When you travel, especially alone, you sometimes meet other people who are in the same space as you. What's exciting for me is to think for a second about how we met at the same place. If you think about it, if they are foreigners like me, they might have decided to come to that country, applied for a visa, and booked tickets while I was also doing the same, sitting in my home. They must have thought about going to the same place that day when I decided to go too. Sometimes, they would have other plans, but they got changed, and they arrived at the same location at the same time where I was, or vice versa. It's something I witnessed long back, an account I wrote in the Butterfly Effect blog.
These people stayed with me even after those meetings. I have often found myself telling these stories to my friends, and they have often appreciated it. Some stories, I have never told anyone. Such encounters rarely end up in exchanging numbers, but I still remember all of them, and I wish I could someday just thank them for choosing to spend their time with me when they could have easily said, "Okay, I have to go", and leave. So, I decided to have this series where I describe these encounters in brief. There may not be interesting stories here, or it may not be an "exciting" read, but these people have shaped me in one way or another. I believe our meeting is worth sharing with the world.
Leo - Switzerland
In Switzerland, when I was in Lucerne, I had a very tiring day. I went on a boat ride, had drenched myself in the rain, and then I don't know why, I went to the ice cream parlour to have an ice cream, all soaked wet from head to toe. "This one contains rum", said the guy for the one I chose. I did not mind and had two scoops. Later in the evening, I wanted to have a drink and just be done with the night. The only way to do so was to explore on foot. Opening Google Maps is never a good strategy when you are travelling and are out to explore. But I did not know that Lucerne did not have bars as I had found in other places in this country.
It was around 5 PM when I started, and till 6.30, I was just walking and finding a bar. In this endeavour, I even entered a supermarket to have a sandwich. Around 7ish, I saw a place that looked like the main gate of an apartment building. Big black gate with black glasses that were not transparent. But the board outside said, "Pizza Pizza", and I thought to try my luck here.
When I entered, it was a cozy bar, and nobody was eating Pizza. Everyone was having drinks and laughing. In Switzerland, bars do not play music as in India. So all you hear are people laughing, shouting, telling stories, etc. I had landed at the perfect place that I wanted. I sat on the counter where the bartender fills up the beer. "Hey, man!" greeted the bartender.
"Beer, please!" I said to him.
"Definitely, sir. Which one do you want?"
Now, the thing in Switzerland is that they are too proud of themselves. You won't find any foreign products there until you are trying too hard. I never saw a beer, not even as common as Budweiser, nor cheese, nor chocolate that had a non-Swiss origin. Everything just has to be Swiss. And therefore, I would just order anything anywhere.
"I don't know, give me anything", I said, seeing the beer taps that had beer labels on them. I did not recognize any of them.
"Select any of them", he said.
In normal circumstances, I would have chosen any of the taps. Those shiny yellow taps, each one of them waiting for my attention to be just pulled and suck beer out from the keg. But one tap was different. Yes! I thought. It had a sticker that said, "Beer of the week!" The beer was "Leo Beer" and had a lion symbol. I am tired of Leo being assigned to Lion all the time, but it's okay. "Let's try this one!" I said, pointing to the Leo Beer tap.
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| Lucerne, this was around 500 mtrs from the bar |
"Sure, man", he said, picking up the beer glass, turning on the washing knob, and pouring the beer.
"Here you go!" he said and gave the beer to me.
"You know who made this beer?" he said while I took my first sip. It was a great beer, just like others that I had tasted in Switzerland.
"No, who?", I said, gulping it quickly.
"He did", he pointed towards the man seated next to me, with one seat empty in between us.
I looked at him, and he was an old man, maybe in his late 70s for sure. He had a sky blue jacket on with a white shirt under it. His hair were thin, and I could see his scalp. Although he was seated, he looked like a tall guy to me, more than 6'2'' for sure. He was busy on his mobile, and when the bartender pointed at him and I looked, he smiled and looked at me and said, "How is it?" focusing on each word and saying them separately as "How", "Is", "It?"
