Le Monde - A Poetic Travail » Lugano

Sometimes losing money is fun !

Nisha — Sat, 28 May 2011 18:05:46 +0000

Casino! This word generally conjures up images from Las Vegas. The glittering lights and world famous shows, not to mention the best gambling and gaming dens.

Gambling probably is as old as civilization itself. My Indian friends may remember the events that lead to the Kurukshetra War (as per Mahabharata).
I do believe that gambling and games are quite related. In fact any activity that has the tendency to have an uncertainty in their result is a potential candidate for gambling. These days we have people betting on results of any game or sport.

First time I entered a casino was in Nepal. Back then, rules were strange there. Locals were not allowed inside ! Anyway, we made some money and lost some, all in all we were in plus! It was enjoyable and we were amused to see a lot of people enjoying losing money.

Second time it was even more enjoyable since I lost much money ! It was in Lugano, Switzerland.
No, I wasn’t at fault. I distinctly remember it was because of the location, by the side of the lake overseen by full moon and booze flowing by the barrels.
And after that a few more names were added to my list of having fun in losing money.
Casino industry is still nascent in India. The law prohibits gambling. I know of one that operates aboard a yacht, in Goa, India! I surely don’t know what loophole in the law was exploited.

World over different countries have different view on gambling and casino. From prohibition to controlled to less-controlled. Most casinos in terms of number and revenues are located in the USA. And Most in a single city is Macau in China and followed closely by Las Vegas, USA.
So next time you want to lose money, book cheap flights to Las Vegas or Macau or France etc.

Hey Dealer, here is the double.
———
P.S.-This article belongs to Le Monde-A Poetic Travail. If you are viewing this on a website instead of your RSS feed reader, then that website is guilty of stealing my content. Kindly do me a favour. Please visit my site and help me taking action by letting me know against this theft.
Thank you.
If you like this blog, I suggest you to connect with me through Facebook fan page and Twitter.

Posts related to this entry which might interest you :-

Tamil signboard !

Cuckoo — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 11:48:35 +0000

We had gone to mini Switzerland open museum in Lugano. There were signboards everywhere in different languages telling us not to touch models and other materials. OK, German, French, Italian.. .. I can understand but what caught my attention was this signboard written in Tamil ! Switzerland and Tamil ?? Now that was something unexpected.

If you can read it, please use the comment section.

To talk of Tamil, it is one of the official languages of Singapore. I was amused to see Tamil appearing next to English on every board at railway stations and bus stops there.

Note:- The photo is from analogue camera.

Posts related to this entry which might interest you :-

Lugano – Dreams do come true !

Cuckoo — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 15:16:00 +0000

“Jaipur se gaadi nikli, dilli chali halle-halle” If you happen to remember this quite old song from a Rishi Kapoor/Sridevi starrer then probably you know what I want to say.
Sorry I was young then, don’t remember the name of this movie. I would appreciate if someone helps me getting the song. Ever since I saw this song on television, I had fallen in love with that place and wanted to go there. I had a dream… to visit the place where they have such small working models of running trains with small sized stations, small ships… everything small, just like a dolls play house.

Then Lugano happened. I didn’t know one day my dream would come true.

Lugano was a two day trip. Two bus loads of Indians with families and kids were set out to explore and admire the natural beauty of CH (Switzerland). From now on I’ll refer to Switzerland as CH.

Lugano is in south east of Switzerland, almost inside the Italian territory of Switzerland. Please refer to the map provided. Needless to say official language is Swiss-Italian and most commonly eaten food is Italian.

There is a famous lake Lugano. Part of the eastern arm of Lake Lugano is in Italy, but most of the lake is in Switzerland and that division of lake gave me goosebumps again. The road ran right alongside the lake and went through a couple of tunnels. We crossed the border between two tunnels in a narrow space between the lake and the mountains, and then we were in Switzerland again.

We reached there by late afternoon. The town is wonderful, just beautiful… built around the edge of the lake with mountains in every direction. After having our food, we set for the famous lake Lugano.

A promenade runs around the end of the lake for a couple of miles—flowers everywhere, with masses of tulips in full bloom. Ferries traveled around the lake and there were other kinds of boats for rent—even paddle boats.

After that adventurous sailing experience of St. Gallen, I was in no mood to go for any but others were quite enthusiast. They hired a full boat & made it a point not to travel to Italian side of the lake. And so I had a good time there in the quiet and serene waters of Lake Lugano. We also had our dinner on the boat.

Next day was reserved for my childhood dream. It was amazing experience for me. First time in my life I had seen such mini working model of a whole country !!

Swissminiatur or mini-Switzerland is an open air museum where you can admire beautifully-made models of many famous and important Swiss landmarks and means of transportation at a scale of 1:25. Inside ”Miniswiss” you can find not only more than 120 models representing the patrician houses, the most important castles and cathedrals in Switzerland, but also 3500 meters of rails with no less than 18 trains, train stations, funiculars, rack-railways, cable cars and boats in motion. Also mountains, lakes, even airports and factories !!

It was a fascinating sight to watch. We followed a little path around the 2.5 acre exhibition. Everything was just beautifully landscaped and there were two miles of train tracks. A variety of trains ran along the tracks, crossed bridges and stopped at stations. Boats cruised the lakes. Cable cars went up and down the mountains. In a few places, cars even drove on the highway. People in Swiss costumes danced in the town squares.

And this is not all ! For garden-lovers there are more than 1500 different plants and over 15000 beautiful coloured flowers.

If you feel like enjoying the view, there is a special park for children that will allow you to sit quietly on the restaurant terrace while your children have fun. Located in Melide right on the edge of the Lugano lake, 5 km far from Lugano town, Swissminiatur is easy to reach either by car, train or boat.

Note:- All the pictures are taken from analogue camera.

Technorati Tags: Weekend Trip Switzerland Lugano Mini Switzerland