First outing with AG

24th December was the first day of our Christmas-New Year holidays. This year something was different. Last year I had a custom pass which covered all train voyages between Geneva and Lausanne. That also covered Versoix where I live, twelve minutes by train to Geneva. The pass also covered the first zone of Lausanne’s public transport network. I needed that to reach my university, EPFL. University being the reason I had the pass.

There’s also a pass known as Abonnement Général in French or in short AG. The AG or the Swiss General pass covers almost all the trains on the Swiss rail network and includes all the public transport networks of all the cities and towns in Switzerland. In short it’s your pass to unlimited travel without the hassle of needing to buy tickets. The Swiss pass for those under the age of twenty-five costs two hundred francs per month. Compared to the pass I had which only covered two cities sixty kilometers apart and for which I was paying one hundred eighty six francs per month, Swiss pass was a bargain. Last year I was almost certain on getting the AG. A few weeks of university made me reconsider that. With the workload we had from the university there was no way I would be able to travel freely. I was certainly right on that matter.

This year I knew I could take out some time so I had taken the Swiss pass. The only problem now was to find someone who also had the pass and would be willing to travel. My main interests were to see the mountains and to hike. I wasn’t much interested in cities or shopping or night life. In fact I didn’t have money to spend. I certainly wouldn’t want to go with someone who was a spender, an individual who would prefer to eat at restaurants or to take cable cars up the mountains instead of hiking. My mission now was not only to find someone who had an AG but also someone who didn’t have a lot money in hands.

Since the beginning of the school year I had started asking when I had the chance to my friends and classmates if they had the AG. Once I found out an AG holder I asked if the person would be interested in traveling for sightseeing and hiking. By the time the Christmas-New Year vacations had came only two had agreed. None of them was a spender. That was just the way I wanted it. The one thing we three had in common was that the three of us were foreigners and didn’t know how to ski or snowboard. I guess the rest of the students would either be sitting home or would be skiing.

In the first few days of the vacations I messaged both of them asking if they would be interested. One seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth since he didn’t give any replies. The second Adrien, a fellow from Benin agreed. After three days of agreements and postponing we finally went to Les Pléaides. That was going to be my first trip with the Swiss pass.

Now Adrien was an easy going man. When I had suggested catching a nine o clock train he bluntly refused saying it was too early. Not such a big deal, we agreed on taking the 10:56 train. But I suppose even that was too early for him. He came to the station ten minutes late. The journey finally started when we took the 11:36 train.

My initial plan was to go to Vevey and from there go to a station from which we could take a cable car to Mont Pèlerin. From there it was an hour walk to the summit. According to the directions I took, the cable car station was accessible in thirty minutes by walk from the train station of Vevey. Once in Vevey we had to find the cable car station. When we got off at Vevey the first thing I made us do was to look for the tourism office. In ten minutes of getting lost and following various on the road maps we got there only to find it closed because it was already noon. Luckily they had left brochures of the region outside the office. We each took one and started to flip through.

With the maps in the brochure, I decided it would be better to skip Mont Pèlerin and to go to Les Pléaides. Les Pléaides was higher than Mont Pèlerin and the train to Les Pléaides could be taken from the train station which we knew the directions to. That meant less work for better view.

While we were looking for the tourism office, Adrien was telling me about this report he saw on a French channel. It was something like this:

One day a man heard a great thump and clattering on his roof. He ran out immediately suspecting a burglar but instead found a big block of ice. The couple who the house belonged to preserved the ice block and both being curious had it analyzed. The results of the test told them that the block of ice was in fact a block of human urine.

This part had made me laugh out loud. But it had also got me wondering how could a block of human urine fall out of the sky like that?

As he continued his summary of the report he made it all clear. The storage compartment of an airplane flying had opened. At that height the temperature is below zero and so the couple received a block of urine as a gift from the airplane.

In a few minutes we were back in the train station. Adrien being hungry bought himself raisin bread and we got seated in the regional train to Les Pléaides. Half way along the journey we had to change trains. We had to change them because the next half of the track was steeper and slipperier. It was made for cogwheel trains. Being a cogwheel train it was slow but at least it had a good outer appearance.

