This is my entry to the
ExpediaContest on Indiblogger. The contest is about describing a meeting with an interesting person during a travel expedition. Well, I got many such memories of meeting interesting people during my travels. The list includes cab drivers in Mumbai, cycle rickshaw pullers in
Jaipur, bhajia sellers at
Tarkarli, hotel owners at various places, bouncers at club shacks in Goa, fishermen at the beaches of California, young executives at Singapore, teenage girls from Japan, craftsmen from
Chiang Mai and many many more. By the way, I am in touch with all the people mentioned in the last statement. There is only one person with whom I am not.
That one person I happened to meet at my trip to the
Switzerland and today I remember him the most.
This incident of meeting him up happened 2
years back. The event was my delayed honeymoon. “My” and not ours because my
husband was just not interested in it. And a delayed one because this was after
5 years of marriage, that I had our official honeymoon. Rather for my husband,
it was a tormented journey of staying day and night with his wife of 5 years and
girl friend of 5 years; altogether staying together with the woman he had
detested for the past 10 years of his life.
We were spending our time at a beautiful place called “
Interlaken” in Switzerland. We
were put for 3 nights and 2 days at the place. The place is a beautiful city, which has lakes and lakes everywhere, may
be that is why it is named Interlaken.
We had our our first day planned with a
sight-seeing tour to the
Jungfrau Mountains.
They constitute the Swiss part of the magnificent
Alps.
The route to reaching the Jungfrau consists of a rail network that takes about 2 hours to reach the place.
Firstly, one is supposed to reach
Grindlewald and then from there board another train that goes to Jungfrau. So that eventful
day we too got down at Grindlewald and then got into another train that was supposed to take
us to the Jungfrau. Our journey till Grindlewald
was fine and boring; well it is always boring when I travel with my husband. It
is because he expects me to keep quiet, which is his idea of enjoying a happy
vacation. Luckily, that part of the journey was just of half an hour, and it ended quick. Then we
boarded another train at Grindlewald to reach to our final destination of the day. We were
waiting for the train to get started, and there came a young, good looking, cheerful man who greeted
us and the elderly couple who were sitting just next to us. He told them in a
joyous tone that they were sitting at a wrong compartment and should find a
place in the compartment next to that. I had noticed that we also had the same
traveling vouchers as the elderly couple, so that would have meant changing
compartments for us too. I informed my husband the same and we both stood up to
change our seats. But as soon as we stood up to do the same, the cheerful guy
returned to us and told us to remain seated. Since we looked puzzled, he
therefore, told my husband that he did that purposely so that he could have a
comfortable day at his job of a travel escort. He was escorting a group of
octogenarians on their Europe trip, and except
the couple whom he asked to leave, rest all were his clients in that compartment. And since all of the
aging people look the same, he could have had a trouble time in identifying and
preventing those ones from mixing in his travel group. But we were not a threat
to him, so we were more than welcome to be a part of his entourage. Hearing his
story we both started laughing and were instantly drawn towards him. The entire
1 hour of journey went happily. We both loved the way he was treating his
elderly customers. They were short of sight, so he would show them the landmarks that passed by the route individually, and would instruct them to use their
binoculars. Some of them would complain of the cold environment, and then he
would place a stole on their backs. And the ones who dozed off were simply
allowed to relax and were not disturbed.
Finally the time passed and we reached
the Jungfrau. We could not bid adieu to him because
he was busy in helping each of his client in getting off the train, slowly and
slowly. Me and my husband enjoyed the beautiful snow peaked mountains for about
10 minutes. Such a long time because we had woken up early for this and had
spent almost 2 hours traveling to see the destination. So, as per my husband it
would have been unfair if we had not spent enough time there. It was indeed 10
minutes, because you see my husband hates to do sight-seeing…LOL I was still
fine with it, at least he came in person for the honeymoon…Any ways, after that he was sure that he made his wife happy, so then it was his turn of putting up a demand.
That eventful day he just had the luxury of drinking 2 cups of tea in the morning, cause that day he feared that his daily indulgence could have made us arrive late for the early morning sight-seeing activity. So he had to have one bigger cuppa
to fulfill his daily dose of drinking 1 entire kettle of tea! So then, we found an Indian restaurant at the Jungfrau and there we both indulged in our daily sipping activity before going all the way back
to our hotel in Interlaken.
