Trip to Iceland

I have always wondered how it would be to have 24 hours of day light. During my school days when teacher was teaching, it was something that I could not believe and comprehend. Of course countries like Norway, Iceland etc., was existing only in the map for us to see up in the north. I never thought that I would one day visit Island to see the day light throughout the 24 hours.
I went to BIAL in Bangalore to the Emirates counter for checking in to the morning flight to London via Dubai. The staff there were not able to understand where I am going – Rejkyavik (Iceland). I explained to them that the airport name is Keflavik. They got it in their system and were pleased that I am going to some place that exists! Anyway, they were able to put in my luggage through from London to Keflavik.
The shops at BIAL international section hardly have any item that is “Indian”! I could only see “Coorg coffee” bags, other than that everything is foreign and sold only in US$! It is a shame that we cannot keep items that are made in India in our airports. Why would one want to take chocolates while going out of India is something that I fail to understand! That too chocolates of some other country! I hope the management in BIAL will wake up one day and keep those items that we do and make. Why can’t we have mangoes, jackfruit papad /chips or so many handicrafts that we have all over south India…. If one goes to Thailand Airport (Suvarna Bhoomi) one can see how they have kept so many items which are “made in Thailand”!
It was a long journey to reach Rejkyavik, as I did not take any break in London. I suggest that anybody traveling to Rejkyavik from India, better take a break in London for a day or two and then travel to Rejkyavik. It is almost 24 hours flight journey and will definitely exhaust you!
I reached around June 21st local time 11.30pm and found that the weather was cloudy but there was lot of day light. For some reason, I had a very rough image of Iceland with lot of medieval period bars and huge looking people with beard and loud voice. However, I was in for a great surprise! The place is like any other European city with neat clean roads, modern houses and modern bars & restaurants! I was so disappointed that this did not fit my imagination! And also the people are not huge at all….they were of normal height and weight!
The driver who picked me up told me few things, which I heard often from all the guides in the days to come. Iceland draws the power supply from two sources – water (hydroelectricity70%) and geo thermal (30%). They have natural geo thermal supply from underground and 80% of the places have natural hot water springs. The population is 3,20,000 and Rejkyavik has almost 2,00,000 out of the 3,20,000 and the rest are spread out in the island with small towns/villages of 6,000 people to 12,000 people.
For a population so scarce, I think they have built a country which is very developed. The place is so clean that when I first saw the street, what came to my mind is that one can sleep on the road. I really felt sad that for one street that I live in Bangalore, we are struggling to keep it clean and it appears that we are in for struggle even longer than my life time to have clean roads in the area I live in Bangalore!
My trips were organized through a travel agent (Nordic visitor) and was organized well. There is nothing historic to see in the town of Rejkyavik as the whole country is very young, inhabited only after the 9th century AD by the Norwegian Farmers (called the Vikings) in order to escape from the heavy taxes levied in their country. They did bring along people from Ireland, who I believe were their slaves. Rejkyavik means “smoking baby” as you can see lot of smoke coming out from the natural hot water springs almost in most places in Iceland. I believe the Iceland language has retained its original language that the settlers spoke and all their old books, texts can be read by this generation too. They do have words for all new invented things (i.e after the settlers) in their own language - example a Telephone is called “simi” and computer has some name etc., There is a city sight-seeing tour for 2 hours which one can take just to get familiarized with the city.
There are plenty of excursions available from Rejkyavik to all over places in Iceland. It is nature lovers ‘paradise and also a good place for adventure enthusiast. The temperature is almost around 10 degrees celcius through out summer and I believe in winter it never goes below zero degrees. I took two excursions from Rejkyavik for the next two days. June 23nd I went to see the famous Gullfoss water falls, Geysir (hot water spring) and Pingvellier national park. This is called the Golden circle classic tour and was very beautiful.
The landscape is amazing to see as most of the land is covered by the Lava that would have been erupted by one volcano or the other. Pingvellier lake gives a breathtaking view. It also hosts a place where the Icelanders say their first democratic elections/parliament was held sometime in 12th/13th century by the settlers. They also had their share of sufferings by being handed over from one king to the other outside Iceland as part of the war in other countries! The king of Norway handed over Iceland as part of some settlement to the King of Denmark. Most of the time they were imposed law and rules from outside Iceland by either Norway or Denmark.
The Gullfoss is another breathtaking view. The falls is from the melting glacier and is something that is worth the visit and the travel. For my luck that day was very sunny and no wind. A perfect day to click lots of photographs!.
Geysir is another amazing hot water springs. Every eight to ten minutes, the hot water from the earth erupts like a spring to 8 to 10 mts high. The water is boiling temperature and the air is filled with the smell of sulphur!
