Category: austria

Managed to upload something from one of my archives…
austrian alps

This was written a couple of years after the actual trip, and while the month/year is correct, not sure about the date.

My main
idea was to see snow. For this I would need to reach the higher regions of the
mountain where it had not yet melted. Every now and then it would look like we
were almost at the top, but as soon as we reached that point, another point
would come up which looked like the top. But so far there had been no snow. I
started to tire from the steep ascent and the frequency of our brief moments of
rest increased.

 

But we
kept going relentlessly and finally saw it. It was first in small patches…

 

 

but as we
kept going further and futher it became denser and denser, and finally we
reached the point where it was a thick white carpet.

 

 

 

 

 

The whole
journey had been too thrilling for me to bother too much about getting tired –
but now I felt my battery had run a bit low. We decided to head back and I
discovered that going downwards turned out to be much much tougher than I had
imagined. It was also starting to get late, and we had to get back soon and we
tried to make brisk progress wherever it was possible.

 

Finally
David took me to a road and we simply walked back – this was of course a longer
route, but less risky than climbing down a slope so it would save time anyway.

 

 

Finally
when we made it back to the farm house – I was absolutely ecstatic at my journey
and wanted to tell Ralf all about it. But there was no time – one of the cows
in the farm was about to give birth. Kramer had told us about it earlier, but
the exact time hadn’t been certain.

 

Ralf,
Doris and me watched with bated breath from a distance the amazing sight of a
calf emerging from the cow. We were all very still and silent and at a distance
so as to not disturb the cow. Only Kramer was next to it, lending it a helping
hand.

 

 

The birth
was successful, but something was wrong. The calf was very very still. Kramer
tried to get it moving… tried to get it on its feet and drink milk – even gave
tried giving it some artificial respiration – but it just kept falling back
into a slump.

 

 

He went
out and called a vet, even in this remote area they are well connected. While
they waited for a vet to arrive, Kramer kept attempting to revive the calf.
Everybody was extremely tense about the situation. The cow seemed to be totally
exhausted.

 

But
somehow something clicked… the calf suddenly kicked to life and sprung on its
feet. It was a moment of joy really.

 

 

Finally
there was a family get together with relatives from other places joining in. It
was fun, everybody had to hunt for Easter eggs… and I even found one having my
name – misspelt as Sanchey but my name nevertheless. Anyway the important part
was that it contained some chocolate!

 

Sanchey
was what everybody used to call me after all my failed attempts to correct the
pronunciation. The trouble was that the letter j is pronounced as “ya” in German,
and there is no equivalent at all in the entire language for the pronounciation
of “J”. Of course this leads to Yava and Ayay Yadeya but that’s another story.

 

Drove back
later through some very foggy weather and a very long dark tunnel.

 

 

 

 

the end

When I
went back I described my experiences to Ralf and Kramer. Kramer said that he
would ask his David, his 13 year old son, to accompany me the next day. David
had been very aloof all the while and had been quite indifferent to me just
like any young boy would be to a guest. And another thing is he did not speak
any English at all, and all of my German vocabulary could be inscribed on a rice
grain in bold font.

 

Anyway I
thoroughly enjoyed the dinner that evening – as I was starved after my
exploits. I was troubled that Kramer’s wife had to take extra trouble to
prepare vegetarian food as I was the only vegetarian. I tried to convince her
that I don’t mind eating just raw vegetable salad – and though bread, cheese
and salad were indeed my meal for most cases – still she used to go ahead and
cook some nice veg dish sometimes.

 

Later Ralf
and Doris helped clean and dry all the vessels and I too found a way to make
myself useful by assembling them neatly on the table as they were processed.
This concept of the guest easing the responsibilities of the host was new to me
and I felt it was a very neat idea to be implemented wherever I go.

 

The next
day, David and I set off up the trail again. We tried to get some conversation
going – I said something in English to which he helplessly shrugged his
shoulders – later he said something in German to which I had no option but to
do the same… so we finally gave up and proceeded silently. We were going in the
direction of where I had been to earlier and I tried to tell him there was no
way further – which fell on deaf ears. We finally reached the edge of the cliff
and I stopped.

 

He just
walked on down the slope.

 

I just
stood there totally dumbfounded gaping at him as he stood at the bottom next to
the frozen stream and waving at me to get on with it. I wondered how he
could’ve just walked like that. Slowly against my better judgement – I tried to
find some way – I held on to a tree… then skid down a few feet and clung on
tighter for dear life – then slowly somewhat regained my footing and looked for
the next foothold – and released the grip on the tree searching for a new one.
I took a full ten minutes to join him while he waited impatiently with an
amused expression on his face. Then we started walking up the slope, along the
banks of the stream.

