Day 12: 23/04/2006 Interlaken/Geneva

Need explanation for what this is?

2 Lonely travellers...

Tk getting crazy!

We had been anticipating this day to come. According to Yj's plans, we were supposed to visit Jungfrau today. He had warned us beforehand that the train up to the mountain would be very expensive; the figure he quoted was Fr50 after discount given to Swiss Pass holders.

Jungfrau ('young lady'), together with Mönch ('monk') and Eiger (well, 'Eiger'), is one of the most popular mountains in the Swiss Alps. There is a cogwheel railway that links Interlaken with Jungfraujoch, an artificial structure which consists of viewing terraces, restaurants, exhibitions, a meteorological station and research facilities. Jungfraujoch is situated in the saddle between Jungfrau and Mönch; from there tourists can have close-up views of the two mountains and they can also embark on skiing trips down the glacier.

I left the hostel for the train station slightly earlier than Tk and Yj because I wanted to lock my luggage in the train station lockers. Tk and Yj just left theirs in the luggage room, as theirs could be locked in the hostel lockers but mine couldn't fit. On my way I took a photo of a continuous piece of cloud extending horizontally along the ridge; from my angle, the cloud seemed to be at ground level. It looked amazing.

As soon as I locked my stuff Tk and Yj appeared. We went to buy our tickets; contrary to what Yj told us, our tickets cost @Fr78.50! This is daylight robbery.

As usual we prepared lunch at the sandwich stall. I got myself a hot-dog and chicken sandwich, Tk bought a chicken sandwich only I think and Yj, our hero, bought a banana and ham/cheese sandwich. I guess he had already planned to buy more lunch at Jungfraujoch.

The train ride up took 2 hours, and we had to change at 2 places: Lauterbrunnen and Kleine Scheidegg. There was endless scenery as we entered the Alps: from slopes with pastures, farms and fast flowing streams we came into a valley, with conifer-filled slopes and cliffs lined with numerous waterfalls on both sides. As we climbed up from the valley, the dominating vegetation slowly turned into grass, and by the time we reached Kleine Scheidegg, the whole place was only rock and snow. From there, we could see the 3 mountains the most clearly: Eiger on the left, Mönch in the centre, and Jungfrau to the right. However, no nice photo was possible from there as the mountains were on the other side of the train power cables which we could not avoid. The weather was not very good also as we could see; clouds were growing and rolling over the mountains. It was really another great sight seeing clouds gathering up a mountain and spilling over it.

The last stretch of the railway was built inside the cliff face of Eiger: it was a tunnel inside the rock face leading all the way up to Jungfraujoch. Halfway through the train ride the train stopped at an opening built on the rock face; this is the place where rescue missions started and had a great viewing platform. We did not get down the train as we did not know that we can; we realised it only after the train had left the place.

(By the way, according to Tk, the train ride was 'scary': He said that the train tilted to one side at certain stretches where losing balance meant falling down a cliff. I didn't notice that at all, though.)

It was cold in Jungfraujoch; -7 deg C, compared to the ~15 deg in Interlaken. It was really cold in the tunnels leading from the main building to other places because of the absence of the sun and air-conditioning. The first place we went to was the viewing platform on Sphinx, about 100+m higher than the train station. Luckily there was this thing called a lift.

Jungfraujoch was also called 'Top of Europe', which was actually convincing as up on Sphinx, we were already above the clouds and there were also endless things we could admire. The dominant colour here was white and blue: the snow and clouds were white, pure white; the sky was just simply blue. And it was extremely bright. Needless to say, the two most prominent features were Jungfrau and Mönch on both ends; then, it would be the long, snowed-covered glacier meadering through a valley surrounded by snow-capped peaks until it disappeared behind a mountain after a bend. On the day we visited the visibility to the towns and cities below was not good due to the clouds; if not, we were supposed to be able to see all the way to Italy and France. However, to be accurate, Jungfrau is actually hardly Top of Europe; the highest peak in Europe is Mont Blanc on the Swiss-French border near Geneva.

One thing to add: soon after we left the train, Yj discovered that he left his water bottle in the train. As his water bottle actually belonged to his mother, he needed to find it. Again another search mission. As this mission didn't actually involve Tk and me, we let him. He tried finding the train and asking the counter, both didn't work; so he put that on hold temporarily.

We continued to tour around the Jundfraujoch complex. First we went out to the glacier area to trod on snow; that was the place where skiiers start their trip. There were quite a lot of skiiers, but we did not manage to see them start; there was also a group of people who went on a helicopter tour around the peaks who had landed on a platform near the exit. The snow there was unlike any snow I had encoutered. It was clean, white, soft and fluffy, really fluffy, as if it was cotton candy. Tk, excited as usual, lay on the snow and created an impression of himself in the snow. We had pictures of his heroic act.

There was also an ice palace, where they exhibited ice sculptures. According to Tk, who had been to Harbin, the ice sculptures there was not exactly impressive. However, some were really nice. I especially liked the crytals illuminated with blue light.

There was also a 'Plateau' area, which was an outdoor viewing platform. They featured a flying Swiss flag over there, and of course, people queued to take photos with it. The ground there, in contrast with the glacier area, had mostly become ice; it was really slippery and Tk had a hard time walking on it. However, he was heroic enough to walk out of the barrier and took a photo with a rock outside the barrier. Of course Yj did that too.

We went to eat after that, and I was the only person who managed to survive only on the food bought in Interlaken. As soon as we arrived at the restaurant, Yj bought Sprite with I shared, and a pasta which I didn't touch. Tk, after finishing his pathetic burger, declared that it was not enough and went to get a plate of Fr16.80 curry rice. As soon as he ate the first mouthful, he expressed great regret about getting that as he said that it was disgusting. I watched him eat with extreme effort and at the end, he gave me some of it. It was edible to me but if you agree that that thing was 'curry' and 'rice' I seriously doubt your identity as an Asian.

We missed a train and was forced to stay in Jungfraujoch for an extra hour. We passed our time by admiring at souvenirs at the souvenir shop (by the way, Yj lost his bet on the dog as it was more expensive than Fr9.90. Since cheese fondue was over I suggested something else that he should treat me but as usual he came out with all sorts of excuses). We went back to Interlaken via Grindelwald; the scenery around Lauterbrunnen was much better. As we stopped to change trains, Yj went to the information centres to attept to look for his mother's water bottle, and of course that didn't work. In the end, he bought a replacement for Fr15.

Tk and Yj went back to the hostel to collect their luggage, and since my luggage was already at the train station, I helped them get dinner from the Co-op restaurant. We took a train to Bern before continuing to Geneva. I wasn't exactly sure why we were visiting Geneva; our guide told us that we were going there to look at the Jet d'Eau (Water Fountain) and the UN. However, he had the least idea of how to get there. And better still, he had no map, and we could not get any guide or map from the train station!

Luckily at Geneva we were picked up by Hwee See's sister, Hwee Keng. She showed us around town, where we saw Jet d'Eau and the road leading towards the UN. She brought us to this restaurant in the surrounding countryside to eat roasted chicken. Despite we already had dinner on the train, we ate, and the chicken which was roasted with wood fire was rather delicious. We had a kind of red wine which was made in the region around Geneva. It was quite good, the refreshing kind; Yj bought a bottle for himself.