Yet another heavenly trip!! More photos and more experiences!!

Long weekend! Another great occasion to get natural!

What can make a good celebration than swissing into the breath-taking sceneries surrounded by tremendous sky height
Alps? I did just that!

This time to Vevey-Montreux on the dead end of Geneva lake just 30mins from my place Lausanne! We chose trains that stop almost at every stop even very small ones that bearly have any passengers in or out! We see the timetables and roam around the place till the next train arrives! There are at least 6 to 7 stops in a distance of less than 30kms thus no one has a train station very far! only few trains stop in all stops. We stopped at Cully before reaching Vevey. We visited another village in return. All these villages have barely tens of houses located in between wine yards. This region constitutes around 20% of total swiss wine i guess.

We were clueless where to go in Vevey. I asked in the train ticket counter and the gentlemen there was very helpful gave me the map of the city and marked some locations worth visiting. Vevey was wonderful with houses located on the very tall moutains here and there right in the city. The whole surroundings on the lake gave a unique exp. That beauty attracted many celebrities from hollywood and elsewhere who got permanent houses on the shore of the lake. Charlie Chaplin stayed almost 25 years of his later part of life and died here itself. Michale Jackson tried to buy a very old (almost a dead) building lying on the lakeside.

After couple of hours, we started to Montreux. My long-time unfulfilled desire to travel in a boat in the Geneva lake was finally honored! We went to Montreux from Vevey in boat. The boat journey gives u the complete picture of the city... I could spot a magnificent Mysore palace kind of building on top of a huuuge mountain of height more than 2kms!! The building appears to be built in clouds itself!!
Hold on! there is a train to that height for 30chf up and down!! oh Gooooood!
i dont miss it next time i go there. Geneva lake has even more beautiful feathers in its cap!!

The whole Montreux place is a very favored tourist spot. Irrespective of bad weather, there are very big crowds in the restaurants, and on lakeside. We walked walked walked along the lake to reach a castle almost at the dead end of Geneva lake. The castle was outstanding but more beautiful castles are there in India! There is a very looooooong bridge appearing to be connecting two moutains...that is the highway to reach yet more great places of swiss. From the castle, i could spot a big factory on top of a huge mountain on the other side. I felt no height is unconquerable to these ppl! We explored the city around the castle too. I was completely exhausted after walking for so much of time. Finally started coming back. It started raining suddenly! Still we could make to couple of villages in return giving a fantastic finishing touch to the journey.

I decided to go to one of those villages with my new bike (!!! they call bicycles as bikes! i started bike2work since last week). Ppl travel for 100s of kms just like that on bikes. It is very popular here. So are the bike thieves. They steal bikes very frequently and if the can not, they take away at least the tires or the seat. Oh! poor swiss!! it never happens in India!!

It was another looooooooong session of photos! we took around 750 photos in a day! This time my Sony was not there as it was dead in my Indian trip! I didnt join my friends to Geneva the next day, as weather was too bad.

Come on!! Stop reading!! Have a sip of the beauty here
http://picasaweb.google.com/n.rammohan2/MontreuxVeveyMay2707

Swissssssssssssss through me.......!!

(I got 5 hours break in Doha airport while i was on my way to Hyd! So i made an attempt to share my travel exps with my fans! listening to my favorite music!! but unfortunately becoz of lack of proper internet connection, i could not upload photos until i came back to swiss!!)

Ahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! was the only word to describe every moment of recent 2 day swiss trip. It was colorful (really colorful). Day-1 is fully green (mountains with natural green paint) and day-2 was fully black and white (sky-height stony Alps and then the same with full snow)!!

We started the trip with Golden pass express which passes through the most scenic routes of swiss. This 5 hour journey leaves unforgettable memories. You never dare to nap even for a moment becoz u lose that many beautiful moments. Every inch of swiss is interesting thanks to the houses u can see every where whether it is a city or some remote corner of a very high mountain. Before u wonder how ppl live in houses scattered here and there you will see a beatiful road laid upto that house, even if it is alone there. Swiss govt provides road, water, electricity and what not where ever u stay!
After 2 hours journey we reached Interlaken. Oh God! this place is simply breath taking. It is not surprising why this place has become the most favored destination of foreign tourists. God must have lived here if he had seen this! Absolutely sexciting mountains with snow caps right by the side of road and beautiful parks with uncountable variety of flowers! Ahaaa! U feel as if u r leaving ur soul, when u move out. From here u can reach Youngfrough,Top of Europe! 20L ppl visit this place every year. Swiss is the heaven of the world and Interlaken is heaven of swiss.

Then we traveled to Laucern! This journey was so interesting and it reveals the beauty of the Interlaken mountains and the lake from all directions. To be honest, i dont have enough English expertise to describe that! Laucern is a very much happening city. A 18th century WOODEN bridge was the main attraction. I could not believe a wooden bridge in a lake. Our batteries are completely drained when we climbed a very high fort to see the beauty of the city. Unfortunately, it was closed which we realized only after going to the top! I sat outside of the fort and saved energy of the following poor innocents!
Then we went Lion monument of the city which was constructed in the honor of swiss soldiers who were killed in the French revolution. That lion was very beautifully sculptured and it has very living appearance. There was "Taste of India" shop just close to it with Indian flag right outside.
The Laucern lake was very peaceful and we could see snow mountains- Mountain pilatus and Titlis right there! There were looooooot of indians (mostly Telugus!) came to this city as part of the 4 day Easter break. All of them came to swiss for onsites!
We were totally exhausted by the time we reached the main railway station. A Regio Express to Bern, the capital was waiting there for us. Ahhh! Another scenic trip is just there! As usual the 90min trip to Bern was simply unforgettable.

