Scandinavia has been an elite destination on my mind for a long time, mainly due to remoteness and idea of expensive travel. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth with fjords, arctic ice, northern lights. Only after travelling, I realized that it is possible to do it in a budget effective way as well. Our Scandinavia trips have had many wrong turns, right memories!
Denmark
When I went on an exchange program to Europe, I decided to go to Denmark as the first country outside of my base Germany, since I could do it over a weekend
Little did I know how amazed I would be on my first journey. The long train I boarded was cut short after Hamburg into a little train with only 4 compartments. At that time, I thought it was due to low demand. I had a big surprise when we were asked to disembark and get into a ship! Yes- a ship!
The train also went into the ship and sailed with us from Puttgarden to Rodbyhavn. Once we reached the shore, we got onto the train again and continued journey towards Copenhagen. This route, the Bird flight line, has unfortunately been stopped for some years now
I had to wait in the train station from late night to early morning to start the day- that was my first experience with thieves of Europe. I had tied my bag to my legs while sleeping on a chair, but many folks still tried to pull my bag off. A small yell would drive them away, so they were not the serious kind. I didn’t have anything on me, but probably took them too lightly
Copenhagen as a city was average in hindsight. I saw the main square, the place where royals lived, Tivoli gardens, the little mermaid, took a city walking tour and returned the same day
Norway
The second leg was a planned trip to Norway-Sweden- Finland for 10-15 days. We had many batchmates from our college and other colleges stayed at different universities across Europe. One such batchmate stayed at Bergen, a place apt to start Norway in a nutshell tour. We didn’t know him well, but the fact that he is from our college was sufficient for us to request of we could come and stay at his place while we were there.
I was accompanied by another college-mate who was also my roommate. She was very keen on travelling only when the group had at least one guy, for protection. I convinced her that I was good enough to protect her and we started from Germany. Our plan was to maximize night journeys on trains since we had Eurail passes to cover the fare and we could save on accommodation
The first obstacle came in the form of a power cut where our train abruptly stopped from Sweden to Norway right on the border. There was no information on how long it would take for connections to be restored. We casually waited and ended up spending more than half a day loitering around the train station. It was October and there was first hint of snow on colorful autumn leaves. We took a lot of photos
After a long wait, the trains restarted, but we had lost our next connection. That meant we would not reach our friend’s place the next day before night. It was pre-smartphone, data and Whatsapp era with expensive calling outside the country, so we ended up informing our friend very late after we reached McDonalds in Oslo where we had free wifi
After almost 2 days of continuous train journeys from Cologne, we reached Bergen via Oslo. Our friend had apparently made pulao the previous day anticipating our arrival which we unfortunately missed. I still cherish how he took the initiate to welcome and cook for us although we didn’t know each other well at all. There was a lot of camaraderie amongst people just being from the same campus. We slept on the floor since he didn’t have extra mattress. We didn’t mind that at all- anything that could save us from paying money to super expensive hostels
We did the standard Norway in a nutshell tour covering different modes of transport like ferry, bus, tram and train. We met very interesting people on the way. The first one was a pair of Indian colleagues working for an IT services company and staying in Bodo. They had come to visit Bergen. Second was an IIM senior working in Dubai, who had come to Norway to visit Svalbard. We learnt many interesting facts about Svalbard from him. While Svalbard is a part of Norway, it operates quite independently. For example,
- It operates as a visa free zone
- There are 3000 polar bears vs 2700 people, hence people being armed mandatorily outside settlements to be protected against polar bears
- No trees survive here
- 4 months of no daylight during winter
- There is a global seed vault here serving as a backup in case of catastrophes
- Dead bodies don’t decay here in cold weather; hence they are taken back to Norway mainland
The fjords were beautiful. There was not much snow, so the idea of beauty was different from what I had imagined. Mirror like waters reflect the mountains and colorful houses without any ripples. We also spotted some local cows grazing who had long hair covering their foreheads
There was an eerie silence amidst the beautiful landscape. I realized why depression is so prevalent in Scandinavia despite high standards of living. The cultural bonds, camaraderie among neighbours, daily sunshine, fresh fruits/vegetables which we take for granted in India are all luxuries here
Most of our batchmates had Tromso and Pulpit rock in their itinerary while in Norway. Tromso was too expensive for me, with 4-5 additional days of expensive travel without vegetarian food in supermarkets, expensive hostels and small chance of spotting northern lights in extreme cold weather. I didn’t have sufficient winter clothes too; I had travelled only with a sweater and jacket. I sadly decided to leave it for another trip when I earn enough money when I could visit this part comfortably. Most people who went did manage to catch the lights but only after extending the trips by 2-3 days till they saw the lights
Pulpit rock hike was too strenuous for me. I didn’t have the shoes and clothes for this hike too, more importantly the stamina with just a diet of apples and bread that I could get from supermarkets. Fear of heights made this place less attractive in my mind, so decided to skip this too
