Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Nature untouched - Norway

Long weekend in May…sun was shining…where should be my next travel plan…searched for all cheap flights in Ryan air…nothing was feasible…just a flight to Oslo was flashing on my web screen…Norway….is it worth enough to make my weekend trip and I hardly heard anything great about this country…lot of doubts and questions…but finally decided to take a chance since I don’t want to sit inside four walls…I am sure when you finish reading the article and seeing the videos, you can answer what Norway has offered me ;)

Ryan air says the destination is to Oslo…can you believe it lands in a place which is very near to Oslo…just 170 kms from Oslo, a city called Torp ;), hehheeee...well thats Ryan Air... After reaching Torp, we took a car to explore the landscape of Norway…we decided to follow the route from Oslo to Bergen and take the return direction…did nothing much in the evening…made our tent near the lake and slept for a night…then started our adventure…I would classify the beauty of Norway in to four parts. 1. Waterfalls. 2. Steep mountains and the valleys 3. Scenic lakes and rivers. 4. Mini glaciers

The mountains in Norway are quite different from what I saw in Switzerland, Austria and Germany…the mountains are just vertical…perpendicular to the ground…and no slanting elevations….and these mountains were really gigantic…the most interesting part is the river flowing across these huge gigantic steep mountains…the water is so pure such that one can see the reflection of the mountains on these rivers…I have come across interesting valleys in my life…but the valleys which I experienced before my eyes…just been silent for sometime and realized Nature is the ultimate winner…really feast to our eyes…the lakes are another element of Norway’s beauty…I guess the whole country is surrounded by these lakes…the ideal scene is always two mountains converging and the rivers flowing across them…a reality of what I experienced in wallpapers… :)

Waterfalls: My goodness…I have seen some really amazing waterfalls in India…what I saw in this part of the globe is simply breathtaking and fascinating….would have seen almost thousands of them while traveling…no words to describe…Bernd luckily took an unknown route haphazardly to experience these waterfalls…ultimately ending in one of the best sceneries which I experienced in my life…will reside in my eyes forever…infact we also faced the most difficult situation in our trip because of these waterfalls…;)

Glaciers were quite small enough unlike Switzerland’s Jungfraujoch….passing across them by Car was a lovely and romantic experience…Unfortunately we didn’t have any girls in our trip L. The most interesting part is, there weren’t any inhabitants to enjoy this part of the nature…hardly we found any human settlements in these areas…the original beauty of the Nature is preserved simply because there are no human settlements…

Norway, undoubtedly one of the most expensive countries in the world… I should dedicate a separate paragraph for this ;) Now I understand why they don’t want to switch from Norwegian Kroners to Euros… for e.g. we have to travel in Train for 5 minutes…a normal ticket in any part of the world would cost a penny…it costs around 6 euros for 5 minutes travel…. A bottle of beer costs 9 euros…I could imagine what will be the expenses for others…A taxi driver sitting next to me…opens an Ipod…just shakes two times….opens a facebook account and sends a mail to his girl friend…;) I guess the economy has become really strong and deadly after they found lot of off-shore oil wells…I had an idea that Switzerland is the beautiful country of the world….I am sure Norway is no doubt equal in par with Switzerland in terms of landscape and the expenses ;) People also compare Norway and New Zealand with respect to same landscape….Norway in Northern hemisphere and New Zealand in Southern hemisphere…will let you know whether both the countries are same in a couple of years… ;)

These landscapes are fascinating for holidays…couldn’t imagine of leading a life there…sun sets at 10 or 11 in the evening and rises at 3 or 4 in the morning during summer…quite opposite in winter with day light only for 3 to 4 hours… A heaven in summer becomes suicidal during winter…its quite obvious why Scandinavians have high amount of suicidal rates in the world…Could realize people drinking really hard when compared to other Europeans…thought could meet lot of blondies in Norway.. oh god first of all I couldn’t find even any human species…then how come blonds..:D It was a great company with Rakesh, Bernd and Hemant…we really complemented each other during our different phases of our trip ;)


To sum it up, Norway – Nature untouched, most expensive country of the world, lack of inhabitants, must see place in Europe…road trip from Oslo to Bergen probably one of the best road trips one could ever imagine in life…a country which I had no expectation offered me something which will reside in my life forever… Life is beautiful even with out girls when nature speaks ;)

Life goes on....
Sathish Kumar S

P.S. If you have made up to this line of my article…please take few more minutes to read the article below to feel what was the other adventure we experienced in our trip. ;)

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