The landscape is beautiful with small hills and the farms. The country does not grow any vegetation due to the condition of the soil though now the farmers are trying to grow wheat, potato and vegetables. The farms are basically to grow grass during summer. This is the fodder for the sheeps, lambs, cows and horses during the winter. The main farming is livestock and the other main economic activity is fishing.
For a vegetarian this can be a tough place to be as there is nothing vegetarian in their dishes. The most famous is the lamb soup and of course the various fish dishes. If Vikings had to be vegetarians, by now they would have had four legs by just eating grass! There is nothing that you can grow there to eat! So, by the compulsion of the nature one becomes a meat eater! Or probably the Vikings would have moved on from Iceland and settled somewhere else!
The next day June 24th was not that lucky in terms of sunshine but nevertheless was fine, the clouds were not that harsh. I went on another trip to see Jokulsarlon Glacial lagoon. The landscape on the way is interesting too. We could see the huge fields of dried up lava and also huge land of ash of the recent volcanic (Eyjafjallajokull) eruption. I believe, volcano keep erupting every 4-5 years or every 10 years etc… and each volcano has names so that one identifies and knows their frequency of eruption. Most of the time it is the lava eruption and sometime it is ash. This time the ash eruption was very bad. I believe they had even worse eruption in 18th century which harmed crops all over Europe!
This was a very long journey and we stopped in between to see waterfalls. There are umpteen number of waterfalls coming from various glaciers throughout the journey. The landscape is green and then turns into ash and then turns into the lava fields and then again green…..it goes on.
We reached the glacier lagoon just opposite to the sea at around 2pm in the afternoon. There is boat ride which takes us around the glacier and it is an experience worth having. The sea water (salt water) goes underneath and melts the glacier slowly. So we could see huge ice cubes of glacier standing on the melted water. The boat ride is in between these huge ice cubes of the glacier! There was sunlight for a very small duration when we were there and there after it started raining making it very damp and cold. The guide told us the James Bond movie “Die another day” was shot there. They stopped the flow of the sea water to the Glacier underneath for two weaks and this stopped the melting of Glacier and the lake converted itself into ice. On this the major and interesting part of the shooting was shot for 1 or 2 weeks. The sea water then was restored back to its natural flow! Amazing!
A very nice experience and nature’s wonder!
If it was winter, one could have gone to see the winter lights in the sky. But since the summer is already on and there is long day light, one cannot see the colourful lights in the sky, another natural phenomenon in Iceland.
The next day I went to see the much talked about “Blue Lagoon”. It is natural hot water swimming pool made for tourists. I suggest that one can skip this and go to the public pools where there are natural hot water springs at 38 to 40 degree celcius. Every village / small town will have one swimming pool with the natural hot water springs. It is a ritual to lie down in the natural hot water springs in Iceland. One can skip Blue Lagoon and go to one of these public pools which are available in plenty.
In the city there are plenty of restaurants serving all kinds of dishes - Thai, Mexican, Indian, Italian etc., It is amazing to see how a small country has built everything for them and made it so comfortable for them to live. One needs to have the will power and the Government has to work towards the betterment of the general public. I am not sure when that day will happen in India and whether I will be alive to see that. We only see corruption and our own people loot our country and sell it to others. During the breakfast, when one sees the banana, that grows only in tropical countries in the buffet, one wonders how did they make all this possible, everything for their comfort? And we grow everything on this earth but it is so expensive for us to have it in our own country! Our own people die out of hunger without having enough to eat! What an irony….? I wonder what are our great minds the so called IAS cadre, IPS cadre etc…of the administrative services doing for our country? I am not sure what happens to their great minds once they get into administrative services….
Coming back to Iceland, one can spend more time on the country side, going around the Volcanos’, climbing the glaciers etc… but they are all very expensive trips and also needs lot of time. Iceland is very expensive. All the trips that I took was very expensive, I believe the prices have come down due to the economic conditions, bankruptcy and the volcanic ash. But I found even then, things were very expensive as compared to other European countries. However, one understands that, which is mainly due to lot of imports that they have to do and also too far a distance up in the north!
On our way back from the Glacier the guide also showed us where Bobby Fishcher lived and is buried now! All chess lovers gave our obeisance towards that direction!
Nice way to spend 4-5 days in Rejkyavik and go around to see the wonder of nature! Do it only when you are in Europe and would like to take a short break from the churches and the museums of Europe to explore the nature’s wonder!
I had to go to France and London on work, hence did the detour to Iceland for a short break! Found it really worth the time! Simply clean and neat. No pollution. I can feel the clean air even now!
Some pictures to see in this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12177005@N04/