1717 kms in 4 days….. phew!

Not that I am complaining. I did what I love to do – travel, see new things, take a zillion pictures and be driven around. I pity A though, since he did most of the driving!

A had been promising me a vacation for sometime now. It was part of the “you will begin to like SA campaign”! Anyways, we decided to head to what is called the Panorama route. It is in the North-east part of the country and was truly panoramic

Our holiday started off by driving A’s parents, who were back from their vacation in India to their house. His dad was amused and surprised that we had just a “general idea” of the route and no map to guide us. The thing is A hates technology of any kind. Tom-Toms are not his kind of a thing. I on the other hand love technology and hate maps and old fashioned methods of asking around. But since the driver was convinced that we would find our way, who was I to argue! A’s dad knowing fully well that we would get lost gave us his 20 year old map as our guide.

DAY I: We started off from A’s parent’s place bidding farewell to A’s parents and Kiwi ( our puppy), with our head full of Do’s and Don’t from them. Our first stop was Echo Caves. Echo Caves were formed by the erosion of the rocks by a river centuries ago. It was nice to see the different shapes that were made by nature. It was a good exercise too – climbing steps, crawling and sliding down. I realized how fit/ unfit I was! From there we headed to a little town called Pilgrim’s rest. The town is preserved as a old English town and is a world heritage site. We were transported back to the days of horse carriages and small quaint shops. It reminded me a bit of Goa. It was a nice feeling to be able to walk on the roads without feeling insecure or weird. We spent some time roaming around the street and then left for Hazy view where our resort was. The drive was just breathtaking. I think I made A stop every 15 minutes to take pictures. It was a completely different view of SA. The landscape reminded of north of Sweden. The hills were green with pine trees and because its summers the grass was green. We finally reached the resort way past 8 pm and all I wanted to do was crash. Now the resort is another story.

I believe in budget travel. It includes staying at B&Bs and hostels. Where as my dear husband believes in staying in nice (read expensive) places. I do not see the logic of spending money on a place where you would only go to sleep. I would rather spend that money on something else during the holiday. So A and I came to a compromise that if he could find me a nice place which costed only marginally more than my B&B would I stay there. And he did! He pulled some strings and got us some fabulous B&B prices for a 5 star resort. Was I impressed or what. Some benefit of getting married to an hotelier! Needless to say that the resort was just beautiful with its own crocs and hippos. And I realized the difference between a good hotel and a B&B when I managed to find a US adapter for my camera battery to be charged. A was amused at my reaction and I think secretly gloating with the “I told you so”.

DAY 2: Back to the trip now. We started our day by taking a nice hour long walk around the resort and then headed out to see some places. Now like I said before we didn’t have a real route map but just a general idea. And hence thanks to A not listening to my intuition we drove 300 kms for something which was just 70 km away. But no complaints as I got to see some spectacular scenery and click some more pictures! Plus I also made a “boo-boo” with some planning. A really wanted to go boating in the Blyde canyon river and I went by the directions to the canyon itself. The two are separate and more than a 100 km apart and were on the way that we got lost!... Since we already left it more than a 150 km away there was no way of doing it that day. We saw the three Rondawels. They are basically three hill tops in the shape of three African huts. But the view of the canyon from there is just marvelous. We spent a long time there, just enjoying the beauty and the calm that came along with it. I think I took pictures in every possible angle and A got involved as well. The next stop was the Portholes. They were created centuries ago by erosion of the rocks by water. From there we headed to the Lisbon falls. The whole panorama route is full of such waterfalls. And though they are not majestic, they are charming. We also managed to see the view from God’s Window and the wonder view. At the risk of repeating myself the view was to die for. I haven’t ever been that shutter happy for a long time and I loved every minute of it.