The entire return journey we, rather I did not speak. Guess I had a lot of
adventure for the day coming up. May be I was amassing all my synergies to face the upcoming events in the day. Firstly, I met this smart and adventurous travel escort,
whose idiosyncrasy kept me entertained for a while. Secondly, I spent entire 10
minutes with my husband at the Alps. Both the
events together contributed to having spent a beautiful day (till then.)
Then, we took the same journey back and reached the
Interlaken
West station. From there we started walking back towards the East where our hotel was.
Surprisingly, my husband held my hand and I realized we both looked like
perfect boyfriend-girlfriend. Please note that we did not look like a
couple or
a
husband-wife then, if you are one of the two and reading this, I am sure you will
understand what I mean by this strict demarcation.
But as my destiny is, I could not enjoy that moment for even
10 minutes. My experience of living a blissful married life was shaken when I
realized that I was not carrying my hand-bag!!! My handbag was not with me that
had my wallet, my glasses, my medicines and little important cosmetic stuff
without which I fail to turn myself into a beautiful human optical illusion. Also, my wallet had all the 17 credit cards,
my government identity cards and a lot of cash. I screamed in desperation and then my
husband started screaming in anger. He took off with his “I told you so and
so…..”. And for another 10 minutes, his “I told you so and so….” did not end. He kept on with “thank Goodness I am
carrying the passports; you cannot take responsibility for anything.” After his
10 minutes were over, I started off with my half an hour of rebuke.
“So what, , why am I responsible for anything and
everything in our World. You also could have taken the cash along. You never carry cash, because of which I have to carry the entire bank with me. Being a wife I planned
everything in this trip, which was actually a husband’s job. 99% of my work is
perfect, I am never thanked or appreciated for that, but the moment I fail in doing 1%
of it correct, you never fail to bash me up for that. And in any case all that
is lost is my bag and my money and my stuff in that, you do not need to worry
for that. Go to your room and sleep, because that is what you can do best. ” I
shouted all that to him and started going back towards the station crying.
Little did I know then what would have happened next.
Suddenly the escorting travel expert appeared from nowhere and asked me if the white coloured bag in his hand was mine. It took me sometime to realize
what had happened, since I was so engrossed within my choler. When in another
2 seconds I came in my senses, I could only ask him “How come??”
Then, he held my left hand, hanged my bag onto that; took my right hand and pulled me towards my husband, whose back was turned against us, or rather was facing towards the West direction. He greeted him and pushed me towards him and said "Gentleman, all your lost baggage is with you now."
My husband was also surprised seeing him, seeing me with him; seeing me with my handbag; and seeing all of us together. Since, that travel escort was always the last passenger to get off the train compartments and almost from every place due to his slow walking customers; he therefore was the first one to spot any unattended baggage.
We asked him to have a coffee with us in return for the help that he had rendered to us. He accepted our invite willingly and we all went to a deli nearby. Just few minutes into the conversation and we all got friendly with each other. Please note that he term "Each Other" includes me and my husband with each other, as well the stranger with both of us. His name was Nicolas and was from Greece running his own travel escort service. Most of his clients were the elderly who dread to go alone for travels. He said he loved his job and shared his business card with us. He also said that 20 years hence he would be happy to take both of us for a traveling expedition and would expect both of us to be happily married to each other that time.
With those words he parted from us and wished both of us a happy journey, we wished the same to his future travel expeditions and thanked him again for the help.
Reaching back to India, I searched his email id on the facebook, and sent him a friend request. He accepted the same after 2 months. Both of us stayed in touch for a long time. We did not interact much, except for sharing our recent travel pictures with each other. I guess it was around few months back when all the financial news on this Globe was concentrated on the Greece economic melt down that I thought about the Greek God that I met 2 years back. I checked for his name on my facebook friend list, but could not find him. I even sent him an email, but the mail bounced back. I have no idea where and when did he vanish from the World Wide Web.
It really hurts me to realize that I never took a picture with him, and today I have no idea how to get in touch with him again. All I have is his memories and his business card, I have attached both with this post.
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