The Bicycle Diaries
A report
Archanadevi Travels sponsors the cycle tour in Switzerland
Few pages from the dairy:
20th June, 2010 --- Raining like mad
cycle maps ... raincoat ... bags ... waterproof covers for bags ... food ... bungee ropes ... cycle pants ... swimsuit ... cloths ... medicines ... water ... mobile ... 2 cameras ... pencil ... rubber ... watercolor ... brushes .... paper .... ipod ... sun glasses ... sunscreen ... helmet ... passport ... air pump ... cycle tube ... puncher kit ... water bag ... comb ... aquarelle paper pad ... knife ... toilet kit ... money purse............
Today because of the rain I had to postpone my trip. The start doesn't look so good. Do I believe in such things? We might say hundred times - No I don't, but somewhere within our subconscious we have this fear. It is a hidden fear which comes out at times.
21st June 2010 –
Start from Zurich to Aarau
I followed the Limmat river till Baden, Limmat starts from the Zurich lake and meets Aare river in Siggental. So I started following Aare towards south. Aare route which is one of the famous cycle route (route # 8).
“Always following the Aare, a peculiar jumble of gabled houses, irises, cement factory, golden oriels, Synchrotron and duck paradise. Like the waters, we travel through water meadows, gullies, past reservoirs, along the Reuss, Limmat and Rhine rivers”
www.veloland.ch (velo means cycle) this website is the best recommended by me for cycling, walking and hiking within Switzerland.
There is so much of green that I feel I have wasted buying other colours for my paintings. It is difficult for an Indian to paint 'almost' monochrome specially without reds, terra-cotta or ocher.
Weather report – its still slight drizzling
Number of aquarelle: 3
klm: 65
Declaration: 'My Bicycle Dairies' is not a copy of 'The Motorcycle Diaries', but surprisingly the title resembles—“Any resemblance is totally coincidence”.
Comparison, Spot the differences:
The Motorcycle Dairies:
“The book that traces the early travels of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara,and his friend Alberto Granado Guevara travelled 8,000 kilometers (5,000 ml) across South America on an old 500cc single cylinder Norton motorcycle.
During the journey he is transformed by witnessing the social injustices of exploited mine workers, persecuted communists, ostracized lepers, and the tattered descendants of a once-great Incan civilization. The book ends with a declaration by Guevara, originally born into an upper middle class family, displaying his willingness to fight and die for the cause of the poor, and his dream of seeing a united Latin America. It has been a New York Times bestseller several times."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Motorcycle_Diaries
22nd June 2010 –
Aarau to Burgdorf
The Emmental or Emmentaler cheese is famous from this place.
On a 21 gears cycle I was going in the speed of 8 km per hour, Ahhh thought my body is totally gone but in the evening I realized I rode a cycle whose breaks where so tight.....
Weather report: sunny day beginning of the summer.
Number of aquarelle: 1
Klm: 85
The Bicycle Dairies:
This is not one of my early travel experiences. I am an experienced traveller. I travelled all alone in a 21 gears cycle. When i started from Zurich I had a 7 gears bicycle but as I reached Aarau, my hosts for that night offered me a 21+ gears mountain bike. It is not that the 7 gears was bad but the 21+gears was blady good, like the swiss german would say SuPer (the end of the trip I had 3 cycles, in 3 cities, 7,18, and 21+gears) Yes I agree like Che I travelled many klm or will it be correct to say the starting digit was same - no 8. he did 8000 km and I did 800 km.
My map: Center of Switzerland - horizontally central and vertically south of the Swiss map. Unfortunately i had to do the trip anti-clockwise, not the Buddhist way.
During my journey I never saw any exploitation of any workers, the farmers were very happy and helpful and friendly. Thou all my Swiss friends are little surprised that they were friendly. Normally in the canton rural areas people have a reputation that they are very conservative and not helpful. They have a problem with people migrating from other countries. Switzerland has always maintained saying it is a neutral country (which can be debated), in the history it has witnessed to be a shelter to many.
