Journey to the West: 15 Nov 07 - (Snowing) Grenoble to Interlaken

I woke up in the morning of 15 Nov 07 to the my first sight of "falling snow". The snow was flaky though, sometimes so thin that it immediately disappeared once it touched the ground. This year the snow has unexpectedly come very early. Nobody would have imagined experiencing snow in mid-November; but I guess the weather is getting more and more erratic (for example, as I am writing this post, the temperature at Grenoble is 15 degrees when it was subzero yesterday night.)

Anyway, that morning I made my way to the train station, hoping that the trains that I had found online the day before actually did run to Geneva. On the tram to the station, it dawned on me that the snow in centre ville was really "heavy". Snow clearly had been falling throughout the night as cars were covered with layers of snow. When I got out of tram, I had my first experience of snowing falling on me. The feeling was amazing and the best thing was that the snow stayed on my jacket for quite a while till I got inside the train station. Yeah! One of my wishes has been fulfilled!

L-R: snowing in Grenoble

Soon after I was in the bus to Lyon where I would change to another bus to a small town called Bellegarde, about half an hour train from Geneva. In total, I took 2 buses, 1 TGV and 2 Swiss Intercity trains to make it into Interlaken with a record time of 9 hours. Haha. The journey itself was eventful as well. In Bellegarde, I met this African guy who was on his way to meet her sister in a village nearby. He apparently has not seen his sister for 15 years ever since they were separated during a civil war in his country. Now that he has obtained political asylum from the Italian government, he has settled down in Milan, is learning the Italian language and will be working as a barber in the future. This somehow made me realise that I am really fortunate to be born in this comfortable situation.

L-R: random view on the way to Lyon; the African guy I talked about

Anyway, I reached Interlaken West train station at about 17:45 and it was already pitch dark by then. I had left the printout of my hostel booking in Grenoble train station as I was in a hurry to board the bus. Luckily, Jeremy helped me check out the directions, but in fact it was quite useless cos it only mentioned that "the hostel is located 5 mins away from Interlaken West". Well done la! Luckily they have this informative information board, where they have listed down all the hostels and hotels in the town with a number for each one. When I pressed the number, the location of the hostel would be flashed on the map and I could figure out my orientation from there.

Upon entering the hostel (Happy Inn Lodge), I was shocked to find no reception table; instead all I saw was a bar with people staring back at me. I walked around and later learnt that I could just check in with one of the waiters. So I did and after settling down in the room, I came down to the bar wanting to ask for advice for the trip to Jungfraujoch the next day. But the waiter was so busy that I could not steal a chance to talk to him. I ended up ordering a glass of beer and a woman next to me kindly provided me with some information about Jungfraujoch. I was worried that I would be paying a bomb for nothing as she told me that the weather had been really bad till that day.

L-R: Happy Inn Lodge; Rugenbrau the local beer

Then I left the hostel to walk around the town, but the town was as good as dead. Movement and sound were minimal. I chanced upon a casino but did not go in as there was an entrance fee. I wanted to feed my empty stomach but I had difficulty finding cheap food. In the end, I settled for a more conservative (and cheaper) meal: McDonalds at 11.20 CHF! That was pretty much for the evening.