Aug 27 2009
After landing at Zurich we boarded a train to Lucerne CentralBahn. Trains are called Bahn and train stations Bahnoff in the eastern part (German) of Swiss. We had landed in Zurich just a few hours ago and our first impression was that it was a really cool place. Train coaches were really comfortable even in 2nd class. We had a 4-day swiss pass that lets you travel on most of the trains, boats, buses and trams. If you are planning a short visit to Swiss, this is the most convenient. Of course, you might spend less if your travel is limited and focused. But the pass gave us the flexibility, given the weather factor.
At the Lucerne Bahnoff, we put our luggages in a locker and took a tram to Mount Pilatus. The locker costs 6 CHF per day and accepts only coins. I went to the nearby convenience shop to get some change and was waiting in the line. That’s when this Punjabi (I knew it from his attire) and tried to go ahead of me. I told him “Excuse me, I’m in the line”. He asked me where are you from. I thought oh he’s trying to make a chat and told him I’m from India just to go along. I don’t know what was wrong with me so far, he started saying “Oh you Indian people are always like this. I live in this country and only you guys do like this”. I was like “ohhh, man… I didn’t say anything wrong.. why is he talking liking this”, but just stared at him silently. One of those awkward moments… After buying some fruits and getting the change, I just moaned to him “You were trying to jump the line and I tried to tell you that”. He started to argue in a loud voice….I just quickly fled the scene, not even looking back :-). I mentioned this episode because Indians living in other countries think they are out of league from Indians living in India… I don’t know why they think so, but I’ve seen the same sort of behavior even where I live. Come on guys, you just went to a foreign country to earn more money, improve your lifestyle or whatever. But why are your fellow countrymen less than you because they chose to live in their own country?
Hmm.. I was way off topic there.. Then, we took a 10-15 min tram ride to Mount Pilatus. After a 5 min walk reached the Cable car station and started the beautiful ride to the top. There was an intermediate station where everyone had to get down. There were some nice activities available and we chose to take the Toboggan. It’s a small cart
with a stick to accelerate and break which runs on a metallic U-shaped path laid down the mountain. My wife was to go before me since she was too afraid. It had a lot of narrow curves and signs were put up to slow down which read “Break”. Whenever she saw a “Break” sign, my wife came to a complete stop and I had to slow down too. I tried to shout to her that she shouldn’t stop completely but just slow down… ohh well… “never heard it”. :-)
After that we took another cable car which was bigger with a capacity to carry at least 15 people. When we reached the top there was cloud all over. WOW… We were walking between the clouds… I thought “Ohh.. this is a first”. We roamed around the mountain and couldn’t see much. After sometime I thought we atleast do some trekking and reached the highest peak that was there. The view from there was excellent and when we came down clouds had cleared and we really enjoyed the views around. Then took the cogwheel train downwards and a train back to Lucerne. We went straight to the hotel after a little shopping for drinks and snacks after a long first day.