I have a feeling they never saw an Indian women doing country cycling so they seemed happy. My friend lena says I have a very friendly pleasant aura around me so people seems to melt in that.
In the beginning of my dairy I always declare that I come from a upper middle class, high caste family. Anyways traveling in Switzerland, this declaration doesn't make any sense as I come from “The developing country” who has the highest rating of tourism in Switzerland which gives them a good economical boost. I wont be too wrong if I say Switzerland surely survives with tourism. So my question is how much developing country we are?
23rd June 2010 –
Burgdorf to Bern (Political capital)
In front of the parliament there is a dancing fountain, in a hot sunny day you can find kids having fun, families picnicking and young couples romancing. This site for me looked Utopian in todays time, thinking of all the security hassles around the world.
Weather report - fantastic weather sunny breezy with no body pain and my cycle is been repaired now it zooms.
Number of aquarelle: 3
Klm: 30
24th June 2010 –
Bern to Thun
Picture postcard town. The Thun museum was quite friendly, they allowed me to take my cycle inside the museum to see the show. It was like taking a mobile art work to see an art show.
Weather report – Beautiful and I am getting in shape.
Number of aquarelle: 2
Klm: 45
Tourism, this year the report says Indians have saved few countries being the highest tourists. After Indians are the Chinese, then the Japanese. You can find Japanese in Interlaken, the Chinese in Titlis and Indians all over, where ever our Bollywood took us. The Indians are also rated as the worst tourists, fortunately no country can ever make an issue of that because they are highest in number as tourists.
Cycling, walking, swimming, hiking... are all words which are forbidden for an Indian tourist, as they love luxury, so I was always glared with a surprised look. Indians come in a bus, train, take the ropeway or motor-way and have a relaxed holiday taking back few more kilos in their belly. Now a days all the airplanes have issues with baggage they should start charging for human weight too.
Few informations which i would love to share:
It seems The Swiss embassy has a special Visa for honeymoon couple. The credit goes only to the Chopras.
25th June 2010 –
Thun to Bonigen (near Interlaken)
Interlaken town is not really so pretty so I dont know why people go there. Yes the surrounding places are interesting again a postcard picture.
This is the only place I had to live in a hostel and eat alone. Shamelessly I went to an Indian restaurant 'Welcome India' (lonely planet rated it quite high) -- after a month I had Indian food but the food was really nice.
Weather report – Pleasant. Cycling going smooth
Number of aquarelle: 2
Klm: 37
Titlis (3,238m) The favorite place for Indians and Chinese to visit. For Chinese Titlis is the last stop in their trip. I figured out why it is popular for these two countries :
For Chinese:
... "Donghua Li - the famous world champion gymnast from China - was intensely preparing for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, when he went onto the platform at the Mt. Titlis peak and looked eastwards. Suddenly he saw a huge natural statue among the snow covered mountains. It looked like a Buddha! It was wearing a monk's habit, holding straight its head and body. Its left arm was in front of the chest, and right arm was gently hanging down, and the statue seemed sitting cross-legged on a rectangular pedestal. It was like a wonderful sculpture, purposely carved out of snow and ice by a gifted artist. When rays of sunshine pierced through the clouds and illuminated the statue, it was shrouded in mysterious glory. At this overwhelming sight, Donghua Li expressed his desire to win the Olympic Championship - which came true in 1996 - and he became the Olympic Champion in gymnastics!. and now he stays in Switzerland become a citizen and plays for the country...” this story i picked up from my visit to Titlis, there is a huge inscription of this story in front of the mountain.
But i suggest please visit this website:
http://www.wulrich.com/picture_august2004.html
Werner Ulrich. a Swiss photographer has written this story very beautifully, with accurate informations.
For Indians:
I saw a huge cutout of SRK and Kajol's from dilwale dulhaniya le jayege on top of the Titlis so i assume the reason for it to be popular.
