Switzerland...........the follow through...............

In the following text , I would cover my experience spreaded over 10 nights in the God’s own creation; Switzerland.
There were frankly too many choices we had, of planning these summer holidays. We did browse over the idea of either visiting Egypt or Far East or New Zealand. It was around the last week of March, when we had a trip to Palitana with Apoorva & family, and those were the three days which catalysed our thinking and action process to plan this vacation together. Eventually one day Apoorva came up with the idea to visit Switzerland exclusively, which did sound quite interesting and seem to suit our pockets too.
In the following week, with few evenings together, we worked out the dates, visas, air line and apartment bookings. Apartment booking was an interesting feature which took almost a good one whole week of browsing through as many as 40 choices. With good help from a friend (Ms Monali of Ria tours), we could finally agree & decide on a beautiful 4 bed rooms apartment at Grindelwald; a chalet called Alpenrose.
Though a bit expensive, Alpenrose had promising clean interior as well as good location rich in picturesque beauty. From whatever we could see and define from the internet presence of this premise, it seemed like a good choice & kept our fingers crossed, hoping to match the real experience in line with our expectations. Eventually got Emirates tickets at good promotional rates at the expense of spending a night at Dubai airport…good bargain anyways !!!
The visas took a bit long and stretched its suspense almost till the day before the flying day. But the worry, frustration and wait was worth every minute, once the nod of approval came.
Last but not the least, Jain food was our top priority as almost all in the group maintained the same preference, eventually had almost 100 kgs of food articles with us between 8 tickets.  No wonder , for Gujaratis , the availability & accessibility of good tasty food over powers the actual excitement & feel of the destination, the place of visit. For me at least, as far as I know & remember, could see & dream of nothing; but the sheer idea of stepping in Switzerland, kept the pulse throbbing in me.