Day 3: Was reserved for Kruger. It’s the national reserve which is bigger than the state of Kerala and shares borders with Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Its not possible to complete seeing Kruger in one day. Tourist and nature enthusiasts stay at the Kruger for days to observe animals. There are options of going on private game drives where you are guaranteed to see the big five. However, we decided against it since we wanted to experience the Kruger on our own. Plus I knew I would visit the Kruger again so seeing all the big five in this one trip was not a priority. We did manage to see a lot of animals and two of the big five. A lot of the times I forgot that the animals that we were seeing from such a close distance were actually wild and could be dangerous. But the adventure was outside of Kruger. We got out of one of the gates of Kruger and need to travel around 90 km back to our resort. Now it was dark and we needed to cross of townships. Its not the wisest and the safest of things to do, but I wasn’t really worried, until my dear husband mentioned that he didn’t feel comfortable with the car in front of us and was scared of hijacking. That was it.. I was nervous and fidgety for the next one hour and had a sigh of relief when we reached the resort. So much for A knowing me and my sense of paranoia well!!

Day 4: We originally decided to stay for 5 days. But by day 4 we though we were having fun, we were also missing Kiwi terribly, and bugging A’s parents with daily reports on Kiwi. I am sure they thought I was obsessive! We decided to cut short on day 5 and head back home after doing the things we were meant to do. Our first stop for the day was Mac-Mac falls. Again a very charming waterfall. But I liked the old ladies who were selling curios more. A showed me some of his bargaining skills and charmed an old lady for selling us some stuff for a steal... Happy from all the shopping we did, we needed to rush to the Blyde river for the boating we missed out on earlier. I could see clouds gathering up on the horizon and hoped and prayed that the rain gods would stay away for one more day. And in case I forgot to mention, we did a detour of another 150 km just to get there. Was it worth it?? Well both of us were a little disappointed and thought the boat ride would be much more than the guide chattering away non-stop. But then the way I see it, we would have thought about it with regret if we didn’t see it. From there we headed back on a long journey home, which became even longer since we decided to go the safer way and not take any short cuts due to “safety” reasons.

I for one was dreaming of some nice home cooked food after eating 4 days of pure junk. And yes I think we both dreamt of Kiwi and smiled through the long journey home. And boy were we welcomed. Little Kiwi went crazy and didn’t leave us for the next couple of hours. One day less was completely worth seeing that reaction :-)

Tips for the panorama route:

- Research the hotel to book. Ensure its not out of the main route and lonely
- Do a private game drive for Kruger if you are in SA for a holiday. If not enjoy it the old fashioned way.
- Boating on Blyde is possible only through one resort called Forever Resorts. You need to book in advance.
- Get a map!

Read more...

Blue, Blue and more Blue…..

Lakshadweep’s been on my list of places to visit for a very long time and going there for my honeymoon just happened to be an added bonus (thanks A). It’s been 3 weeks after I have come back and the hang over still continues!!

My first impression of Lakshadweep was – Wow!! I have been to a lot of beaches, but have never seen something like it before (for once the travel brochures weren’t wrong). The white sand beaches with crystal clear blue water just took my breath away. Speaking of blue, my definition of “sea blue” has undergone a change now. There can be so many types of sea blue – the light/sky blue, the greenish blue, royal blue, ink blue, etc. I got to see all of those colors in the water there- all in a span of a 2 km radius!!

Let me keep the raving for later and start from the start :-). We stayed at the Agatti resorts which is govt. run and the only resort on the island. Agatti has the highest population among the island (of about 8000 people). It’s also the only island with an air strip. Statistics apart, it’s a beautiful place. The beauty of the island hits you while walking from the airport and just the feeling of awe just stays with you for days to come. We started the trip with what the rest of the tourists were doing – sun bathing!! I cannot imagine having so much fun lazing around in the sun and doing nothing but stare at the water and the turtles in it. To my surprise I enjoyed it; maybe it was the rest from the constant mode of doing something, whatever it was, the rest and the remote place worked for me. Apart from all the lazing around and being total beach bums, we also went coral reef watching and spotting turtles. It was really nice to see such an amalgamation of colour in the reef and the fishes. We saw all types of colored fishes (I thought they existed only in aquariums). After the first day of learning to spot turtles, I saw so many of them swimming/eating very close to the shore. The highlight of my trip was to see them not being afraid of human beings. It was also good to see that us human beings respected them and left them alone.

