Wednesday, July 20, 2005

The Kaif is in Switzerland

A while ago my friend Tusitha told me the Sri Lankan story about the elephant and the monkey:

The monkey jokes with an elephant, asking for a ride up the elephant's trunk. Annoyed, the elephant sucks the monkey up through his trunk. Somehow it gets trickled and loses control and so the monkey passes all the way through the elephant's internals until it reappears at the elephant's backside. Both, elephant and monkey are a little surprised but then decide that it was fun and that they should give it another spin. After repeating the procedure a couple of times, they have the glorious idea of connecting the elephant's trunk to his backside. an infinite loop of pleasure or as Tusitha says they call it in Russia: "Kaif"! The ultimate feeling of well-being ;-) [Not so good Kaif is called "Bale" if I remember correctly]

Well, seems I discovered Kaif swimming in the Aare river. There is an incredibly tight bend just a few k below Bern. The loop is about 1.5k long, but at its extreme points connected by a 150m pedestrian tunnel. You can jump in the river, swim all the way round and then race through the freezing tunnel to do it all over again!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent Herr Richbeck !!

Only Bale is written (in Spanish) Vale - meaning OK.

Tusitha

Anonymous said...

Well, if 'the ultimate feeling of well-being' means to go through intestines and guts, I am not sure I want that kind of 'kaif'. I really hope the loop you found isn't within the soures of Bern?
:-)
Tabs