We flew Emirates on 29th April’2009 evening & after almost 10 hours of night stay at Dubai Airport, reached Zurich at around 3 in the afternoon, the following day. We had train connection as Zurich – Bern – Interlaken – Grindelwald; stretched over three hours, our first stepping experience in Switzerland. No sooner, we had our first step on Zurich airport, could feel the difference. We landed at comfortable 12 degrees and could not wait for much cooler invitation by the time we touch Grindelwald; our new home for the next 7 days.
The three hours in train, and three change overs till Grindelwald, I could not resist myself & started capturing every single moment of my experience & existence; in my cam, as if, a moment missed would be lost forever. Every passing station, every passing sight, was an unbelievable experience of shaking hands with the nature God Himself. This actually elevated the level of expectations and the demands from within, about what would be in the offing for the next few days., for all of us.
Oh! Look here, the mere temptation to pour out my experiences and serve them to you all, missed the mention of my daughter, Zeenal. Since the night we landed at Dubai airport, she was suffering from severe cold, cough , high temperature and was quite at discomfort all through the journey. Surely posed some worry; as, to explore the Switzerland in its entireity, needed all of us to be fully fit to keep moving tirelessly for the next 10 days. Arriving at Alpenrose, on 30th evening , fortunately allowed us to have an access to the medical facility for her and it took, a bit disappointingly, almost 48 hours for her to fully recover & bounce back to sink herself in the ocean of immense joy , that was Switzerland. In fact, this actually proved to be a small blessing in disguise too , as due to her not being fully fit, allowed us to have a complete day at leisure , within & around our apartment, creating an experience of complete relaxation, stillness and away from the usual deadlines & target based routine, which we are all so very used to. This day would be covered later as that was our 2nd day at the apartment.
The 1st day , 1st of May’2009 ; we decided to begin our first face off with the country by choosing to cover a town called Luzern ( the lake city) and Mt. Pilatus (at 7000 ft above the sea level). The movement was Grindelwald – Interlaken – Luzern. As expected and in full excitement we set off to explore the place, its beautiful unparalleled sight. We were greeted with a very bright day and certainly the perfect day to soak ourselves in the nature’s incessant offering. We arrived at Luzern and immediately moved on to scale the Pilatus height. The two levels of cable car journey gave us a wonderful coverage of the entire city of Luzern. Could find some snow at Pilatus which was very inviting and had our hands experiencing the first snow in Switzerland.
The 2nd day at Grindelwald; the 2nd of May; as mentioned earlier, we decided to stay on at the apartment and enjoy the day fully relaxed and seizing the opportunity to explore the place where we were staying. Again a day of bright clear sky allowed us to enjoy the lunch session on the terrace looking over the snow filled mountain in front of us. We planned an in house game for the kids, dance sessions and then decided to go for a stroll in the afternoon. A lovely walk in the main street, a kids park, few roadside restaurants with people enjoying the afternoon tea, ultimately brought us to an amazing huge open green field surrounded by distant mountains, molten snow falls and small beautiful wooden houses all around. Our legs would not move an inch further and just decided to get immersed in the flowing beauty of the surrounding. A couple of hours later, and a few kitchen purchases from the “COOP” , hit the apartment again to have the fun for the next 3 hours watching a Hindi movie clubbed with popcorns and the coke., followed by delicious dinner.
Wow !! that was some evening of actual liberty. Real freedom. Freedom from the slavery of time, from the Blackberrys, from the to do’s & don’t’s. The day like that was obviously well appreciated by one & all, as I personally could not remember actually experiencing few such hours in my long distant past.
The next four days; 3rd May – 6th May; we covered up Trummelbach falls , Zarmatt, Luzern, Jungfrau peak and Mt. Titlis.
Referring to Trummelbach falls, its one of those places which is generally not covered in any regular tour itinerary. It was on insistence from our apartment owners, Mr Alex Mann & Mrs Ross mann, seeking their advise and suggestion we decided to visit the place and all thanks to them for the wonderful experience we had there.
“Zarmatt” is one of those small towns in Switzerland, which deserves a special mention. A town, specializing in Ski activities. We could see many of the visitors from all over the Europe & the world, coming there to stay over for weeks and enjoy the skiing experience. A town, which is devoid of fuel based cars ( only few electric cars) and which boasts to be one of those places of choice & preference for the makers of Indian Hindi movies ( includes the legend; D D L J ). A beautiful church , a museum , chain of restaurants flashing all types of global delicacies, souvenier shops, extra ordinarily designed houses and all blessed with the pure pearl white beauty of nature.
As it was planned, after a good fill of breakfast every morning, we used to carry one hot item of general choice with us to fill up for the lunch on the move. On the 4th day / 4th May; It was a hot steaming biryani on the Luzern cruise which made our face lit up and infused energy in us to keep moving strongly with long walks. 
We had a cruise excursion of almost an hour and a half and a good walk around the same lake later to have the real feel of the Luzern city. The feel and the smell of breeze, the people , the houses, all felt so wonderfully in unison with eternal gorgeousness of the nature. Every step we took, every breathe we took , helped us to relieve and de-stress ourselves. We kept gazing all around in awe and hardly could believe our actual physical presence on the land of God.
The ride to Mt. Jungfrau & the Mt. Titlis, is one of those experiences, where we could not move our eyes beyond the snow bed. It could well be compared with the vast deserts of Rajasthan in India, where you can see sand & the dunes for miles and miles, almost till the horizon. Similarly, the vast spread of snow was what our eyes could see till the extremes. The whiteness of the snow was so sparkling that it was difficult to keep eyes open for long time. Again one of those first experiences of huge spread of snow. We had some fantastic moments of getting into few snow activities, the slides, creating a snow-man statue and could feel the basics of our childhood with all those happiness in the heart, the pure pleasure and non constricted laughs.