Sweden
We wrapped up our sightseeing in Bergen and headed to the train station for journey back towards Sweden and Finland. We had booked an overnight return ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki which would take us to Helsinki for a day trip and get us back the next night. The ferry was under 10 Euros and a very good option to experience what an overnight journey looks like, while saving accommodation costs at the same time
We didn’t realize our blunder at the train station till after 10 minutes of scheduled departure time. Our night train didn’t arrive, and we started trying to find people who could help us with some visibility on the schedule. We realized that it was Saturday that day, an off day for night trains! Which meant we wouldn’t be on time for the Helsinki ferry at Stockholm
This also meant that we had to go back to our friends’ place for another night’s stay. He welcomed us without grumbling and made space for 2 of us to crash. The ferry offices were closed, and we couldn’t inform them or move our ferry dates. We had to wait till next morning
This also meant we had to spend an extra night at Stockholm. We had some other friends who stayed in Stockholm. However, they already had guests from other campuses stay at their place and they were full. We shamelessly still went, thinking we could somehow squeeze out space for 2 of us among 10 other people already staying there
It feels quite shameless in hindsight. Those were days of student life where we didn’t take a no for an answer. We somehow convinced them to host us and make space at a tiny corner where we could at least sit and rest. By the way in return, we hosted them in Cologne later paying extra to our landlady so that we could return their favour.
The entire morning went in countless phone calls to the ferry office to move our tickets by a day. It was against the policy to do such last-minute changes for free. We still begged and convinced them to make an exception for us since we were students who couldn’t afford a change that was beyond our control. We wanted them to invoke Force Majeure cause on the ticket just because there was a power supply cut on the onward journey that ultimately led to this delay. Quite foolish as I think about it now, but there is a small portion of me that still smiles when I recall this
They finally agreed to move the tickets by a day to get rid of painful conversations. We spent half a day visiting Gamlastan, the palace square and taking a walking tour of Stockholm.
We boarded the Viking Line ferry in the afternoon along with 2 more of our friends who joined from Stockholm. The ferry had many options for entertainment like music, dance, karaoke etc. I still remember singing “These are the best days of my life” on karaoke, apt for the part of my life then. We didn’t buy any food or drinks onboard thanks to our student budget. We still managed to sail through expensive Scandinavia successfully without bursting our pockets
Finland
Helsinki day tour was short and sweet covering major highlights like Helsinki cathedral, Uspenski cathedral, Kamppi chapel, rock church, Sibelius monument, all on foot. We didn’t have time to see Suomenlinna, apart from small glimpse of the start shaped fort from the ferry. I managed to visit it on a second visit with family 10 years later
After all the obstacles, we reached a day before our exams and barely managed to pass them, which was the only goal. How much we scored in the exam was not very relevant for us, so we didn’t bother acing the grades
My roommate continued another adventurous journey to Italy and Greece after this where she lost her passport. I imagined it was the end of all travel for her, but contrary to commonsense, she got a temporary passport from Indian embassy and managed to do all other travel for 3 months before returning finally to India. Another reinforcement for fortune favoring the brave
Another incident I vividly remember is during a second trip to Helsinki 10 years later, during our stopover towards Iceland. We had booked an Airbnb but the location on Google was not fully right. We had reached at 10 PM after sightseeing at Suomenlinna. It showed us the apartment complex only, not the exact apartment within the complex. The buildings were not numbered alphabetically for a weird reason. We spent an hour circling each building looking for the right one. There was no human around to ask for help- as expected in sparsely populated countries
After an hour of searching, we finally found the apartment. I walked back to the entrance to get my mom and luggage. The next challenge was to open the front door with the code key that did not work. Murphy’s law again. We waited for another 15 minutes. There was a girl who came out to walk the dog and we quickly entered in.
Challenge 3: Opening the apartment door. Again, didn’t work. This was a physical key which only opened at a particular angle and in reverse direction. After trying multiple attempts, we cracked it. For now, we had to be careful not to leave the apartment without keys
My dad just stepped out for a minute to figure out why the outside door wasn’t working so that we don’t have problems the next morning when we had to go out to catch our flight. We didn’t realize he cannot enter in again! After multiple attempts, we cracked how to open the main building door!
So much for technology and innovation on locks, it is so difficult to operate in countries without human help or front door reception in hotels. I realized why Indian communities bond more closely outside India. They need support much more than in India
These trips have left such deep and fond memories. It is difficult to do such ad-hoc trips in middle age where you develop money, comfort and ego inflation that these trips are best done in student life. My only advice is never to miss a chance to go on student exchange program if you get one!