I laughed. I thought they both were joking or pulling my leg. I did not say anything and sipped again.
"Well, how is it? Tell him," the bartender said.
"Are you really the maker of this beer?" I said.
"Yeah, yeah," said the old guy.
He pulled out his wallet and showed me his card. "CEO and Founder, Leo Breweries", it said.
I laughed again. "It's really good," I said.
"Is it really good or is it good because I am sitting here?" he said, but did not smile.
"No, it's really good. I will have another glass for sure," I said.
"Well, it's good to hear," he said, and then again turned towards his phone while having his beer. He was not having Leo but another one.
"Here you go buddy, some chocolates for you," said the bartender, and gave me a wooden bowl with 10-15 chocolates in it, each one the size of one Ferrero Rocher ball, all wrapped in different colors.
"Thanks," I said while unwrapping the chocolate.
"Where are you from?" the old guy asked. His phone was not on the table, nor in his hands.
"India", I said.
"Ah! India. I have been to India. It's so expensive," he said.
My ears bled hearing that the CEO of a brewery in Switzerland, the most expensive country in the world, is saying that India is expensive. I had to continue this conversation.
"India is not expensive. Why would you think so?" I asked.
"Are you kidding? One night in the hotel costs 800 CHF in India (converted to 80k INR at that time). It's so expensive. In Switzerland, you get that for 250 CHF," he said. His facial expression changed to a worried look, and his forehead folded in multiple layers.
"800 CHF?", I said, surprised. India is a place where you get rooms for 10 CHF, but CEOs like him can get them for 250 CHF easily in the big chains like Taj and Hyatt. The first thing that came to my mind was that somebody had looted him. I hate it when somebody tells me a scam story outside India. I just hate it. But you will be surprised to know that if 10 people are telling a scam story, 8 will be from Paris (or France), and maybe 1 from India sometimes. People have had life-changing experiences in India, as they tell me, but I have never heard anyone not complete a Paris sentence with, "Beware of scammers".
"Well, where did you stay?" I said.
"I don't know the place or hotel name. We booked it from here. I went with my friends, and all of them are CEOs and stuff, so I thought, what's the harm? So we booked that place. It looked really nice," he said.
"Hmm."
"But I can show you photos," he said excitedly.
I jumped to the empty seat between us with my beer glass.
He opened his phone and made a long and fast swipe in the gallery to reach the point where photos from his India trip were saved. Through the many small photo compilations, I can see it's India. He clicked on a photo and tilted his phone towards me. "This was the hotel", he said.
It was a hotel on a water body. I zoomed in. It was a lake, and the white hotel stood on top of it.
"Is this Udaipur?" I asked.
"Umm, yeah, I guess so."
"Is it Rajasthan?" I asked to confirm.
"Yeah, yeah, Rajasthan," he said, nodding his head and smiling.
It was the Taj Lake Hotel in Udaipur, and he was right about the price as well. It can go well beyond 60k per night, sometimes reaching 1L, depending on the occasion.
"You booked the wrong hotel", I said.
"No, no, no! It was the best hotel, and I enjoyed my stay there."
"But it's like one of the most expensive hotels in India. You could have got a cheaper one easily", I said to him while eating the chocolates served to me by the bartender. I realized there that I had eaten all the chocolates he had given me.
"Really? Well, we were all friends, and we wanted to go to India, and we thought we should have a good time even if it cost us a little extra," he said, sipping his beer.
"Why is he complaining then when he chose the hotel deliberately?" I thought to myself, "And who chooses Rajasthan on their first trip to India?" But then I thought, Switzerland has beautiful mountains and rivers. So that rules out the north and north-east part of India, and I don't think they would want to see Bihar and that eastern belt. So it just leaves them with Rajasthan, which has history, palaces, and desert (something a Swiss would love to see), and the southern part with mostly temples and their architecture, but with a little extra heat.
"Here you go, buddy!" The bartender gave me another bowl full of chocolates, the same quantity as I had finished the first one.
"How was your stay in India?" I asked him.