 

 

The frozen
stream was just beginning to thaw out as it was spring, and the resulting
trickle of water led to the formation of some spectacular icicles.

 

 

We saw no
animals along the way save one colony of ants just starting to get into
business. However I saw some skull and some hoof marks.

 

 

Here are
two of the most extraordinary icicles.

 

 

This one
David broke off and held in his hand against the sunlight for my photo.

 

At one
point we had to cross the stream. David neatly jumped across. I very warily
hesitated… the challenge was not just jumping the distance but also to land
safely on the slippery floor. He encouraged me… and after a lot of deliberation
and first handing over my camera, I took the leap. I made it but my elation was
only momentary as I lost my balance and my foot went into the icy 1 foot deep
water… brr. I howled out due to the chill and pulled it out. There was this one
second of silence… and then we both burst into laughter for a long time. And at
that instant we became great friends. I had to remove my shoe and squish all
the water out of my socks, but after I put it on again, the cold in my foot
eventually became the least of the challenges.

 

The slope
was very steep at some places, and at some other places, there was no space on
the stream bank to walk, and we had to take a slight detour.

 

At many
such points, proceeding further seemed totally ridiculous. At some point I
would be confronted by an almost vertical slope and at these places I used to
exclaim one the few useful German words I knew – “Unmoglich!!” (Impossible) And
David would readily retort “Nicht Unmoglich!!” climbing up just to prove his
point, as if there was some invisible ladder, and again climb down
effortlessly.

 

 

 

At one
point, I was totally stuck… neither able to go back nor forward nor up nor down.
I was against the face of the cliff, a full 15 feet above what was relatively
horizontal ground. I was holding on to the root of a tree, David was standing
at a platform on top. He kept urging me to come on… and offered me his hand. I
took it and suddenly remembered I was around 70+ kilos and he was a 13 year old
kid and hurriedly took it back. I said “Bitte warten” – “Please wait” and just
took a whole five minutes to carefully assess my precarious situation. This was
my first experience with mountains and I was definitely no Tom Cruise (recall
MI-2). If I was to fall, I wouldn’t lose my life, but definitely my limbs. Here
there would be no way any ambulance would make it, first of all getting in
touch with anyone itself would take eternity. My well being would depend
absolutely on no one else other than my own alertness and sound common sense.

 

I realized
that my immediate next ambition in life was to find the next stable handhold.
Slowly I tested all the different possibilities… which one would be strong…
also planned… almost like chess… if I do that, next I can do that… I’ll get
stuck again… not that way, etc. David, now more patient than earlier, waited
while I figured the whole thing out. Finally step by step, I managed to pull
myself up after which he gave a very encouraging cheer.

 

(This
picture was close to that point, and it shows the gradient – not very clearly
though – at the right edge of the picture)

While they
caught up with their family updates etc I left them to have their personal
space and went out to explore the surroundings. I found a path leading to the
mountain and started walking on and on – it meandered through a thick growth of
evergreens and curiosity and pure rapture with the pristine surroundings drove
me to go further and further to see what’s around the next bend – what’s around
that corner – what’s beyond that hill? At the back of my mind was – what if I
get lost? There was mostly only a single path with very few others crossing it,
and I decided that I was confident enough to know how to get back. I had a cell
phone and Ralf had told me to give him a call if I get lost. I had replied – “and
what would I tell you? That I’m in some place which has a big evergreen tree in
front of me, one to my right and one to my left and another dozen all around? J” He saw the point and there was no doubt that I was
more or less on my own.

 

The
journey was worth its risks – the view was becoming increasingly breathtakingly
spectacular.

 

View of a
neighboring mountain. As with the one I was climbing, most of the snow had
melted except at the top.

 

 

Being a
naturalist, one learns to see beauty not just straight ahead but everywhere. Here
is an upward view of the towering pine trees.

 

 

This one
was taken with a timer… I especially wanted to capture the sunlight
highlighting the moss at the right. Here the path I was walking on can also be
seen… a valley on one side, and the mountain on the other.

.

 

 

This is a
beautiful example of survival of life! A chopped off tree isn’t giving
up!

 

 

View of
distant mountains seen through the silhouette of pine branches.

 

 

View of
sunlight filtering through the trees. The camera (Olympus D-460 autofocus) has
amazingly managed to capture even this very well!

 

 

I went on
and on up the path. Finally I reached a dead end – the path just ended.