The other highlight of my holiday was the visit to Bangaram. Bangaram is one of the 35 islands in Lakshadweep and has only a private resort. So why visit it? Its one of the most beautiful places I have seen till now (and I have seen many). It’s breathtaking!! That’s the only way to describe the place. The waters that surround the island have so many different shades of blue due to the varying depth of water. During low tide you can even walk from one island to the other with water just touching your ankles. The place is a vision, but the highlight of the trip was the boat ride to Bangaram. We went in a small fishing trawler crossing the high seas in the opposite direction of the winds, when it was very windy. Well, the less said the better, but at one stage I thought we would topple over. What bugged me was the boatmen and A enjoying looking at the worried look on my face. A especially since he doesn’t even know to swim. I wasn’t scared of drowning (I know how to swim) and neither was I scared that A would drown. There was enough supply of life jackets to save him till help came and the water wasn’t cold either. I was scared for my camera. I knew toppling over would mean death of my buddy (yeah I am in love with my camera). Anyways, nothing happened apart from me being the butt of jokes!!

The good thing about my vacation was that I got a chance to visit the village in Agatti, even if it was in the pretext of visiting the hospital. It was very quaint with coconut strewn all over. We got to know that the auto we went in was the only auto on the island! I also met a German couple who ran the diving school in Agatti. For 9 months in a year, they stay in India and the rest monsoon months in Germany. They’ve been here for more than 10 years and that’s the job – scuba diving and teaching people to scuba dive. I was so envious. I wish I had a cool job where I could actually make money out of a hobby!!

Tips:
# You can go to Lakshadweep by ship. However incase you plan to travel by ship, make sure you are flexible with your travel dates. The ship schedule is most likely to change last minute.
# Always plan to either visit or stay in Bangaram. Bangaram is much more expensive than Agatti. However it’s completely worth staying there at least for a day.
# Alcohol is prohibited in Agatti. Another reason to visit Bangaram :-).
# Be prepared to get used to salt water. Its in the sea and your bathrooms.
# If you know Malayalam, use all of it there. Since most of the tourists are foreigners, the locals completely like Indian tourists and if you are Mallu you are adored!

Read more...

About “The” trip - Finally!!!

It’s been a while that I am back from my whirlwind trip so have finally decided to stop being lazy and write about it.
My trip started with a bit of adventure. After packing, repacking and checking my checklist of things to carry umpteen times, I still managed to forget my cell phone at the hotel and remembered when I reached the airport. I couldn’t take a chance traveling without my second love hence I asked people at the hotel to send my cell phone by taxi to the airport and requested the airport authorities to wait for my cell phone to reach. I got the plane to wait for me, boarded the plane, and got someone at the airport manager to come and give me the cell phone in the plane. I thanked my stars that it was Skelleftea since I don’t think I could have pulled it of in any other city. Anyways here a quick snapshot of the trip.

Rome : I fell in love with the city!! The feet are killed by the walks, thanks to the cobble stoned roads, but walking is the best way to absorb all that Rome has to offer. Walking through the streets of Rome to me was like walking in a place 200 years old. Each building seems to talk to you and tell you stories of its own. It almost makes you want to go back in time and see how Rome was in its prime. You can spend weeks in Rome, but since we had just 2 days, we decided to see the most important monuments and started our sight seeing trip by visiting the Colosseum and the Roman Forum.
The Colosseum is an imposing structure, especially when you try and go back to when the gladiators would fight there. The Roman Forum which is right next to the Colosseum is basically the ruins of the old Rome. It’s magnificent to walk through all of it and just soak in the surroundings. The Pantheon is a beautiful monument too. It has been converted to a church now and I am sure mass there would be beautiful. Both these structures need to be visited during the day since they do not have any artificial lighting. My pick of Rome would be the Vatican Museum and St. Peters Cathedral. Apart from the religious importance it holds for me, the beauty of the place would mesmerize just about anyone. Especially the paintings at the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel would take anyone’s breathe away. The colours, detailing and the magnitude of the paintings on the walls and the ceiling are astounding when you think of the times they were painted in. It shows the passion and dedication that the artists had. It also shows the interest that the emperors of those times had in art, not to mention the money to fund it. The first thing that goes through your mind, when you see St. Peters is- is that a church?? The biggest church in the world is really big!! I attended the midnight mass on Christmas Eve and that’s an experience I will not forget – the church is beautiful under lights and it has a feel of a carnival before the Mass starts, not that I would want to repeat it, considering the crowd and the cold!!!
One of my “Rome moments” was sitting on the Spanish steps and listening to two Italians sing along with their guitars. I also realized that some of the more popular Hindi songs were lifted from Italian music!! Another one of my “Rome Moments” was sitting by the Trevi and seeing various people pose for pictures. I think we spent more than an hour there and had a good laugh
Rome reminds me of India in so many ways, the crazy traffic, small cute cars, the abundant use of two wheelers and the incessant loud chatter, maybe that’s why it worked its magic on me and it is one place I would want to go back again. I hope the coin that I threw in the Trevi works its magic….

