Cold grey sky sprinkled the chalet I was staying in with gently drifting flakes of snow all day, another welcoming present from breathtaking Chamonix, high up in the Alps in eastern France. I was in sweaty Bangkok only last week, but have escaped to be closer to heaven.
The sun shines one morning and the mighty massive peak of Mont Blanc emerges from its thick mist, brilliantly white. Its pristine summit, covered with centuries of snow falls, looms very near, towering over the balcony of this chalet.
Every house here is an attractive construction, built with solid forest pine timber of different wooden hues, while some old ones have thick grey slate roofing cut straight out of the towering mountains that surround us.
All of them nestle among pine and birch forests in the long green glacial basin of the Chamonix valley, with the picture-perfect skiing-holiday town and the towering Mont Blanc on one side. One may not experience a more peaceful place where human habitation is in such harmony with its natural environment.
The nights among the pines are silent, except for the gurgling on the little streams of pure melted snow. It’s early spring now, and the happy residents are just emerging from long wintry nights when thick snow covered their beloved chalets, which are no doubt as cosy and warm as our rental one.
It turns out to be a good time to come after the busy winter season, when the small alpine town must have been packed to the rafters with skiers. Many of the ski lifts, taking off from the valley floor to the hanging ski fields on either steep side of the valley, are closed. The many rental apartments and small hotels have shuttered their windows. The next lot of tourists will come in summer for hiking and golf.
Chamonix rests quietly just now on either side of the Arve River that tumbles with cold pure milky of melted snow. Its little supermarkets and delicatessens are filled with the aromas of the foods that the Savoy region is best known for: smoked and air-dried pork meat and sausages, a huge a variety of aromatic and pungent goat and cow-milk cheeses, and local wines and those from elsewhere in France that usually fill many local supermarket alleys.
Like myself, any Thai lovers of European delicacies will find themselves much closer to heaven, physically as well as culinary-wise. With a good bottle of French wine costing under four euros (B160), and a huge range of cheeses at half the prices in Thailand to choose from, they will live very well for a time.
Dipping fresh country bread in hot bubbling fondue of regional cheeses, and washing it all down with a glass of delicate rosé in one the many little affordable restaurants here, is likely to be a highlight of your sojourn up the French Alps.
Climbing steeply on the sheer side of the long Chamonix valley, a special mountain train chucks upwards, taking you to the splendor of yet another ethereal place: Mer de Glace, or Ice Sea, the biggest glacier in the Alps. It’s an amphitheatre like no other on this earth. In the total silence thick mists swirl around pointed peaks that touch the sky.
A couple from Singapore, in Chamonix on a package tour, asks me to take their photo together. The man says he enjoys the cold but his partner says she would rather have gone to Krung Thep to shop at the Paragon mall. She is in fact at a paragon to end all paragons.
It’s easy to come to be rejuvenated by Chamonix from Bangkok, at no great cost. Book yourself an affordable chalet or apartment in town on the internet then find a cheap airfare, like one offered by Finnair, to Geneva and a coach company (such as charmexpress.com) will take you from the airport right to your Mont Blanc chalet.
Then just live, as the French wisely do, for a while.
– Norachai Thavisin