 

I was at
the edge of a small valley – and below I could see a frozen stream. I just
couldn’t go on due to the steep slope downwards and the thick undergrowth. I
was disappointed but realized that it was time to get back anyway, and
successfully (and thankfully) made it back to the farmhouse.

 

 

 

Told Ralf I had no plans for the upcoming long weekend and
if he had anything scheduled. He said he was going to Austria with his girlfriend to visit her relatives and could take me if I was interested. I
debated whether this would be a good idea this would be a good idea – and asked
if he was sure. He said yes, he would check with Doris, his girlfriend since it
was her family in the first place. Later Doris whom I had met earlier also
called me and invited me too, so I was more than happy to agree and everything
was finalized. Not that it made much of a difference, that Ralf would benefit marginally
as I would surely be sharing the car fuel and any other travel costs.

 

After a
very long drive with the two of them doing shifts and also a break for food in
the middle, we reached the place, a village in south western Austria just after the border of Germany. One nice thing I noticed was that they did a
whole lot of shopping for groceries in the village to take to the family. This
way they would ease the burden of being guests. Saw these innovative cactus
pots in the market.

 

 

The market
was in a valley and from outside I could get a view of the spectacular Alps surrounding the place.

 

 

Finally
reached the house which was on a mountain slope. The mountainside was dotted
with houses and Doris’s relative’s house was just one dot among all the dots. I
was warmly received along with the others and it was indeed my privilege that they
were so kind as to treat me like a family member for the next few days.

 

Doris’s uncle, the owner of the house,
was a farmer by name Kremser. He was an amazingly simple person and the small
farm was totally self sustained. It was the first time that I had seen a simple
lifestyle in the West. He worked part time in the city during summers but lived
primarily in this farm. He was extremely hard working and energetic – and kept
himself busy non stop throughout the day. He moved like the wind – feeding the
cows, cleaning the place, tending to a big calf, doing some gardening and some
cleaning… a never ending list of activities. But throughout the day, whenever I
saw him whizzing by, one thing never changed – his cheerfulness. Some of the
chores seemed to be very menial and dirty for a layman like me – like cleaning
the cowshed – but even there while I was tempted to cover my nose, he was
whistling while he worked. Here was a man who had not read neither about Karma
Yoga nor about Zen, but was doing the most critical things… living them!

 

The spoken
language was German but with a dialect so different that even Ralf had occasional
problems following it. Kramer had a tough time with English but could manage
and we would get quite involved in conversation in spite of the language
barrier. I remember one unusual thing he said to me “people who come from the
city have this strange unhappy expression permanently on their face. But you
are different – you don’t look unhappy nor do you look very cheerful always –
but your face looks very peaceful”. I had no idea whether to take this as a
compliment or not so I just smiled. But this was a feeling even I had – no idea
about my own face, but about the expressions of Germans I had seen so far in
general, in trains or other public places – most of them usually looked like
they were just returning from some funeral.

 

Kramer’s specialty
was that he distilled a drink annually [argh – I cant recall the name!]. He
was a totally self sustained man and had built the entire distillery by
himself. He puts apples or pears or some fruits into them and then they ferment
into alcohol over a year or many years – cant remember the statistics. Not
everybody can do this in their homes – he had acquired a license for it.

 

At that
time I hadn’t yet given up alcohol though it was reduced to rare occasions
only. I tried this out, the smell was very pleasant – and when I swallowed a
sip – I could feel a nice warm feeling going all the way to my stomach as it
made its way down.

 

 

Here is a
picture of Kramer, Doris and Ralf (left to right) in the basement – where he
kept the distillery.

 

Another
example of his craftsmanship is seen in this swing that he made for his
youngest daughter Sarah.

 

4 year old
Sarah was the sweetest girl I had ever met – after some time she befriended me
and though she spoke no English we could somehow got along quite well together.
Especially when I could instantly show her her picture on the camera. As a
matter of fact, the entire family was very impressed with the concept – they
had been quite out of touch with digital technology – not that they had missed
anything, I felt. I took a lot of pictures of her, but this was my favorite
one, where she was literally staggering around carrying this huge guitar on her
shoulder.

 

 

The
farmhouse had another small old building adjoining it, and Kramer said this
building was over 300 years old. This picture gives an idea of the interior.

 

 

 

Notice the
automatic door bold that gets bolted as soon as the door is shut… such a simple
mechanism!

 

 

 

Spring was
just beginning and flowers were blooming – here is a daffodil outside the
house.

 

There was
a bird feeding station at the balcony and a lot of very colorful birds came to
feed.

 

 

 

 

That night

as someone had speculated, I got very deep sleep because of the total absence
of all city sounds.