Time Out
In search of surreal moments
MINI ANTHIKAD CHHIBBER
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Chole, dal and rice in the Swiss Alps and Bryan Adams belting out "Summer of 69"...
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Photo: AP
Rocking heights: With the North face of the Eiger mountain as the backdrop, the stage is set for Adams.
SWITZERLAND might mean a million things to million people — from being the ultimate filming destination, thanks to Yash Raj, to the land of precision instruments (think watches, knives and jewellery). The Alpine land also brings associations of numbered bank accounts, neutrality, chocolates, cheese and the adrenalin rush of adventure sports.
For yours truly, however, Switzerland is the last word in surrealism. It is the country where many metres above sea level (3,454 or 11,333 feet to be precise) at Jungfraujoch, known in tourist parlance as the top of Europe, one made a meal of chole, dal and rice! It is where Bryan Adams sang "Summer of 69" to a holiday crowd at Kliene Scheidegg for the 10th anniversary of the SnowpenAir programme. And also the place where at a crisp six degrees, one sat in the snow for the concert and got totally sunburnt!
Mind full of movies
Though James Bond in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" set off to capture the wicked Ernst Stavro Blofeld from Lauterbrunnen, we started out to Jungfraujoch on a train from Interlaken Ost. With my mind stuffed with movies, it took me some time to figure out Ost was not Original Sound Track but "East", to differentiate it from Interlaken West!
A short train ride from Ost to sports central Grindelwald and another train ride brought us to Kleine Scheidegg where preparations were already underway for the next day's SnowpenAir concert. Kleine Scheidegg, incidentally, means minor watershed and is a mountain pass between the Eiger and Lauberhorn peaks.
Then it was onward on to Jungfrau on Jungfraubahn or the Jungfrau Railway. Jungfrau, or young maiden, is the highest mountain peak in the Bernese Oberland. The two peaks beside Jungfrau are Monch or monk and Eiger, the hard one. Jungfraujoch is the saddle between Monch and Jungfrau. There is a charming story of how the monk protects the young bride from Eiger.
The Jungfraubahn is a miracle of engineering. A major portion of the nine-kilometre stretch from Kliene Scheidegg to Jungfraujoch runs through a tunnel inside Eiger and Monch. While the concept sounds vaguely claustrophobic, one does not feel so, what with the two observation stops where you can look at the majestic mountain peaks from glass windows as well as the monitors that show the path the train is taking in Indiana Jones style — what is it about Switzerland and the movies?
While plans for a mountain railway in the Alps have been on since the 1860s, the charismatic industrialist Adolf Guyer-Zeller got the concession for a rack railway from Kliene Scheidegg through Eiger and Monch right up to Jungfrau. Construction started in 1896 and the railway was inaugurated on August 1, 1912.
Perched high
The railway station complex, the highest in Europe, offers enough to satisfy even the most pernickety tourist. First you walk on ice in the ice palace and gaze spellbound at the many ice sculptures including the Mickey Mouse one. Then you go out into the plateau and take the mandatory picture with the Swiss flag with the shrieking wind and snow creating the suitable atmosphere. Then it was time for lunch — the surreal chole rice, remember? — at the Crystal restaurant. Passing through the Bollywood restaurant with posters of the patron saint of the Alps, Shah Rukh Khan, we took the fastest lift up to the Sphinx terrace. We fed plump fluffy ravens that did not seem to mind the cold and also looked at the Aletsch Glacier, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
On the return trip we saw the huskies sleeping in the sun. The huskies came to Jungfrau from Greenland more than 70 years ago and have helped carry mail and provisions. Mail reminds me of the ultimate tourist trip — sending a postcard from the railway station. Apparently more than 1,00,000 postcards are sent from Jungfraujoch every year and the special postmark with the date and altitude is highly priced by philatelists the world over.
Urs Kessler, Vice President and Director Marketing and Operations, Jungfrau Railways, shared his plans for the SnowpenAir concert at Kliene Scheidegg railway station, which included converting trains into greenrooms for the performers!
On the return trip we came via Lauterbrunnen and so could have our little James Bond moment — though to feel totally James Bond, one would have to go to Schilthorn and Piz Gloria and do some daring skiing.
The day of the concert dawned bright and sparkling and we joined the holidaymakers at Kliene Scheidegg. Our enclosure was quite the land of milk and honey as champagne, coffee, beer and food flowed as freely as good cheer, music, sunshine and snow.
Before Adams made his dramatic entry on a blood-red snowmobile, local lad Polo Hofer had the crowd swaying and singing along to his tunes.
Then came the star of the show and Adams belted out "Everything I do, I do it for you", "The Only Thing that Looks Good on Me is You", "Run to You", and, of course, "18 till I Die". Amidst all the rock and roll was a child making rows upon rows of snow mounds from empty champagne flutes, carrying on the surrealist theme.
Adams came on stage at 3.40 in the afternoon, which seemed like an odd time for a concert but it was outdoors and once the sun goes down, it gets bitterly cold. The sun turned the snow into a dazzling white carpet and made sunglasses mandatory, turning all the audience into rock stars. Not factoring in sunscreen, however, resulted in the surreal sunburn.
Even as Adams soared off in a chopper, the words from "Summer of 69" echoed in my ears: "Those were the best days of my life".
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