Meanwhile , all this fun was added up with the pleasure of having delicious home cooked food everywhere, the excitement of exploring, finding & choosing a place to sit four lunch, may it was in the train compartments, the green fields or on the peak of the mountains.
The day never ended till we used to return to the apartment and prepare hot dinner for all, sometimes even around mid-night. It was fun to help the women to clean up the choirs and heart warming to see kids coming up with their share of extending helping hands.
The next 3 days at Interlaken; 7th May – 10th May; was a switch over. From the height and crude natural surrounding of Grindelwald to the plains of Interlaken. A wonderful town, well connected and offered us a complete different experience of Switzerland. I would put it as an experience which was more grounded with actual life of Switzerland. Here we could actually feel the pulse of the country, its city life, the touch of the culture & the tradition it carried.
The people of Switzerland deserves a special mention. It felt so good to be actually being one of them, with them for this short time of ten days. People were from all over Europe, the French, the Germans, the Spanish, the British…..and we never missed an opportunity to communicate with them, wherever we could. The people were peace loving, caring and so gentle.
One thing which I could clearly noticed, was the “time” in hand, they all carried. They all had. The major areas of occupation in Switzerland being the cattle breeding , the milk and milk products industry , Swiss watches & Swiss chocolates. The people here seemed to be so very well planned and clear about what they wanted from their lives.
We talked to the owners of our Grindelwald apartment, over a breakfast one morning and could not resist asking them - They being originally British, how did they feel being in this country? What was the motivating factor for them to carry through their living in Switzerland, Grindelwald? A plain , straight , simple answer, that’s what we got. Mr & Mrs Mann said : We both love nature. We rent this apartment for around 28 to 30 weks a year and most of our time & focus is devoted to keep the apartment in fully updated condition ( involves cleaning and setting things right). And we have a son in his teens. I (Alex), being a professional paraglider myself, love to take my son for the occasional parachute gliding experience, which is so satisfying & exciting.
The clear focus of three things –
1. love of nature, being there to enjoy its non-restricted beauty
2. to maintain the apartment, which is their means of earning
3. the sheer enjoyment & satisfaction of being with his son and being with the family.
Amazing, isn’t it ?
We too, do have our love for few things. We carry few hobbies since the childhood & few ambitions too. We do have our work, job, business. We do have our family with us.
But as always seen,
We keep all the love for our self-fulfillment aside for the tomorrows to come. We have work , but in the greed to cover more & gather more for our ever increasing needs, lose focus to stay strong with what we have. We have our kids at home, family of parents and Grand parents, waiting to have that slice of small time to share their thoughts with us, their small observations which they would like to point at, their small needs or small discomforts which they would like to discuss & eventually get solved or at least those 20 minutes of our presence on the dinner table. But pity us …we are so engrossed , occupied and troubled over small things which actually does not make any real sense or relevance to our lives compare to what is genuinely more important.
One fine evening, in Interlaken, I was sitting in the balcony of our apartment. The climate was so soothing and atmosphere so divine that it inspired me to sit with a book to get myself fully soaked in that. It was about 8 in the evening , could see the darkness slowly trying to take over as much as possible from the clutches of the daylight and spread herself as evenly and silently as possible. There were few evening bulbs already on at few of the houses nearby. Though engrossed in reading , I was tempted to have a look around the beautiful sight of the evening around me. My eyes stopped at the 2nd floor balcony of an apartment opposite to our house. A couple, may be in their early fifties, were sitting and enjoying their evening supper under a candle lit rays. I could sense their stillness, the smiles, the talks , the sense of fulfillment. The sight was so satisfying to see that they had loads of quality time in the world to spend their little cozy moments together and share their day’s activities and achievements with each other.
That moment jolted me. I could feel the shivering sensation through my spine. I could just keep wondering, not being able to believe the way my own life or should I say our lives are being handled.
Friends, we get just one life to live. By “live”, I actually mean to live life, not counting the breathes we take; but how many such wonderful moments we experience during the journey of our lives, which take our breathes away.

Why go to the temple ???

If you're spiritually alive, you're going to love this!
If you're spiritually dead, you won't want to read it.
If you're spiritually curious, there is still hope!

Why Go To The Temple ?


A 'devotee' goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and
complained that it made no sense to go to the Temple .
'I've gone for 30 years now, he wrote, and in that time I have heard
something like 3,000 mantras.
But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I
think I'm wasting my time and the Gurus are wasting theirs by giving
services at all.
This started a real controversy in the 'Letters to the Editor' column,
much to the delight of the editor.. It went on for weeks until someone
wrote this clincher: I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my
wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot
recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know
this... They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my
work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically
dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to the Temple for nourishment, I
would be spiritually dead today!
When you are DOWN to nothing.... God is UP to something! Faith sees the
invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible!
Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment!