Valley and Forest of the Grindel Elves
    Long Vo-Phuoc

The path meandered from the town centre to the valley, weaving between homes, gardens, small boulders, slender sign posts. Town was a tiny place, a rather expensive outpost for hikers and skiers who were now absent, this being an in-between season. Spring is chancy time here, the clouds could build up at any time bringing rain, the early morning air cutting through skin no matter how many layers of fabric. The snowline had moved further into the upper rocky part of the mountains, turning gentler slopes into green expanse. But let’s never mind the tricky weather, there might soon be some unexpected pockets of blue in the sky, mightn't there? The wild flowers were fresh and enticing, the grass the brightest shade of green, so bright it hurt the eyes. Above all, there was hardly anyone. So what’s to complain?

Hardly anyone, isn’t it a state of exuberance one would pay a fortune to acquire (as, say, 9am inside the Louvre a Wednesday morning, worth a thousand times the 4pm)? Now when the fortune wasn’t particularly sought, well then, off one went.

It was a little steep on the way down, stone steps scattering the smooth well-trodden asphalt trail. The young lady kindly offered a detailed plan for things to do – here is the UN heritage-listed mountain, a must go, give yourself four five hours (that’s all? how about the remaining life for the torture?), here is a special out-of-the-way museum of ... (of what I forget, no kidding, didn’t get anywhere near it), nein nein it’s not free (eyes hugely amused), nothing like that is free here, and this here is a waterway, glacial water, the flow is nice at this time, running hard and white with bubbles, oh, I almost forgot (said she, not we), this is the valley centre, you might want to go there first, ah yes, this path here is good to get there, sehr gut, leading straight to it. Ja, sehr gut, the valley.

Not a bad map, full of useful facts, richly detailed, nice colouring, nice small fonts, typical Swiss thoroughness and efficiency (always giving good net value for money, Swiss things, high-priced as they may appear in the first place), and yes, the map was free. You would pay a fair note or two for a sloppy version of a similar thing in an authoritarian and bureaucratic user-pay state (large-small poor-rich east-west north-south, why quibble among the heavy-handed) elsewhere.

(Now now, this is a travel narrative, one sprinkled with affection throughout, not a comparison treatise of world economic values, much less a note whereby one makes enquiry on political thugs around the world. So let’s move on, shall we?)

Where were we, ah yes, the path. Well it was steep, between well-kept small houses (reminding me of an unusual street in Sai Gon a thousand years ago), so we said to each other, let’s enjoy the moment darling, because when we go back up, this way or another, we shall well huff and puff all the way. This kind of complaints really was lamentable, because it showed our age and the relative unfit station in autumnal life. Yet there was an affectionate intonation among the grumpy words - for a die-hard romantic. So yes, we carried on down whilst mumbling such sweet nothing even though, in truth, I did keep an eye out for a crooked treacherous step here and there, ready to offer my hand, ready to grab her arm, just in case ...

Then almost suddenly we were out into the dazzling open.

The meadow was vast, bright emerald-green (a colour almost similar to that of young rice paddies in the Far-East, but the texture of the air was the opposite), covered everywhere by tiny wild flowers, yellow mostly, but red and white too, and a hundred shades of pink, a hundred shades of violet, a thousand of those in between. A tremendous carpet of colours, shamelessly showing off, belligerently putting down the best of van Gogh’s wheat fields. We were stunned, and if anyone had to charge me the earth for that moment, then the earth I shall find. The carpet stretched a kilometre from here to the little river beyond, and another kilo further on the other side. To the left and right, five seven kilometres each way. Hardly anything intruded the eyes, a hamlet here and there, simple abodes dotted on the hill, timber and slate roof, and that’s about all.

What was beyond the meadows? Mountains of course, peaks and all. The mountains formed an uninterrupted ring, high, snow at the top, then white intermingling with rock and the deep green of conifers. The little town now became a wedge, one side, on the slopes between the meadows and the bullying peaks.

“Oh look, there’s a bench down further”, pointed out my darling wife, “what I need for weary legs!”.

The bench, a simple two armed-length wooden affair much like one at a bus-stop of old, was right in the middle of the valley, calm among the neurotic colours. And did I say there was no one about, well there’s really no one about, none on the crossing paths, no jogger, no one (though in half an hour there would be an intrepid local of similar age huffing and puffing by). Was that how bliss and peace were spelt?

As it turned out I was the one who sat down, consulting the map. What’s that mountain called, where’d this path lead to from here, any nearby bridge to cross the river, should I have a go onto the meadow, chancing the mud underneath the green. And so on and so forth, useless planning questions, useless map-reader. Patently useless, but happy.

Whereas she, no longer concerned with weary legs, was busy examining the minute flowers, checking up her considerable photographic equipment (the back pack was heavy), preparing props, now frowning, now contemplating the peaks, kneeling in front of her babies the flowers, gently touching one, altogether a real photographer and a lover of nature preparing to write poetry by shutter clicks.

The weak sun popped out of clouds from the East, just above a mean peak. I shaded my eyes, looked at her, watching her closely. I am a simple man, never able to fathom the many definitions of love. One day surely I would know of one?

Long Vo-Phuoc, July 2018
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