! There were 11 flights listed on one baggage carousel. We almost gave up and were in tears because that was pretty much all our bags. Finally the bags came and we got an Uber to our Air B&B close to the airport. 

The kids and San ate some sandwiches purchased on the flight. I made MTR instant Upma after reaching the place. The next morning we took our luggage (yes, we were literally in a different place every night) and went to the Zurich bus station. We had an all day tour 8AM to 7PM which covered Zurich (on the bus), Lucerne in the morning to noon, a lunch break at Lucerne and onwards towards Mt. Titlis..

 Zurich / bus train station area was interesting in itself. People seemed to move at a leisurely pace and were generally happy. Have never seen that many smiling faces on a work day morning in any city. It is not just the cows in Swiss that are happy.. even the people seem to be all chirpy and cheerful! 

We went on to Lucerne to see the giant Lion carved on a mountainside. It was almost lunch. We saw an Indian restaurant in Lucerne and were yearning for some Chai and Samosa. Then the bus loaded and stopped after 5 minutes in front of a shopping area for watches, on the other side of the river (apparently they were tour partners, this watch place) and the guide said "you have 50 minutes to eat lunch and come back. the bus will leave promptly". I was pissed. If she had told us this we would have just stayed at the Lion parking place, ate a nice lunch and walked to the bus. It was a 15 minute walk to the Indian place from where they parked by crossing the bridge. In any case, we walked around (I missed a turn and lost another 5 minutes) and we ended up at Kanchi.. 

while in the middle of this walk/run we still managed pictures and videos.. 

Lucerne is breathtaking. Vibrant colors (it had just rained on our entire way to Lucerne) and fresh air! 

Here are two panos from one of the two bridges we crossed..

We had 20 minutes to eat and 10 minutes to run back. The kids were not happy with the plan. We begged the guy to bring us a minimum set of dishes and he obliged. We gulped it down in 8 minutes (the fastest this family has ever had a meal) and raced out. 

Then the mother of all mixups happened. The little one had declared her intent to go to the restroom before the run back to the bus, but given the time had decided to come out following me and Jr.  San stayed back to pay the bill and decided to wait for the non existant little one outside the restoom. We are in the street.. she is waiting and the clock ticks. Finally after some tense looks without any words being spoken we all ran towards the bus only to find that another family was trying to buy Pizza at a store last minute and were trying to finish the pizza before boarding the bus. There was no food allowed on the bus. So we watched them eat pizza for a good 5 minutes while catching our breath.

During the run, I started sweating Bikram Yoga style and was completely drenched. The wife and kids said "they will kick you out of the bus" so we asked the guide and driver to open the luggage compartment and I changed in front of the entire bus with some curious onlookers giving me the "who sweats in Switzerland?" look. 

Slideshows of pictures from Zurich and Lucerne.

and a video that hightlights the first half of day 5..

We were then off to the next stop..

It has not been easy catching up on memories to write these posts. Have already spent a week in Asia. Came back and had a great day only for my luck to change. Got sick last night with an allergy attack that has left me gasping for breath. Yet to identify the root cause.. hopefully I will recover in a day or two and get back on track. 

Hakone Gardens

We have lived in the bay area for almost 20 years and have known of the existence of Hakone Gardens the entire time. Somehow the motivation to visit this place was not there before. Maybe it was folks telling us it is too small or the ticket price doesn't jusitfy it compared to Filoli etc.. Whatever it be, this is one of those places we simply forgot to visit. (Winchester Mystery house and Hearst castle are two other places we still have not visited).

Given this was a quiet thanksgiving weekend to be spent locally, we decided to visit. We actually had a great time. The weather was perfect and the fall colors made for great photos! 

We did not do a "tea ceremony" but spent 3 hours there and were smiling through and through cracking jokes with family. 

The place is small but amazingly beautiful. Every stone is placed perfectly. 

Here is a slideshow of the pictures in vertical format..

and one in horizontal format..

Strongly recommend this place for timepass if you are in the bay area and have only a few hours. Nice and quiet with some beautiful views of the entire bay area as you walk around the hill on the garden!