Florence/Pisa: Florence is quite the opposite of Rome. It’s quaint, small and less crowded and very charming. To me however it’s a town which had some of the cutest streets and restaurants. We saw the Dome, which is the third largest church in the world. Again the architecture here was very different from the churches I had seen in Rome. We walked around the town savoring every bit of the place and looking through the windows of the all clothes stores (What can you expect of two girls). One observation – the Italians sure so have a sense of fashion!!
Florence can be combined with a visit to the leaning tower of Pisa since it is only an hour by train and definitely a must visit if you are in Italy. The leaning tower of Pisa is about a 20 minute walk from the station right through the town center and it truly is a wonder. You almost feel like it would fall on you any minute (it’s a wonder it hasn’t as yet). The work on the tower is worth a look, but what impressed me more was the cathedral next to the tower. It’s a beautiful church with some really delicate work done on the outside. I think in Italy I have completed my lifetime quota of visiting churches and yet each church had a completely different character.

Venice: Though Venice was very different from any other city I had seen, I was a bit disappointed by the city in itself. It highly possible because I had heard/read so much about the place so my expectations were hitting the roof. Having said that let me not take away from the city.
The charm of the city is the small streets where you will invariably get lost – no maps, direction sense would help you there. It is also nice to see how life goes about without cars and through the water. We saw some DHL people deliver couriers by water, also saw the water police, public transportation by water and even the post being delivered by boats!! St. Marco is beautiful and the pigeons there just really greedy for food :-)…We were in Venice right before the mask festival, so we got a chance to see the various colorful masks on display through the streets. I was amazed by the intricate work done on the masks; some of them even had Swarovski crystals on them. It made the whole place a lot more colorful. We also went to one of the islands close by, and thankfully enough it wasn’t as crowded.
My amusing story however is about a Indian- Canadian couple we met during dinner. They talked about bollywood, asked us what our opinion of the Abhi-Ash wedding was, and whether Shahrukh had back cancer etc etc etc. I think they were a wee bit disappointed that we weren’t all that updated…
Tips for Italy:
# Women please wear flats, and the most comfortable pair of shoes you can find. The cobblestones will really kill your feet.
# Take the tour to the Vatican Museum. It’s a little expensive, but worth it since the lines to enter are killing and you would want to know what to see and what not to.
# Be ready to spend much more in Venice. It is one of the most expensive cities in Italy and hence the prices are double as compared to the rest of the cities.
# Walk as much as possible, that’s how you would get to see the place much better
# Try talking in Bengali with the souvenir shop owners on the streets. Most of them are Bangladeshi and will give you a discount if you manage a bit of Bengali.
# Do not miss the yummy Italian food, whether it is the breakfast which consists of Chocolate croissant and coffee, or the yummy pastas and the pizzas along with some amazing Tiramisu not to mention the house wine. I think I need to stop now or else my mouth is going to start watering!!!

Amsterdam: The city is an eye-opener!! Drugs and sex is so out in the open that you wonder if it is such a big deal. The city sells on both of them, since most tourists go to Amsterdam to see the coffee shop and the red light area. Its quite a surprise to find the Dutch so open about subjects which are a taboo in any other country specially around Europe. I came back from my trip and discussed it with my Swede friends and they were shocked to say the least. I also had a rather interesting conversation with my Dutch colleague who told me why it’s all that open. According to him Dutch follow the law to the T. And if you ban narcotics, then it wouldn’t even be possible to use it in the hospital, hence its regulated. His explanation on prostitution as a business was that it happens everywhere, if it’s out in the open and made legal, at least these women have decent education, social security cover and a decent living – he does have a point there, doesn’t he? But apart from all the usual stuff, anyone visiting Amsterdam should definitely visit the Van Gogh museum. The museum has a collection from Van Gogh’s work from different stages of his life. His work leaves you confused in the end, since it varies so much from the beginning stages of his career to the end – its definitely a must see.

Berlin: We drove from Amsterdam to Berlin, and driving through Germany without the mention of the famed German roads and no speed limits. Just one word – awesome!!! You know when you get into Germany by the roads and the sudden speeding of the cars. We drove at and average of around 190 km/ph and we still had cars overtaking us at regular intervals. The view outside was beautiful too – from the flat Holland to the small hills in Germany, it was quite the contrast. Berlin in itself was an amalgamation of the old and the new. Its an extremely modern city with huge sky scrappers, but it also has the Brandenburg and a whole lot of history which goes along with it. The Reichstag is also worth a mention. I felt it was a little too beautiful to be a parliament house!! We saw it under lights and I think it just added to the beauty. Though Berlin is supposed to be the party capital of Europe we took a rain check on partying and settled for a good German dinner since all of us were just so exhausted and headed out the next day to London which was a 10 hr road trip.

London: The first two days in London were spent recharging all our exhausted batteries by lazing around and shopping!! And just went the relatives and friends thought that we would never head out to see London, Mona and I started the sight seeing once again. We started with the Buckingham Palace and quite frankly I don’t know what the big deal was about the changing of guards. I felt that the crowd in the Vatican was nothing compared to the one in front of the palace trying to catch a glimpse of the ceremony. From there we walked to the Trafalgar Square and visited the National Gallery. We did the whole touristy walk to the London eye, Big Ben and finally the Tower Bridge. At the risk of repeating myself the walk was really nice, though we had a really long walk trying to find a tube station – as usual we were lost!!! The next day started with a visit to Madam Tussads. We had fun looking at all the statutes and yes getting our pictures clicked there. From there the next trip was to The Lords – the Mecca of cricket lovers. The guide made the tour wonderful and interesting even for people who weren’t all that knowledgeable on cricket. Thanks to the impromptu trip to the Lords, we discovered Abbey Road and the famous crossing on the Beatles cover. I felt a bit silly clicking pictures while crossing that crossing and making the traffic wait – I am sure they are used to it though. I also liked Covent Garden a lot. The environment there was brilliant. The building had an old world feel to it. It had magicians, street musicians and whole lot of open restaurants – it was magic.

After a whole lot of traveling in the two weeks, I realized that I was looking forward to getting back to Skelleftea to my hotel and I knew that it in my heart I felt that it was home now. I also realized that though they don’t always show it, the Swedes are one of the friendliest and the most helpful people in Europe – well what to do, I have to be loyal to people who welcomed me and made me feel comfortable in an alien country.

Read more...

The story of 14 islands

Just before I came to Sweden for the first time, someone told me that Stockholm was the most beautiful city that he had visited. Since he is a very well traveled person, my expectations hit the roof!!

My first visit to Stockholm was sometime in March for a day – and I was thoroughly disappointed. It was pretty no doubt, but definitely not out of the world. I couldn’t understand what was that special in the city. It could be because the weather was terrible, it wasn’t all that cold in terms of the temperature but I didn’t really appreciate the cold winds and the rain. This is why I decided, to visit Stockholm in all its glory before the winters came in - And finally, I understood the magic of Stockholm.

Stockholm has a lot of water channels since this is where the Baltic Sea meets the lake Malaren. It’s very common to see regular ferries connecting the 14 islands that form Stockholm. I decided to ditch the regular sight seeing by bus kind of stuff and travel by boat to all the places I wanted to visit. Though it takes a little more time to see the place as compared to taking the bus or even walking, I really felt that the whole experience made it worthwhile.

The first place I went to was the Vasa museum. This is where the sunken ship Vasa is restored and kept. Vasa was a famed ship of Sweden which sank just after sailing for 1300 mtrs. It was found after 300 years, restored and kept in the museum. It was all that, the Swedes had promised it would be- it’s a massive ship (for the day and age it was built it) and the carvings on the ship are intricate and beautiful. You almost end up feeling sorry for the people who made the ship with so much of care. The whole museum is darkened and the effect of the yellow light highlighting just the ship is brilliant. From there I walked to the Nordic museum, which gave a quick snapshot of the culture of the ancient Vikings. The Nordic museum also had an exhibit of private collectors going on. It was good to see people being encouraged to display their collection of coins, stamps, matchboxes, openers, dolls etc. You name it and they had it there!!

