The U-Turn

We planned and executed our first ever family trip to Europe last year. Switzerland was one of the dream destinations we included in our itinerary. While planning the trip, we shortlisted a few locations to visit in this beautiful piece of heaven. One such location was Isenfluh, a lesser known scenic place among the countless exotic destinations in this country. Google gave such magnificent images of Isenfluh that, not including this among our places to visit, was absolutely unthinkable. Thus we started our trip with Isenfluh as a definite stop among the locations to cover in Swiss.

After visiting a couple of other places in our itinerary we finally reached the Swiss Alps. On the way back from a famous hill station we spotted a tiny wooden board pointing to the left with the name ‘Isenfluh’ written on it. The road was narrower, compared to its counterparts in the country. We entered the road and immediately found a stark difference in the design of traffic. While the number of vehicles were quite less we had to navigate through a two-way traffic with no divider separating the road and the left border grazing the deep valleys of Alps!

Being a first time driver in Europe and having all our lives in my hands, I started the drive up the winding paths of the mighty mountain with a shiver down the spine! The only thing that still motivated us to go ahead was the fact that the images we saw earlier in Google slowly started to become a reality.

Further up the hill, a tunnel awaited us which looked quite spooky. This was unlike numerous other tunnels that we passed through in this nation were every other mountain seemed to have been cut through to create a passage. The tunnel was built in its most natural form with the mountain chipped away to create the path and is devoid of any structural reinforcement with concrete. The eerie feeling was complimented with a board that welcomed us at the mouth of the tunnel announcing the age of the passageway as more than a century old.

The lighting inside the tunnel was also less than others that we saw in Swiss. It was either designed that way to provide the commuters with a unique sort of an experience while the stark reality remained right in front of our eyes about the space crunch inside the tunnel where it was quite an effort to give way to a vehicle that came from the opposite direction. After what seemed to be an endless drive through a scary pathway we literally saw the light at the end of the tunnel!

A mesmerizing view of Alps greeted us at the exit of the tunnel that left us short of breath and we literally stood there absorbing the beauty of this awesome creation of God! Soon we realized that it was not just the beauty that left us with less air to breathe, but was also the combination of altitude that we climbed and the fear that intensified even more through that narrow path around the tiny stretch of mountain side. That was the exact moment when a bigger car took quite a sharp turn at the already narrow road and literally pushed us right to the edge of the cliff! It was indeed a narrow escape.

We stopped the car for a moment and took a deep breath to absorb the gravity of what just happened. While the majesty of Alps that surrounded us was too enticing and as a seductress lured us into her open arms, we took a very hard decision that very instant not to proceed further! We clicked a couple of pictures to capture the moment for eternity and with great difficulty managed to take a U-turn to return to safer plains.

This was a defining moment that reminded us of certain points in our lives where we need to stop and think if it is truly worth proceeding. If your conscience tells you that the way ahead is quite dangerous to the extent of being life threatening, do not hesitate to take a U-turn. It may be an opportunity lost, but putting at stake the lives of your loved ones does not justify even the greatest of temptations in this mortal world!

May you be blessed with the courage to take informed decisions in such moments of truth.