Finally we reached Lausanne (my abode!) late night. That time i did not know that there is more sexciting trip is awaiting!!

On day-2, i found the address of heaven. It is Matterhorn, 3089 Zermatt! We went to Zermatt in a 3 hour long train trip! we missed the train by just one minute in Lausanne but could catch another connecting train in 30mins. The train passes through the highest Alps mountains. All the mountains are fully rocky and u rarely see any greenery other than very long trees competing with the mountains. The route from Visp to Zermatt is simply a BIG BIG challenge to the engineers, i think. More ever, there was a very beautiful high way road passing through very exciting bridges, mountains, tunnels! The Alps are so high that i was very much afraid seeing them, i dont know why. Zermatt houses Motterhorn mountain with full of snow every where. There is a train to Gornergrat station which is at an altitude of 3.085km which is very close to the Matterhorn snow mountain.
The track to this station is simply a perfect demo of Swingeering! I could not believe that there can be track to such a height. It was possible by a very exciting technology called Cog Wheel! There is an extra track in between two normal tracks which gives a firm grip to the train when climbing up and down such heights. U can see the pictures to appreciate this tech yourself!

After reaching the station, i could not believe my eyes. Snow..Snow..Snow..eternal snow was there everywhere! The sun was at his best which was giving a feeling like all the moutains were covered by floodlights! The whole place had very unusual brightness, which should be experienced individually. I never imagined that i would see such a place in my lifetime. I used to ask, "God! Why are you so kind on swiss?". This place was so sexciting, I could not resist so changed the question, "God! why are you so kind on me?"

It was so special not because of the snow but more because of the Matterhorn and its very special shape. Shops, restaurants were there toooo! Who misses a lunch in the heaven?

There were crowds of ppl came there for just skiing. I felt shy after seeing very small kids challenging the skiing tracks! We were afraid of the weather but it was very pleasant and the temp was just zero in stead of -14 (most of the times), so we could roam around there even without jackets. There was a hugh building there too and from there we can get a 360 degree picture of the whole snow mountains.

There is a possibility of an helicopter ride to get more divine exp which costs just 175 francs per an hour. I did not feel leaving that place. God must have lived here had He seen this before Interlaken!!!!! But i had to leave to reach Lausanne asap so as to make to Zurich that night to catch flight to India the next day.

I can visit any place in swiss on the same ticket for FOUR more days in next THREE years! So more excitment is still awaiting! You can visit number of places thanks to excellent ultra-fast trains where u never get tired because of journey.

Oh! now i am getting the basic question! Can I really do any research in such a wonderful land?

As a new comer to swiss, one can literally pick up any train and just sit in that till the last destination. Thrilling exp is guaranteed. No need to sketch ur plans, no need to select places for visit. Because every inch of swiss is interesting! This is a fact and not exaggeration.
If u dont believe, u judge urself
http://picasaweb.google.com/n.rammohan2/GoldenPassInterlakenLucern
http://picasaweb.google.com/n.rammohan2/Zermatt

Let me pray to my Gurjee

Beloved!
Work through me the work of truth
Keep my feet ever moving on the pathway
Of right action
Lead me from dark ignorance to Thy light of wisdom
Think through my thoughts
For it is Thy magic power
Which uses my mind as Thy mind,
My hands as Thy hands,
My feet as Thy feet,
My soul as Thy spirit to perform Thy holy-works.
(Courtesy: Abridged from Paramahansa Yogananda’s Lessons– Lesson no. 7)

The photograph was shot by my friend Gangadhar. He came up with a timely shot when I was giving some philosophical touch to my thoughts on the banks of Geneva lake in Lausanne!

Pranaams to my Great Gurujee

Pujya Gurujee Paramhansa Yogananda!
Let my first blog be about the great Guru whose teachings I love a lot. I first came to know about this great soul from His famous book Autobiography of a Yogi. To be honest, this book was more than the BhagavathGeetha to me thanks to lot of things I learnt from it. I learnt what great things one can achieve by constant, regular practice of meditation and other dhyana techniques. I hope this book should be your first reading in your who am I? search. But read the book with devotion, with all-positive-and-no-negative attitude. Read till the end without any -ve questions and doubts. Then only you can realize how much powerful this book can be for you.
I joined in Yogoda Satanga Society of India Lessons (http://yssofindia.org/index.htm) almost immediately. I am fully motivated to read the lessons and follow everything present. I was little bit on right track when I was at IITM, but thanks to natural human's inertia-towards-good-things, I have been doing it only partially (not doing at all, to be frank) after getting job. But I hope to come up and go back onto the track soon. I have Gurujee's blessings towards my efforts!.