Stockholm is often called the museum city since it has more than 70 museums, but lack of time meant I had to choose between museums and other flavours of Stockholm. Hence I decided that the next stop would be Gamla Stan or the old town. The old town is basically the original Stockholm area sometime in the 17th century or earlier. Just walking in the streets of the old town, takes you into a completely different world – the small open cafes, the numerous antique shops, and the street musicians whose music you can hear everywhere you go, just wove a spell around me. I saw one of the most enthusiastic and fun street musician group there. They were just so full of energy and amazing music that the half and hour I spent listening to them seemed like just a few minutes. It was time then to break away from the magic cast on me to see the world’s first Ice bar in the hotel that I was staying. While walking towards the main Stockholm center, the change of architecture was dramatic that I could almost feel the transition between the old and the new.

The ice bar is a bar where everything, from the tables, to the chairs to even the glasses are made of ice. The temperature of the bar is maintained at a -5 degrees Celsius all year round and its quite a popular tourist destination that appointments are needed to get inside, since they do not allow more than 30 people at one time. It was good to see something so different and so crazy. I had my drink served in a glass made of ice… Cheers or Skall as the Swedish say to crazy ideas!!!!

The next day was reserved for the famed archipelagos of Stockholm. Stockholm has around a 1000 small islands surrounding it. A trip to Stockholm is definitely incomplete without visiting at least one of these archipelagos. It takes quite a while to get to even the nearest of the archipelago and get back. But it’s a trip was well worth it, some of the views were just out of this world. I got down at one of the archipelago called Grindo, walked around and then had a cup of coffee in one of the most beautiful restaurants I have come across – I could spend the entire day, just sitting there and gazing at the sea, however reality sunk in and I caught my ferry to the mainland.

Before I set out for Helsinki, my Swedish colleague asked me to tell him, which capital was prettier – Stockholm or Helsinki. He also assured me that I would be killed either by him or my Finnish colleague!!! ( the Swedes and the Finns share a love hate relationship and its good fun to see them joke about it – a more tamed version of India and Pak). But coming back to his question – I really don’t know....each had its charm – Helsinki was small but fun, and Stockholm enchanting, comparing them would be unfair to both… I told my colleague the same, he wasn’t too convinced though!!!

Read more...

Sauna Land

When I planned a work week to Finland in a place called Pernio, I decided that this time I would definitely visit Helsinki. That would be the only way I would be able to compensate one week of living in a place which to me resembles a meditation camp (it’s just got our factory and the guesthouse and nothing else) .

Finland in spite of being neighbours to Sweden and having being ruled by Sweden for a long time, as quite different from the Swedes. Finnish for example, is completely different from Swedish and English and quite difficult to learn at that ( not that I am trying, Swedish is enough for now). Their love for saunas is unbeatable. The ideal Finnish holiday is having a sauna party, in a summer house close to the sea, and cooling off by swimming in the open sea. I was lucky sample a little bit of this idyllic holiday, if only for a few hours. We were taken to the company’s summer cottage close to the sea, and though I didn’t go into the sauna with the guys, spent a lot of time just soaking in the nature….. After that brilliant evening, I set out to Helsinki by train the next day . The train was not as extravagant as the trains in Denmark, but definitely comfortable and not to forget a whole lot cheaper!!

I instantly fell in love with Helsinki! It’s not as big as the other cities I’ve been too and there are not many monuments to see there, but to me it was charming nonetheless. It was bright and sunny, and there were people happy and celebrating everywhere. I guess that played a part in creating that magic. The city is a perfect blend of being big enough so that you don’t feel like you are in a small town and a feel of a small town where everything is in a radius of 5 kms so that everything is in walking distance.

