The Wonderful Mountains of Jungfrau

I switched off my alarm at 6 and went on sleeping.. it was Caroline who woke me up at 7.30. Hurried like crazy and dragged my suitcase downstairs (which inexplicably ehough was twice as heavy as I remembered it to be).. Caroline dropped me to the parking lot in her car. We took a photograph there, and it's come out nicely.. She looks totally like Cameron Diaz in it. No, seriously. The resemblance is startling.

The plan was for me and Vinay to meet Jerel and a few others who's gone to Zurich the day before, at 10.30 a.m. at the airport where the bus would drop us off. Then we'd all go to the Jungfrau mountains together.. Lauterbrunnen, to be specific, and do a little bit of hiking that day. But those guys didn't turn up at the meeting spot, and Vinay and I ended up going by ourselves.

We bought a round trip ticket: Zurich to Interlaken to Bern to Lucerne to Zurich. Cost us 97 francs, far less than we'd expected to pay for all our travel put together. The journey to Interlaken was moderately scenic.. tantalising glimpses of mountains through the fog, mostly. Looked like there wouldn't be much of a point in hiking if the weather was bad in Interlaken as well.. and it was. We took the alpine train up to Lauterbrunnen, a little village about 700m high..

Views of Lauterbrunnen

It was breathtaking. You land in Lauterbrunnen, and you see sky-high vertical rock faces on either side of you, the Staubbach falls dropping spectacularly from the vertical rock cliff on your right. I just couldn't take it all in at once.. both Vinay and I simply stood and looked at things for a while, and started taking snaps by the dozen. I for one couldn't believe there was this huge waterfall *right there*. Almost at a reach-out-and-touch distance. I mean, aren't waterfalls supposed to be buried deep inside jungles, through which you've to trek for hours to reach? I've only ever seen teeny little pathetic excuses for waterfalls so easily visible. This was huge. There were about 20 tiny waterfalls all along the rock on both sides, too. Look a little harder and you'd spot another little one in a crevice you hadn't noticed before.

And the village itself was so tiny and village-ey.. Not that there weren't any amenities. On the contrary. There were a number of nice looking restaurants, many hostels and inns, a bank, an internet cafe, a couple of supermarkets, two train stations (one normal and one for the alpine funicular), a bus stop.. all within a few minutes' walking distance from each other. It was so perfect. I was rather more awed by it all than Vinay I think.. for the rest of the trip he kept saying how easily enthused I was. But that's not it, believe you me. Everything you've heard about the beauty of Switzerland is true. Lauterbrunnen's enough to prove it.

We checked in at the Valley Hostel (23 francs a night), put on our gloves and caps (it was cooold) and went out. It looked too foggy to be able to see much if we went hiking, the tops of the mountains weren't visible. So we decided to go look at Trummebach Falls (Trummelbach Falle), the waterfall that's *inside* a mountain. they've actually dug a vertical passage up the mountain, and tunnels into it so we have a good view of the falls from inside. It's really rather eerie in there.. it's scary when you can hear water rumbling forcefully all around you, you come up against a view point where you can see white jets of water, a mist rising from it, and gigantic, smooth rock behind the falls. There are many of these view points, we just kept going on and on inside, getting a little used to the creeps the place was giving us (we could hear some kids crying ahead of us, so I guess I wasn't the only one who felt it). But it was worth it.. the falls are amazing. Don't miss them if you ever go to Lauterbrunnen. Don't take kids along. They invariably end up crying in there. The guide told us.

We bought a few postcards at a souvenir shop there.. and that was when I saw the Ents for the first time. Well no, not really Ents.. The Swiss have legends about forest spirits, see, tree trunks with faces on them. And the souvenir shops were selling models of these. I guess that's where Tolkein got the idea from.. I took a snap of the display which has come out really nicely.

For dinner we ate at a moderately expensive restaurant coz I wanted to eat fondue. Cheese fondue is this big bowl of melted cheeze with herbs and pices.. you dip bits of bread ot potato in it and .. yum yum. Blame Chitra (my sister, she made me promise I'd try fondue) for setting me back 16 francs that night. But I guess it was worth it.. everybody should try fondue once in their lives. I don't fancy it very much as a staple, however, even though it was really good for the freezing cold outside. Vinay had a pizza. I tried it, it was normal. I couldn't finish the fondue, and ended up asking the lady to pack it up for me. She gave me a weird look but did it anyway. The cheese was hard by that time, of course. I ate the thing for breakfast the next morning.