Costs in Scandinavia

Scandinavia is beautiful, including the landscape, the architecture and the women (it truly is the Land of the Midnight Blonde). It’s also the most expensive place I have ever been, outside New York City and Tokyo. The difference in NYC and Tokyo is that you can still manage to find some things that are reasonably priced if you do some looking around. I haven’t spent that much time up here, but I don’t think that is the case here. It’s just all expensive. Everywhere. Bigger cities or small towns.

Some examples, you ask? Well, sure.

In Oslo, Norway, my bed in a four-bed hostel dorm room cost the equivalent of about $70 U.S. dollars. I had a reasonable, but not exquisite, Indian dinner that night with one beer. Cost = $50 U.S.

On the train from Trondheim north to Bodo, the beers were $10, the hot dogs were $5 each and a cup of coffee was $4. It was an overnight train and in the morning I ended up talking the woman behind the counter to give me a free refill on my coffee, to amortize my cost down to $2 a cup. It felt like a great accomplishment.

I walked by a Burger King in Trondheim. The cheeseburgers were $3 each. The Whooper meal (Whooper, fries and a drink) would run you $12. The Snickers bars were $4 each at the train station. I ate a $10 basic ham and cheese sandwich for dinner. I passed on the $10 beer, which wasn’t even a full liter, but 6/10s of one. I got in late to Trondheim and got stranded there, so I had to get a hotel room. The first room I asked about was $220. The Comfort Inn was only $190. I managed to find a place for about $100.

By the way, here is how I got stranded. Once again, I screwed up. In Oslo, I was doing some research on how to get all the way north to Hammerfest, the supposed northernmost city in the world. The guidebooks say there is a thirty-hour bus from Oslo to there, but I asked the bus companies when I got in and none of them go that far north. In fact, they don’t even go to the middle of the country. The Norwegian train system would get me about halfway up Norway, to the town of Bodo. The train information people then said that they thought I could catch three or four local buses up to Hammerfest.

They also said that if I bought the train ticket from them, it would cost about $200, but if I used the self-service machine that I’d be able to get the ticket much cheaper. They were right, I got it for about $50 from the machine. The problem was that I got it for the wrong day. I thought I was leaving the next day (the 28th), but I inadvertently must have punched the 29th instead. I didn’t notice until I was on board the first train, which went half way there, to Trondheim. The conductor said my ticket was find and let me stay on the train. I wasn’t so lucky on the second, overnight train from there to Bodo. That conductor said I was traveling the wrong day and wouldn’t let me keep going. Therefore, an expensive overnight in Trondheim.

I stopped in Bodo to buy some groceries at a local store to take onto the ship I am on for three nights and four days, taking me to the very top of Norway and dropping me off near Russia. I figured that I would buy most of the food that I would eat on the boat there, to save as much money as I could, seeing as the boat fare more than ate up my daily budget (almost exactly $500 for the three nights). Here is what I got for 302.47 Norwegian krones, which is exactly $51.70:

• two loafs of bread
• one slice of Brie cheese
• one slice of Port Salut cheese
• two packages of sliced salami (about 30-40 thin pieces)
• two bags of potato chips
• six bananas and
• five hundred grams of grapes.

Thank God I didn’t start my trip here, before I had any idea about cost control.

On the train ride today up to meet the boat in Bodo, I experienced another first for me: first time across the Arctic Circle. Right about that time, I also came to the full realization that I am a tad bit underprepared for the weather I am likely to experience the next few weeks. There is snow on the ground up here. It’s not covering everything yet, but in the areas that the train went through that did have snow, it was not just a light dusting.

I remember when I was very young and I lived in Wisconsin, which I still consider the far north, we’d all wonder if it would snow by Thanksgiving. Well, its still September here. I’m not at any sort of elevation that would bring the cold earlier. It’s the end of September and its simply cold. Not frigid cold, but still see-your-breath in the middle of the day cold. It wasn’t snowing in Bodo this afternoon. . . it was sleeting as I boarded the ship.

One fleece that I bought in Germany. One sweater that I bought in Peru. That’s all I’ve got. I really do not want to buy any more warm clothing – it takes up lots of room in my backpack (though I’d probably just be wearing it every day) and I’d just have to give it away in a few weeks, when I turn back to summer.

I had multiple goals on this trip, but I think that the “12 months of summer travel” has run headfirst into “southernmost and northernmost city on the same trip.” You can’t mess with Mr. Freeze Miser.



Then again, it did give me an idea for another book. If I can get the first one published.

