Pritpal Singh Bindra

Although the miss-guidance and callous attitude of Canada 3000 at the Pearson Airport soured the start of our trip to France, it had a note of great pleasure. Our daughter told us that the very next day we were leaving for French Alps for a camping holiday. Camping holiday, after a lapse of over fifteen years, I thought to myself. Before we moved to Canada from England, almost every year we used to spend a few weeks in summer in Europe on camping holidays. Our stay was mainly at the campsites patronised by the international visitors and mostly, which were nearer, the town centres. The interaction among the tourists was quite minimal, as every body was busy in his own family and always in a hurry to call at as many places of interest as possible. We did not have much chance to socialise to study the cultural values and variations of other nationalities.

But this time it was distinctive atmosphere. Our hosts were a family as close as the progeny of same parents. When their children and our grand children socialise, it is hard to adjudge their relationship except brotherly and sisterly.

And the campsite, where they have their motor-home, is like home from home. The motor-home is portable in name only. It has been fixed there for a number of years. The solid extension and the concrete based terrace with an extensive canopy accommodating a table capable of at least twelve chairs, along with centralised supply of hot and cold water and mainline electricity connection, make it a veritable home.

The campsite is situated at the foot of the French Alps and on the banks of Lake Lemon (Geneva), twenty-seven kilometres from the city of Geneva. It is the part of the village called Sieze, half way between Thonon and Yvoire.

The site is divided into many segments and each segment contains five to six such `homes'. The French people are cordial, more like Punjabis; they just drop in to say hello and to inquire each other's welfare. Our host family, Weyrich, has come back at the place after a lapse of a few weeks. Arrival of two cars was incentive for the neighbours to come out to welcome but this time it was more attractive; a man with a turban and a lady with Punjabi suit was an added attraction. They all received us most cordially, the cordiality which we normally face on our arrival in India, which, although most of the times, is laced with the desire of the relatives, `what would be there for us in those cases?' No such aspiration was visible here.

There is no doubt that, unlike English people, Europeans are much more warm and open-hearted. Almost every person at the site was socialising with other dwellers most jovially. It is, I think the body touch which makes lot of difference. Jab mil gaye gale to sabh gile jaate rahe (with one cuddle all the grievances were eliminated). When men meet men or say goodbye, they shake hands and when the opposite sexes meet, innocent cheek to cheek kisses are exchanged (like Khushwant Singh pecking on the cheek of Pakistani ambassador's daughter in India.).

We stayed twelve days in the motor-home and hardly a day would have gone by when we had not shared a drink or two and the snacks with the neighbours and other campers. One day we were the guests of George from Germany. His motor-home was even more elegant and regal. His wife was in the hospital for the stomach ulcer. He invited us at his place because he was happy and wanted to share his happiness; the operation was successful and she had come out of the bed, about hundred miles away. Why did he not stay near her at the time? We could not dare to ask. The starters at the lunch were grilled sausages, which went down exquisitely with most delicious and full-bodied German white wine. Then came the main course, boiled sausages, and they were even better but the best were the sausages, which came as the last course, you could call them `the desert'. Except the delicious French bread, the baguettes, and butter there was nothing else but sausages and it is no laughing matter, our bellies were bursting apart when we left the place.

Years ago a friend of mine back from a visit to Switzerland, brought a set of Fondue cooking and kept it in his lounge as a decoration piece. I always wondered what sort of preparations the people of Switzerland would be making with them. One of the neighbours, who was an hundred percent Swiss (has never been even to neighbouring Germany or Italy and France, too, except the campsite), called all of us on a Fondue dinner. What is that? You have bread with melted cheese. I was not really excited. But when we sat down around the table with two Fondues in the middle, we were twelve in number, and the eating began, simple but it was so delicious that, in spite of my wife's grimacing, I could not help to stop eating. With exotic wine, piece after piece, wrapped up in the cheese, went down lusciously. They had mixed three different exquisite brands of cheeses, boiled them with herbs and white wine, pored in the Fondue pans and left them boiling hot on the table on Fondue spirit lamps.

The spaghetti meal is very common in Canada too. We often have boiled spaghetti with salsa-sauce or meat sauce. One evening we were guests at the apartment, in Geneva City, of one of the Italian campers. The dinner in Europe always begins with a starter. It is either with liver-pete pasted on small pieces of dry bred, or salad with dressing. The vegetables are the same all over the world; lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes etc. But it is the dressing, which makes the difference. The starter at the Anglo-Mariam's place was salad but the home-made dressing had really made it dainty. My stomach was more than half full when the main course, spaghetti arrived. The plate full of spaghetti was lying in front of me and I was looking towards the kitchen. My daughter read my mind, waiting for the sauce. `Dad, this is AlPasta. No sauce is added into this,' my daughter whispered. She was right. AlPasta does not need any support. The herbs and addition of some sort of clear and thick sauce made it mouth-watering. It goes without saying that appetising Italian wine made us to eat more and more.

Particularly in North America, columns after columns in almost all the newspaper and magazines are full of warnings against the eating of red meats, the products of unsaturated fats; they cause all types of ailments connected with heart. But when you walk in the stores in France you wonder whether the French are of different breeds. The shops are teeming with red meats and the other products high in fats. And contrary to that the number of heart-related diseases is much less comparatively.

Reason? Most of us straight away reply, it is the result of drinking red-wine.

Statistically it may be true that the red-wine is a great benefactor in this case but, I think there is another element worth mentioning, too.

Our first trip to the French Alps took us to about 60km up the mountains for a picnic. Driving up through the middle of the valley, snaking around the sharp bends we reached the place called Bise at a height of 1502 meters.

(To be continued)