Swiss Adventures - Zurichhhh... Ringenberg

The most beautiful place on Earth - or so they say.

With that image-  was even conned into visiting Khajiaar, which advertised itself the 'Switzerland in India'. With such hype around the name, we were pretty excited to finally be here.. Here at the Zurich airport. Pardon me, Sona says it better - Zurickkkkhh Flughghaffen (airport).

Yes. Zurickkhhh (cough cough)

Switzerland.

Our adventures began immediately. The car rental agency we were booked with plainly declared that there were no cars available . Would we be fine to wait for a couple of hours (without any guarantee of another car)? So much for Swiss efficiency.

After some wait, they offered us a Mercedes Vito. Growing up in Ghaziabad, I have learnt 2 issues about the said vehicle category:

Mercedes Vito - 2 big for 2

1. They are a major hit in the kidnapping business
2. Mileage of 12 seaters would never be great.

Reason 1 was a major deterrent, as two of us would look silly in a twelve seater; plus - the idea of being interrogated as suspected kidnappers at every check post did not seem inviting.

So we fled back towards the trains. Now is when the real issue of Switzerland becomes apparent. The place may be beautiful, efficient, whatever. But it is ridiculously expensive.

With a heavy heart, I walked back from the ticket counter. I had just traded my lifetime earnings for two sets of three day Swiss rail pass.

In the process to get to Ringennberg, we were supposed to change two trains with a difference of no more than 3 minutes each. Initially the idea seems preposterous, and to a seasoned Indian rail traveler, the following doubts prop up:

• Average delay of a train will certainly be more than 3 minutes, and you are bound to miss your connection.
• Also think of : will we get a place in the crowd. What if platforms are so crowded that we are not able to get to the train (We live in Mumbai)

However, the western Europe would have none of these problems. And over the next few days, Sona had mastered the art of switching trains to transcend maps and borders in couple of hours.

In the picturesque train ride, we did get to Ringennberg, just as sun bade goodbye.

Now another set of problems waited to assault us.

Loneliness.. And darkness

Getting off in Ringenberg, we realized there was a pronounced dearth of humankind. Or any other organism for that matter.

Deserted Ringenberg (day)

Our plan of living in the interior had raged its vendetta against us here.. Let me elaborate the scene there.

As soon as the train left the station, there was pitch black darkness on all fronts.

What Sona was trying to explain a few days back, became very clear to me thanks to the live example:

Black Hole radiation power law equation

The outcome of the above equation dawned to me now - black holes  do not let even light escape. Which was precisely the case here. Darkness. Pitch black. Black hole..:

So we are 2 backpack laden tourists staring at black holes on all sides.

Darkness

No signboards

After scavenging for our AirBnB host address, we were enlightened with the following:

Claudia, ####

Ringennberg

No street, no area, no chowk/ nagar, near neem tree, etc.

After spending 10 minutes discussing our chances of survival, we decided to start  to the left.

We kept walking on a meandering road with meagre lighting which seemed to be leading to nowhere.. There were a few homes, one on that mountain, another on another mountain. The question was, was it worth trekking up and knocking the door?

A modest inn appeared and we rushed in the hope to make contact with humanity again. Fortunately, there were was one aged lady at the counter. We were so relieved to see a fellow homo sapien.

Another challenge came up. The homo-sapien knew no English.

In my broken Deutsche, I tried to explain the problem at hand.

The Alte Fraulein (Old lady) asked for the address and number, which I was happy to share. However, she got really upset that she had never not heard of a 'Claudia Ringennberg' (as stored in my phone)- in her little village. I tried to reiterate that Claudia was our host and Ringenberg was the destination (both mutually exclusive), which we were happy to be at, but she would have none of it. Remember Amrish Puri asking his evil henchmen.. Mr India…? Misterrr India…?

We witnessed a same trance here.. Claudia Ringenberg?? Claudiaaa …Ringenbergg??

She hollered her husband, who knew some broken English. Between one broken English speaker and a horrible German speaker, some communication commenced. The result was assurance from the property-owners that though they knew of no Claudia Ringennberg (Yes, even after killing minutes, I failed to communicate her surname),  they would be happy to spare a room -should we fail to find shelter tonight.

That was a big assurance.

The mind dropped from panic state to a more measly troubled state. And we marched on in an unknown direction again. Since the mind was working again, it reminded us that we were carrying the Tom-Tom GPS device, purloined from my brother (we were supposed to be in a self-drive - remember?). We immediately opened and presto - it was alive. Fed in the address and after a few decoys, we did reach our destination.

The spectacular AirBnB stay @ Ringennberg

Claudia was not home, but thankfully her Musser welcomed us warmly and led us to her abode. My o my - what a spectacular chalet!

Recounting our adventures for the day:

• Car rental screw up
• Forced to trade my lifetime earning for Swiss rail passes
• Passed one of the most depressing cities - Bern
• Almost stranded at night on the Swiss alps

Our only achievement was that we survived.