One blooper – the hotel refused to check me in before 2 pm, so instead of wasting time, decided to make full use of the good weather and went to Soumenlinna fortress. The fortress in itself was pale in comparison to the Agra fort and the Red fort in Delhi, but what stood out was the beauty it was surrounded by. Some of the views were just unbelievable with the grass lush green and the sea surrounding it on all four sides, I really don’t think any words or even a lot of my pictures can do full justice to the beauty that I saw there. Its because of that, its really not a surprise that the fortress is a popular picnic spot for the locals and a top tourist spot.

After spending close to three hours in the fortress, we headed back to mainland and went to rock church. The church is built from one massive piece of rock, and the architecture inside is worth noticing. It was about to close so we needed to leave early, but otherwise would surely have loved to spend some more time inside.

The next stop was the Cathedral, which is right behind the market square. It’s stark white and hence impossible to miss. The insides of the church were as pretty as the outsides, and once we were done with being a little religious, we headed out to have some good Indian dinner after a long time – all in all a good day!

The next day, we went visiting a zoo, all on my insistence. I went into a zoo after a really long time (can’t even remember when I went last). It’s quite a small zoo, but what attracted me was that it was on an island. It was heartening to see the animals healthy and happy. That’s when I remembered why I stopped visiting zoos in India - they always left me with such an unpleasant feeling! Anyways the rest of the day was spent in walking around on the streets of Helsinki, and not to forget one of my major hobbies – shopping!!....

Read more...

Midsummers

One of my friend asked me the big deal about midsummer since I was talking about is for quite a while. Well technically speaking – nothing, since its nothing but the sun shining for 24 hrs. But it’s the biggest celebration here in Sweden, with people talking about their midsummer plans much in advance, not that it proves anything, since the Swedes talk about all their weekends and specially long weekends a lot, anyways point being Midsummer is big here.

The Indians (as we are called here) decided to go to Happaranda and Storforsen to celebrate midsummer and do some sight seeing ourselves. Happaranda is about a 3 hr drive north of Skelleftea on the Finland border. It’s a beautiful town no doubt just that everything was shut due to midsummer, and everything basically means everything, from restaurants to supermarkets to shops – everything! When we walked around in the town hunting for food it was almost like a ghost town, with just us five Indians walking on the street, something that we don’t see even during a curfew in India. We finally dashed our hopes of finding food, and managed to find a shop which sold chips etc. That was breakfast, the only plus being that we had the chips and ice-cream beside a really beautiful river. But being here now for 6 months, have started taking clean rivers, the greenery and nature beauty for granted!!

One of the major motivating factors to make the trip to Happaranda was the IKEA store there. The IKEA store in Happaranda is one of the largest IKEA stores in Sweden, and we were quite looking forward to seeing it. But Alas, I guess they were celebrating Midsummer too, and hence will need to look for some other time and place to finally get a chance to visit the famed Swedish furniture store.

From there we left early for Storforsen so that we could make it on time for lunch. The combination of antakshri and deers on the roads made it a nice drive to Storforsen. Storforsen is a place where the river Pite forms rapids which is one of the largest in Europe. Pite is also one of the only four unharnessed rivers in Sweden. For a country which is famous for its large number of lakes and rivers, 4 unharnessed rivers is quite a small number. We decided to refuel ourselves on some food before checking out the rapids, the noise of which we could hear far away in the restaurant. After waiting for a really long time the food thankfully arrived before some of us fainted with hunger!! The patience level that the Swedes have dumbfounds me everytime. They wait patiently while driving for their turn to overtake, almost never honk, never follow up on anything, and wonder of wonders they wait in queues for a waiting ticket in shops!!

Anyways back to my trip, the disappointment of Happaranda was compensated completely by just seeing the rapids. The sheer power of the river was amazing, just felt like getting into the water and go flowing away with the river (for how long I would be alive, is a different matter altogether). The river almost has three different colors in a short span of length - the absolute white where water crashed against the rocks and formed the rapids, the green some places where it took the color of some rocks, and the sky blue when the rocks got over and the river became silent in the delta – a true haven for a nature photography lover like me.

Since it was a holiday in Sweden, the place was crowded with around 200 to 250 people there, but unlike any tourist place in India, you almost felt you were alone there, thanks to the absence of the numerous amounts of roadside shops, very large and noisy groups of people and the presence of the quiet “in my own world” Swedes. Silence – its something that takes a little getting used to in Sweden, and when you do get used to it, you wonder why people talk as much - I haven’t reached that stage yet!!!

