I believe I can fly....

After a breakfast of fabulous coffee and all kinds of bread and cereal, we asked Chris about paragliding. He told us how he did it once and was so hooked that he went and bought the whole gear. He said he did it for quite sometime, until one of his friend had a terrible accident and was in rehab was over a month.

Not very encouraging, since I am quite scared of hurting myself. But since Neeraj really wanted to do this for a long time, I decided to go along...They are all experienced people, Chris reminded. He also booked the tour for us. Neeraj and I decided that since both of us had spent plenty of time in snowy regions when we were studying, we would spend the money that people spent to go to Shilthorn etc, and spend it on paragliding.

The ride cost was 150 CHF including a hotel pickup. There was another Indian family with a 10 year old girl who were also going to paraglide with us. Once at the main office, they explained the rules and safety precautions. Also packed the backpacks video camera's in a trunk. They would also take pictures once in air for 20 CHF extra. What the heck? You do it only once, so we went with it. Neeraj carried our Sony elph with which you could take a short clip of about 5 mins. They then piled all of us including the pilots in one van and we set out. After introductions, they told us to pick the pilots. Pick someone your size :) Yeah right :) We drove up the moutain for about 20 minutes and then walked to a cliff, though not that steep. The pilots immediately set to work. They unrolled the gliders and set them on the ground. I was with a quiet but tall guy called Patrick. Once every chose the pilots, they handed all the gear. We had to wear windbreakers, a jacket which had a seat at the back. Then the pilot hooked the parachute and himself onto the jacket and explained that during the take off, keep on running for as long as you can. Avoid the temptation to sit!!

Patrick and I were third to take off. Since Patrick was so much taller than I, my legs were lifted within a few feet and even before I knew it, we were in air. Just like that. There were lush green mountains, the ice-capped peaks, the two lakes, the city....it was just so amazing. Patrick took several pictures. The only sad part was that on a warm and clear day, there is not much breeze and you don't stay in air too long. So the whole journey lasted about 10 minutes. As we got closer to land, Patrick explained what to do when we land. Again, keep on walking..don't sit or else I will fall on you, he reminded.

The landing was smooth and it almost seemed like it was all a dream. Neeraj's pilot did a few antics like the spirals and circled a tall hotel building, but since I was terrified initially, Patrick was very cautious. I was almost jealous of Neeraj for being able to do that. After the pilots all packed the gear, we walked back to the main office which was right by the meadow we landed on.

After that, we had a choice to be dropped to the hotel, but we did not want to go back. We went to this restaurant which had the menu written outside in hindi. I almost thought like I was back in India. There were busloads of Indians everywhere. Later we found out that Interlaken is a favorite place for Indian tourists.

I tried the German sausage and Neeraj had some Thai curry like dish. It was alright, but at that time, even a feast would have made no difference. We were too excited. :))

Later in the evening we drove up the mountains and just drove and drove for a couple of hours. For dinner, finally, we tried the famous Cheese fondue. Unless you like cheese and really love alcohol, I would pass this one. It had a fairly large percentage of alcohol. We were not impressed at all.

The next morning, we were to start to drive to Zurich. We had heard that Zurich was not a very fun place, so we decided to spend the morning and a good part of the afternoon in the moutains, stopping to have coffee or munch on something. We took the gondola up to one of the carless villages up in the mountain. The gondola ride was like the cable car ride in lake Tahoe, but you can never stop being amazed by so much beauty and peace. We found the best pasta in the whole trip in one of the villages. After we came down, with a really heavy heart, we said goodbye to beautiful Interlaken and its beautiful people....