Hmmmm -- that's a lot of miles

OK, I spent all of today (since I screwed up my train ticket and didn't buy it for the right night train -- rocket scientist I am), working out my general plan to get from here to Hanoi by my target date of October 24th. Upon further review, I really do want to make that date now, if for no other reason that to see if I can. The last five or six weeks has been too easy (and expensive -- I need to get to Southeast Asia fast).

I think I left Berlin on the 25th of September, on the day I got my passport back with my China and Russian visas. I took a train from there to Malmo, Sweden overnight. Spent the night with my first couchsurfer (www.couchsurfing.com -- really good travel resource I should have been using more). Took the bus the next day to Oslo. Then the train the next day to Trondheim, where I am right now.

I should have then taken the overnight train that left an hour later to Bodo, Norway, halfway up the length of this long country, but it turns out when I bought my train ticket out of the machine in Oslo, I punched the wrong date and actually had a ticket for the 29th, not the 28th, so they wouldn't let me on the train. So, I'm taking the "correct" train in a few hours.

From Bodo, I will hop on a boat for four days that cruises up the coast to Hammerfest, my destination, the northernmost city in the world. It then continues on over the top of Norway and I get dropped off on the Russian border, at Kirkenes. One of the bonuses of going this way (aside from the pictures I am assuming I will be snapping the whole way), is that it is a working ferry boat that stops at every little town along the way. There are some towns north of Hammerfest -- though they claim they are the northernmost 'city,' so whatever is the northernmost whatever. . . I'm hitting it.

http://www.hurtigruten.com/norway/Fleet/Hurtigrutens-fleet-/MS-Nordlys/

that is the link to the ship I will be on for three nights/four days.

From there I take a bus to Murmansk, Russia. Then a train to St. Petersburg. Short stop there to pay homage to Crime and Punishment, which diligent readers with recognize as one of the banes of my existence on this trip. Then train to Moscow. Then a long, long train to Ulaanbaatar, Monogolia, where I will get off for a look-see for a bit. Then another train to Bejing. Then probably a place or two in China, and finally Hanoi.

In less than a month. This might not seem as difficult to you, as you sit there, as it now does to me, that I have finally researched it. That procrastination thing just puts off the pain of doing or knowing something, it never really does make it go away, does it?

Pull out a map or globe or check out googlemaps online. This is a long way.

I was able to get a very rough idea of the mileage by pulling up a website that has distances between places as the crow/airplane flies. Obviously, my route is going to be a bit longer, seeing as I am more the tortoise than the crow, but it will give you a reasonable idea.

I calculate it at approximately 7,300 miles (or 13,000 kilometers). Some perspective. That is L.A. to New York City. Three times. For my European friends, it is London to Cape Town. . . then back up to Harare, Zimbabwe.

If I make it by October 24th, I am celebrating with a great dinner. Perhaps some good local food, with a very nice bottle of French wine, to celebrate one of the cultures that has permeated Vietnam. And 'cause I love wine.

I'm buying. Anyone up for some eats? There is time to book a ticket.

Blogging the bus

So I am currently on a bus from Malmo, Sweden (right across from Copenhagen -- you can see it from there) to Oslo, Norway. I am in the process of making a mad dash up to the northernmost city in the world, Hammerfest, Norway. That will make the southernmost and the northernmost on this same trip. I had to wait around for a damn long time in Germany, waiting on my visa company back in the U.S. to get my Russian and Chinese visas for me for the next stage in the journey.

The next four weeks are going to be travel crazy. From here, I need to get to Hammerfest (hopefully the buses are still running -- the internet says they run through September, which means I am cutting it close), then back down somehow to Helsinki. Down to St. Petersburg, to celebrate finally finishing Crime and Punishment. Then down to Moscow, where I will catch the Trans-Mongolian to Bejing, with a stop in Ulan Bator, on a good friend's recommendation. Then to Shanghi and, if I have time, quickly to Tokyo and back. Then from there down to Hanoi.

All in about a month. My target date for Hanoi is October 24th.

Not sure that is possible, but I do love being on the road. This stretch will be the true test of that, for sure. If I was any good with google maps or the various internet tools, I'd be able to pull up the rough mileage I am going for in this month. I know its going to be a high number -- perhaps I shouldn't try to find out.

And today brings another first for me. Internet on the bus. When I hopped on the bus, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were power plugs, so that I could write some and watch some video on the nine hour ride. Turned my computer on at the bus station and habitually hit the icon to see about internet, thinking there may be free internet at the station while I waited to leave. Voila. Internet on the bus. While moving. How cool is that??