The trip back was uneventful with all of us, just absorbing the scenic beauty, got back to Skelleftea on time for dinner and to make the day perfect, had some really yummy Indian food. Or maybe I found it yummy (since I usually hate the place I went to that day) because I was really hungry and it was the first real food for the day.

With the Midsummer gone, its time for the Skelleftea festival on the weekend. Amazes me to see a country designed only around having fun!!... more about it soon

Read more...

Of cycles and carnivals

When I imagined Copenhagen, I imagined it to be a fun place, warm and sunny since it was on the coast. I visited it this weekend, and found out that for once, I was right.

Copenhagen in itself is a very beautiful city. One can almost imagine how Hans Christian Andersen was inspired to write such beautiful fairytales, The city in itself is out of the fairytales, with the sea on one side and the various lakes and the beautiful architecture on the other. The statue of the little mermaid is small as compared to what I thought it would be, but surely worth seeing for anyone who has read and loved the story as a child.

I spent the weekend roaming around Copenhagen and seeing most of what was famous. My favourite of course was the Nyhavn, Copenhagen’s old harbor where you can almost sense the old world charm. I liked it more since there was more of a festival going on there due to the soccer match between Sweden and Denmark. There were a lot of Swedes in Copenhagen on the weekend for the match, and there was quite a bit of friendly and sometimes not so friendly banter between the Swedes and the Danish fans. Sweden won with quite a bit of drama (one of the Danish fan’s hit the referee resulting in the match being suspended, and Sweden winning). The scenes after that quite reminded me of the cricket matches in India. It was a pleasant surprise to see emotion that strong from the usually reserved guys…

I also liked Tivoli a lot too, though I for the life of me cannot understand why people pay money to be on risky and completely crazy joy rides. But the whole concept of amusement parks in the 19th century left me wonder struck. It’s a little cramped, but I am guessing that since it was built long back, no one really imagined it to be as crowded coupled with the fact that’s its in the center of the city, which leaves the option of expansion out of question. It is however, really pretty and like a continuous carnival. For me , what set it apart from other amusement parks, was a sense of character that it had.

Apart from the beauty of the place, there were a few things that caught my attention. The first thing that struck me when I reached Copenhagen, was how cycles were a very normal method of commuting for people. The most amusing sight I saw was a person on the railway station, waiting for a train along with his cycle (couldn’t get a snap of that one though). I then found out that they renovated the central station at Copenhagen and made a two-storey parking place just for cycles! I tried to get a snap of some people taking their babies in the prams on cycles, didn’t manage to do that, but I did see quite a few of them. – Eco friendly and an extremely healthy way of living, You bet!

The one another thing I noticed in Copenhagen, which was different from the rest of Scandinavia was their carnival culture. The atmosphere at the city square was almost like that of a carnival with music, songs and a whole lot of people just having a really good time. The city seemed much more relaxed and less reserved as compared to the other places I have been in Scandinavia; I guess it’s the coast that’s playing its part there.

Well I surely had a great weekend, marred by the fact that my luggage along with my laptop are stuck somewhere in the middle of Copenhagen and Skelleftea (had to check in my lappy, due to the EU rules of not carrying a lot of liquids as cabin baggage and my aversion to carrying more than one bag). I need to mention this one last bit though – the conveyor belt at the airport wasn’t working and we had to go behind the airport to deposit our luggage in, along with heap of bags, almost making it certain that the bags would never reach Stockholm on the right flight. Now this has never happened to me in India, but am sure if it did, everyone including myself would crib about it being a third world country , nothing ever works here etc etc… Here no one so much so as murmured and people didn’t even complain when as predicted the bags didn’t reach Stockholm. To top it, the airport authorities took in our baggage, without any screening or anything. Am just wondering, with such amazing security, why the need to fuss about liquids!!

PS:

Got to know once I got back to Office, that Skelleftea was the warmest city/town in the whole of Europe yesterday! Cannot get over it, since have seen it being -30 degrees in the winter and sometimes colder... Yippee!! looks like the summers are finally here... more about it later

Read more...