"Well, it was good. We hired a taxi from Delhi, and he helped us around. We were all friends. It was so colorful, we Europeans do not see so many colors in a single place. The clothes, walls, and everything were so colorful, we loved it. Here, it's all like one for everything. If I show you a building, you will see there are many buildings with the same colors, the same shape, everything. We here just want a building, but you guys take it too personally," he said.
"What all did you eat?" I asked.
"Ah! That's the sad part, man. We did not eat anything outside, just in the hotel. We were so tempted to see so many things on the streets and asked the driver to stop as well, but he strictly said, "Don't eat anything outside, you will get diarrhea," and so we refrained from it. Do you eat outside?"
"Yeah, all the time!", I said.
"Hmm. Maybe I should have eaten too, but you guys eat so spicy food! Damn! Even if you ask the chef to keep the spice level down, that's much higher than the normal European spice level," he said.
He was right. I had to eat boiled potatoes in Switzerland because that's what was on their menu. "Bread and potato", and it's literally bread and boiled potatoes for 2500 INR!
"Is it like Mexican food?" the bartender asked as he was listening while cleaning the glasses.
The CEO gave a cheeky laugh. "An Indian would eat a whole Mexican guy for breakfast," he said.
"Duuuuuuude! I am Mexican!" the bartender said to me, and we all laughed.
"I really enjoyed my time there. I will come back to India. Hmmm. Definitely, "the CEO said.
I realized I had finished all the chocolates again. I recommended to him the places to visit next time, and believe me, he never trusted me at first. As soon as I would name a place, he would use Google to look it up, check images, and then write in his notes. He had sadly missed the Taj Mahal, and I joked to him that he had gone to the wrong Taj. We talked for a few minutes after that, which was generic about our lives in our countries and included the bartender in this conversation as well. He had run away from Mexico, travelled to different countries in search of a job, and ended up in Switzerland because his far, far cousin was here. He never intends to go back to his home now. "My Mum will come here. I will get her here when I earn a lot of money. We will stay here one day. Together. I miss her," he said.
It's amazing how each one of us has their own stories, and until you ask them, they just look like a person who has had a beautiful and smooth life. I was lucky to be at this place at this time and meet these two people.
"Come to my brewery tomorrow. I will show you around," the CEO said.
"Really? Sure!"
"Yeah Yeah come around, and we will talk there in my office, sipping the best beer of Switzerland," he said and zipped up his jacket. He shook my hand. "Really nice to meet you, young man," he said and left.
I left a few minutes later after getting a pizza as a takeaway. I had just gone for a glass of light beer, but when I got out, it was 10 PM already. I did not feel tired now. I walked back to the place where I was staying, which was around 1.5 km, and had pizza on my balcony overlooking the lake.
I did not go to the brewery. I did not want to stick myself with that person who was running a company. People say such things out of courtesy all the time. I did not know whether he really wanted me there or not. But it was always on my mind for the whole day. I looked at the map 3-4 times to check the distance as well. Maybe in my heart, I wanted to go, but my brain did not allow it. At last, I refrained and decided not to go, and we never met again.
The next evening, I visited the same bar and sat at the same table. I ordered a different beer today. "Did you go to the brewery?" the bartender asked.
"No. I did not get time," I said.
"Ah! Unfortunate, my man. He must have missed you! I have never seen him this chatty," he said and handed over the beer to me. He then left the counter and served the tables. Then, he came back, put on his jacket, and went outside, leaving the bar counters empty.
A few minutes later, he came back. Put down his jacket under the counter shelf and pulled 5 pieces of chocolate. Not the same, but they were chocolates wrapped inside a polythene bag with a supermarket sticker on it. He had gone outside to buy chocolates. I figured there might not be any chocolates in the bar.
"Here you go!" he said and placed all the chocolates inside the bowl from the polythene. I was overwhelmed.
"There was no need for this," I said as I went without the words.
He put both his hands on the table, tilted his head to his left, and said, "I know." he paused and continued, "I know how much you love chocolates."
He smiled and turned away for another order.
I had no words. I left after a while. We never met again.
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