Interlaken: The Skydive That Wasn't, and the Day the Cards Stopped Working

We arrived in Interlaken from Bern on the evening of 18 August 2022, looked up at the sky and saw paragliders drifting in slow spirals over the meadow. Harshit and I grinned at each other like idiots. The skydive was booked for the next morning. This, we thought, was going to be the highlight of two weeks in Europe.

What we got instead was a Thun cruise in a drizzle, a village in the clouds, a cancelled jump, and a small financial nightmare at a Grindelwald souvenir shop. Two days that the diary has more words for than any other stop on the trip. Here is the honest version.

Day 1
Bern Stopover, a Thun Cruise and the Mürren Cable Car

We had taken the morning train towards Interlaken and got down at Bern on a whim, to see the Einstein Museum and Apartment. It was nostalgic, overpriced and not really worth the money, but we walked off the disappointment with a burger and some Läderach chocolates near the station. Bern, the capital, felt like a quieter Prague — police on horseback, fountains, parks, no rush. Then we boarded onwards.

As the train pulled into Interlaken, the sky was full of tiny coloured kites — paragliders coming down toward the meadow. We got thrilled all over again for the next day's skydive. Honestly, after Zurich and Lucerne, this was a different league. Interlaken is way better than Zurich & Lucerne, and I will say it to anyone who asks.

The tourist office helped us slot two big things into one half-day. A short train ride took us to the pier, where we caught a boat cruise of Thun just in time. We sat up on the deck as the lake rolled past castles and lakeside villages. By the end of the cruise the first drops of drizzle began — the very start of the less-sunny, more-rainy weather that would chase us for the rest of the trip.

From there we took a cable car and then a small train climbing on great height up to Mürren. The villages in Interlaken are really beautiful. The greenery, the mountain views, the sheer scale of it — it is mesmerising for a tourist like me, who has come from a place where finding serenity even in the mountains is not easy. Mürren gives you the impression that you are lost in mountains. By the time we climbed back down, it was raining properly and we were tired. We headed for the Airbnb.

The Airbnb Couple Who Turned Their Study Into Our Room

An elderly lady greeted us at the door and, unlike in Paris, this time we actually met our owner. The room she had given us was very cute — they had turned their study room into a guest room. Books on the shelves, a Mac on the desk, family photos capturing their important memories, one big globe with a light inside, a cozy bed, and one piece of welcome chocolate placed on the pillow. The kind of room you do not want to leave.

The next morning, when our Maggie water proportions got messy and I had to ask her for help with the microwave, we stepped into the host couple's actual living space — and that was the real picture.

There was a clear language barrier — she did not have much English, we had no German — but she tried her best to make us comfortable, asked about our skydive plans, lit up when we explained. I left their flat with one line stuck in my head: the warmth of people around the globe makes this planet worth giving a shot to save humanity.

Day 2
The Skydive That Wasn't

The morning of 19 August started with a breathtaking view from the window — rain, dark clouds, mountains, lake. Breathtaking and heartbreaking in the same breath. The phone buzzed. All slots got cancelled. Our skydive was off.

I tried to pivot quickly — maybe we explore something close by — but Harshit, deflated, went back to sleep. We ended up leaving the room only around noon, well past the gentle check-out time. I made Maggie awkwardly in the host's microwave (the proportions were wrong, she patiently helped), and I could sense her husband getting a little worried about how late we were running. We took our luggage, stood under a roof outside the house, ate the Maggie in the drizzle, and stared at the same view that had cost us our jump. Then we made a plan. If the sky was going to keep us on the ground, we would at least move sideways. We picked Grindelwald.

Grindelwald in the Rain, and Three Cards That All Said No

The train to Grindelwald climbed slowly through grey weather, dark clouds wrapped around the mountains. Somewhere along the way we passed the stop for Jungfrau — the Top of Europe, the most expensive mountain in the region — and I quietly thanked God we had not booked it. On a day like this it would have been pure cloud, freezing cold, and a small fortune evaporated. We were saved by accident.

Grindelwald itself, on a day like that, is a small village wrapped in clouds. Beautiful for ten minutes, then gloomy and cold. We wandered into a souvenir shop and picked out two things: a pen for Harshit's guide back home and a small salt box for the house. And then came the part of the day that the diary will not forget.

Our cash was almost over. We tapped a card — declined. Tried the second — declined. Tried the third — declined. The shopkeeper was rude about it. We left the salt box on the counter (we were just two euros short), took only the pen and walked out, convinced his machine was glitching. It wasn't. At the pizza cafe down the street we ate, ordered, and then watched the same scene replay. Three cards, three declines.

The cafe owner saved us with patience. He let us sit, opened his free wifi, and waited while we figured it out. The only card that finally pulled cash from an ATM was our SBI debit card. The other bank's system — SBM — was down for hours (they confirmed it later by email). For any Indian reading this, the line we kept repeating that evening was simple: SBI saved our reputation.

We missed our intended train because of all that drama. With time to kill, we walked into COOP — the Swiss supermarket chain — and discovered that the same small salt box from the rude shop was sitting on the shelf for two euros less. We bought it, plus a stack of chocolates, and felt a small petty victory through the gloom.

The Panoramic View Train to Gstaad and Onwards to Montreux

At the station we ran into Pooja, Neha and Udita again — the friends we kept bumping into on this trip — and we all boarded together, parting ways at the next interchange. They went up towards Mürren. We took two different connecting trains to catch the Panoramic View train heading toward Gstaad, the village made famous in India by DDLJ. We reached the platform with seconds to spare.

And then, finally, the sky cracked open. Sunshine. The Panoramic carriage with its huge curved windows framed valleys, lakes, and tiny chalets sliding by like a film reel. I will say it plainly: no matter how costly Switzerland is, their train transport is impeccable. Just so good that one should experience it.

The ride was so good we did not even get down at Gstaad. We rode straight through to Montreux, which is just about an hour before Geneva. Harshit's senior had asked us to come to Geneva, but we skipped it — we wanted these last hours to be slow. Two hours by the lake in Montreux, one final European pizza with drinks, and then the long train back to Zurich. The next morning at 5am we would leave Dietikon for the flight home. But the train window all the way to Montreux is the picture I keep when I think of Interlaken.