When we reached our destination snow was all around. Over there it became evident having very gentle slopes this place was frequently used to teach skiing to kids. Snow was in abundant and so were the kids. There was only one track for hiking. We took that one, took a shortcut and in less than ten minutes we were back from where we started. Now Adrien as I found out later that day had never been around so much snow. Not only that but he didn’t understand on the phone the other day when I told him I planned on going to a certain mountain. In short he wasn’t prepared for snow. He had on normal sneakers with super thin soles and the rest made out of what seemed to be synthetic material. He had no warm hat, gloves or scarf. I didn’t have those either except for a warm hat. However I did have CAT boots with thick soles and thick outer material and the front region was covered with some rubber like substance.

Adrien was already ready to go back. He had suggested that we take the next train back to Vevey and go home. He did like the snow and the view but since none of us had brought a camera was disappointed and was feeling cold now. We took a look at the train timings only to find out that the next train was going to come in an hour. Having an hour I suggested we take the real path and don’t take any shortcuts to kill the time. We retook the same path.

It was after a few minutes that Adrien started complaining.

“It’s cold, my poor hands.” He complained.

“It’s not that cold.” I said.

“I don’t have gloves and I touched the snow.” He continued.

“Neither do I and I touched the snow too.” I kept my stance.

“Here I’ll do it again.” I picked up some snow, made a snowball and threw it into the bushes and quickly replaced my hands back in my pocket.

“My poor hands.” He repeated.

After three more minutes.

“I can’t feel my feet.” He restarted.

“Okay.” I replied.

“I don’t have good shoes.”

“Yeah. Just about fifty more minutes left.”

“I can’t feel my toes.”

“You told me that already.”

Just then while we were going down a couple was climbing dragging a baby cart with them.

“See we aren’t the only ones and they have it harder. Not only are they climbing but they also have the baby cart with them.”

“I’m going to die.” That was his reply.

Now we were going through trees. I was having fun sliding down as the descent wasn’t very steep but just enough to give a good slip.

“This is fun man, you should try it.” I encouraged Adrien.

“My toes.”

He had limited replies that day. I continued on slipping and sliding. In front of us coming out of the trees we saw that ahead of us the sunrays were touching the ground.

“Oh good the sun. Maybe that will warm me up.” Adrien had just found some life back.

“Yeah, just a little farther.” I replied

I kept on slipping and sliding down instead of walking and once I reached the sunny patch of land, I shouted to Adrien:

“Come on, you are almost there.”

“My poor feet.” That was his speech.

Slowly but surely Adrien made it. The weak sunshine wasn’t helpful. He finally made a decision and told me that he can’t continue like this and we should go back and wait for the train to come.

“If it’s that bad why don’t we just go down to that town below? The train stops there as well and it’s closer. Plus we won’t half to climb.”

Adrien seemed hesitant but he saw my logic and agreed upon my opinion.

“My toooeeeeees.” He continued on.

Ten more minutes and we were in the small cabin which served as a train stop.

“Okay twenty more minutes and we can take the train when it’s going up to Les Pléaides.” I informed Adrien.

“My hands.”

“Are they beautiful?” I asked.

“My toes.”

“Move them around a little to warm them up instead of sitting like a statue.” I counseled.

“Can’t feel em. Hurry up train driver!”

I in contrast to Adrien was feeling hot. I took off my jacket for a few minutes to cool down and then put it back on. Then I walked out of the cabin to have a look around. The mountains in view were crystal clear and I could distinct each tree planted on them. Each tree had a white coating on its branches and leaves. I could even distinguish further peaks. There was one with an antenna which I guessed to be Rocher de Naye. Having admired the scenery I stepped back in the cabin to join Adrien.

“My poor toes.” Adrien’s voice came to my ears.

He was either really in agony, was bugging me or was being funny. Personally I think it was all three at the same time.

We kept on waiting. Adrien kept on asking the time. Amazingly enough, the train was running late. It was its arrival time and still no sign of the train. All this time Adrien had gathered enough energy to get off the bench and now he had started pacing around. Much to Adrien’s discontent the train arrived seven minutes late.

When it finally arrived Adrien moved towards the first door, pressed a button to open it and went straight to a place near the heating. The train started to move and we went back up to Les Pléaides. Once it stopped everyone got off except us.

“Wanna get off and take a hike?” I joked.

“No way.” He gave the already expected answer.

A few more minutes and the train left Les Pléaides and so ended our short lived adventure.





Disclaimer: Most of the events are real and took place on my voyages with the Swiss General pass. Some accounts and personalities have been modified and dialog's added to make the tales more interesting. Besides, I had to translate :-)

Copyright © 2005 Kazim Rehman