26th June 2010 –
Bonigen to Mariengen to Giswil via Brünig Pass
Beautiful waterfall, but if you have to carry your cycle all along the water fall to the top through the rocky hiking way just to find the right cycle map road is quite adventurous and needs lot of muscle power.
Every year in Giswil there is a music festival called Obwalden music festival, which is held inside a forest. They invite the contemporary traditional yodeling artists from that canton area and one guest country and this time it was Mali. It was contrasting to watch the Mali singers and the yodeling artists in a full moon night, deep inside a forest.
Weather report – cant have better weather than this. My body now is very fit
No of aquarelle: 00
Klm: 45 + 25
I am still thinking of what I saw in Titlis.
Near the ticket counter in Engelberg you can find a vada pav and pav bhaji stall with Indian chai. The Indians get very excited. They forget to buy the tickets and straight away hog. You would think they have not seen Indian food for years, but basically they must have just arrived 3 or 4 days back and every dinner they might have ended up in an Indian restaurant.
While hogging they would enquire things like: will it be cold and snowy up in that 3,238mt? They would be mostly dressed in a thin t-shirt, one cap or a sari and a hawai chappel. By the time they finish hogging the ticket counters are closed so they have to come next day early morning. The chinese they dont wait nor see here and there, straight away they go up, they know the gates get closed early, they dont waste time and they just follow their tour guide. They go up and immediately start playing with the snow –making snow balls and throwing at each other.
So you can see there is a cultural difference within the tourists.
27th June 2010 –
Giswill to Sarnen
Beautiful lake, but swimming is freezing. The lake must have been 10degree cold. I surely jumped and started moving my hands and feet so fast to warm my body and came out as quick as I jumped. It was the most lovely sunday. My hosts has this house up in a hill and the view was splendid, you could see the lake. With this spectacular view and Barbecue made my trip a grand success.
Weather report – Been nice to me
Number of aquarelle: 3
Klm: 25
28th June 2010 –
Sarnen to Engelberg
Engelberg means the Hill of Angel which has the oldest monastery
The Benedictine Monastery, built in 1120, forms the center of Engelberg. To date there are still approximately 30 monks living and working in the Engelberg monastery.
This is where I realized I have taken a historical route, the Napoleon route.
Napoleonic invasions -- Engelberg monastery had to face and witness and it saved itself.
Weather report – Sunny and nice and pleasant
No of aquarelle: 2
Klm: 40
29th June 2010 –
Engelberg to Emmenbrucke
The mountain biking route up and down the Engelberg was my best experience. I could have stayed in that forest for days.
Weather report – Same as yesterday, my mind has started saying now it is the end of my trip, so my body has started acting funny. After crossing all this mountains, coming to the land is now becoming little boring thou Luzern city is quite picturesque. I am actually tired of the beautiful cities and landscapes, at least for sometime.
Number of aquarelle: 3
Klm: 55
30th June 2010 –
Emmenbrucke to Zug to Zurich
Archanadevi meets Jean Frederic Schnyder in his studio, and finds him very similar in thoughts. The only difference was about fake(me) and original(him). In his early days he painted his surroundings but would use the mode of transport as cycle. he paints only what he has seen in person. No photographs, no Internet; simplicity is his life. Less certain, however, is whether his humor always hits the mark. Sure, his 126 sunsets ("Sonnenuntergang" [Sunset], 1996), his 93 train-station waiting rooms ("Wartesale" [Waiting Rooms], 1988-90), and his 119 views of highways ("Wanderung" [Walking Tour], 1993), are amusing. He was very keen in seeing my watercolours, I was very tensed, showed him all. He got very excited looking at it and remembered his young days. We compared each others work and spots.
People warned me he is a star so he might not entertain me. But he came out as the best down to earth artist. So my short trip ends here.
weather report – now it doesn't matter.
no of aquarelle: 3
klm: 55
.......many more stories like this is in my cycle dairies but do you still think it is similar to the motorcycle dairies? Yes i became a landscape painter documenting the landscapes of alps.
Archana Hande
founder member of the Archanadevi Travels Trust.
