Prabin Basnet, CEO of Kamana Sewa Bikas Bank is a travel enthusiast who is fond of nature. Basnet informs he goes abroad on a trip once a year with his family. Tamish Giri of New Business Age caught up with Basnet in his chambers in Gyaneswor to note down his mesmerising trip to Switzerland.

Destination by Chance
I travelled to Switzerland in 2015 with three of my colleagues. Back then it was part of our business trip to Europe. However, unfortunately, our business meet was cancelled during that trip due to an unspecified reason and we had nothing to do. So, we decided to visit Switzerland. During the trip, we went to Zurich and from there we made the golden round trip of Lucerne and Mount Pilatus, a mountain in the Swiss Alps. It is one of the most memorable international destinations I have visited till date.

Zurich by Road
At first, while leaving Nepal for Europe, we had not made any specific plans to visit Switzerland, though we had the Schengen visa. We took off from Kathmandu in an Airbus A-330 aircraft and landed in Doha for a transit. The next flight from Doha took us to Paris, from there we started to explore Europe. As I mentioned, we had a business meeting to attend which unfortunately was cancelled later. So, after exploring Paris for a few days we left on a bus tour to Switzerland. On our way to Zurich, we travelled through the roads of France which took us inside Belgium then Luxembourg. We then entered France again while fi nally crossing Switzerland. We visited four countries combined while travelling to Switzerland by road.

Mesmerising Alps
In Zurich, we hired a car to travel to the base of Mt. Pilatus. We then travelled by a cable car to an altitude of 3,000 metres, then there was another cable car that took us to the top. The next cable car was made of glass; it gave us a panoramic view of the Alps while we were ascending to the top. The view was mesmerizing and astonishing. The cable car took us up through rocky cliffs, panoramic green valleys that tumbled like a sheet of green carpet, past the clouds, and into the Pilatus Kulm hotel.

At the top, the air was fresh, cold, and clean, and I took deep breaths inhaling the Swiss alps in. My friends and I took a walk to the peak of the Pilatus, and along the way, spectacular valleys plunged into the clouds and we could see the Lucerne lake in the far distance. We were feeling blissful and carefree as we trudged along the path.

Memorable Moment
At the top of the Alps, we interacted with some of the locals and visitors. They asked where we were from, as we replied to every other person we were from Nepal, they told us “So you are from the land of Everest and Himalayas.” They thought we were mountaineers and they even asked us if we were there to climb the mountains.

The Alps and Nepal When we were ascending to the top of the mountain in the cable car, we looked down to the cliffs, mountains and the trees. As I looked at that sight, it reminded of the mountains in Nepal. I found the view up there similar to the view from the top of Chandragiri Hills and even similar to that from the top of the cable car in Kalinchowk. I felt that there wasn’t a signifi cant difference between the landscape of Nepal and Switzerland. The only diff erence I found was the development of the infrastructure.