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Life After Iceland
Respect re-restored for India
Though I was sad about leaving Iceland, I couldn’t wait to get back to India. I had this new found pride for my country. Before this trip, I too belonged to the group of whiners who just complained about how everything’s wrong with this country. The scams, politicians, gang-rapes…it really was depressing to watch the news anymore. I always used to wonder why does anyone travel to India? To see the the filth, chaos, to get constantly hassled by beggars or is it just bloody cheap here inspite of getting ripped off?
It’s a pity that it needed outsiders to make me realize how beautiful my country is. And when they tell you how beautiful your country is, suddenly you start thinking. How they enjoyed the little things in India that I had usually ignored. And when you are traveling to a foreign place, where people are curious to know about your country, you suddenly become the spokesperson for your nation. Surprisingly I just couldn’t stop talking about my country, it’s diversity of cultures and it’s generous hospitality. Felt great to be an Indian even though I had to go all the way to Iceland to feel that.
Missing Iceland like crazy
It was difficult to switch back to the daily routine. All I could think was those beautiful 14 days. I was still hung over Iceland. To relive the experiences, I used to go through the photos daily and then watch the beautiful Sigur Ros (Icelandic band) videos.
I don’t know how to conclude about this journey. Feels more like the beginning. The beginning of many more journeys. At the end of the day we all have a choice – We can either to stick to the same old routine and be another brick in the wall or we can dare to do something different. An year ago I was browsing through a link about Iceland as the place to visit before you die. And what followed was a journey of planning, obstacles, criticism, and triumph. Now that I have already travelled the destination, it is that hard bitter journey towards it, which feels more special than the destination.
In Iceland – The Land of Fire and Ice
As I was standing near the exit of Keflavik airport, it looked sunny outside those sliding glass doors. Just 10 feet away from my dream destination, I still couldn’t believe I made it till here. As a moment of celebration, I stepped outside for a smoke and it was bloody cold and windy. I got a small taste of what I can expect for the whole trip.
Meeting Witold and Agata
Our first stay was at Keflavik through couchsurfing. This was also my first experience in couchsurfing. Not a bad experience at all. Finally, Witold and Agata arrived. We decided check out the town. The streets of Keflavik wore a deserted look. Empty streets, big shops that were all closed by 6pm. I started to like what I was seeing.
Next morning we were all geared to begin our epic journey armed with the printouts from Regina’s travel pages.
The Route
I will rather let the pictures do the talking. Here are my favourite moments from Iceland –
All geared up
The planning
All set
Food and Liquor
Eating out in restaurants can be quite expensive. But there is a way around. There are couple of low cost supermarkets – Bonus and Kronan. Lots of varieties to choose from breads, fruits, and noodles. Carry a small portable gas stove, which will be very handy. Again drinking in bars is not that cheap here. There are State owned liquor places, mostly besides these supermarket known as Vinbudin. Get your stock from here.
Day 1 (Snæfellsnes – Arnarstapi – Stykkishólmur)
Arnastapi
Cliff formations by the sea with a breathtaking view. I could just spend hours here doing nothing. You can spot fulmars here laying their nests between the rocks.
Stykkishólmur
We camped here for the 1st night. Don’t recall the name of the camping site, but it was close to a basketball court. I remember shivering with three layers of clothing while some kids were playing basketball at 11 in the night wearing t-shirts and shorts. They sure knew how to make maximum use of daylight hours. Our first encounter with rain that night. We had a hard time setting up the tents with strong winds blowing. I just closed my eyes and was glad to see myself alive the next morning.
Cost at the camping site – free as nobody was there and it is only open after 1st June.
Day 2 (Stykkishólmur – Hvítserkur – Blönduós)
The sea tour at Stykkishólmur
This is one of the must-do things in Iceland. This 2.5 hour boat trip takes you around the Breiðafjörður islands (Breiðafjörður – broad fjords. Fjords – A long, narrow, deep inlet of the sea between high cliffs, as in Norway and Iceland, typically formed by submergence of a glaciated valley). Each island has a history which is well described by the guide on the boat. For 2.5 hours, you are surrounded by stunning landscapes, seas shimmering from the clear blue skies above, the beautiful puffins, the noisy Arctic terns and the witty narration of the Captain. At the end there’s a feast of shellfish and some creatures which were still moving and very tasty.
Vatnsnes Peninsula
On the way to Blonduos, circle around the Vatnsnes peninsula. The amazing rock formation at Hvítserkur cannot be missed. It’s simply stunning. And if you are lucky enough, there might be some seals resting on the shore.
2nd night halt at Blönduós
Again, I don’t remember the name of this particular camping site. It was a small bar and the owner lived in the basement. The owner was an interesting old man who was kind enough to let us use his kitchen. The camping site was just beside a small lake. The sight was just so beautiful that we didn’t feel like returning to our tents. And how could we – it was midnight and the sun hadn’t set yet!!! The next morning the owner engaged us in an interesting activity. He had this hobby of collecting hand imprints from different countries. Luckily, Poland and India were missing from his collection. First traveler from India…ahh…that was a proud feeling.
Cost – 500 ISK for each tent with shower/kitchen facilities.
Day 3 (Blönduós – Akuryeri – Myvatn)
Blönduós to Akureyri
The road from Blonduos to Akuryeri is picturesque. Snow on both sides of the empty roads. The scenery was so breathtaking that we had to stop many times for pictures.
Akureyri Swimming Pool
Since Blue Lagoon was off the list, we had decided to try out lesser known geo-thermal pools. And this one at Akureyri didn’t disappoint at all. After 3 days on the road, this felt amazingly refreshing. I don’t know which was more weird…being the only non-white guy in the pool or seeing everybody naked in the changing/shower room. ‘Different countries…Different cultures’. 🙂
Witek sharing a light moment
3rd night camping site in the backdrop of Myvatn.
Day 4 (Myvatn – Dettifoss – Egilsstaðir)
Myvatn
Now this is the jewel of Iceland. One full day here is a must. This is where Iceland shows you why it is called the ‘Land of Fire and Ice’. It is really amazing to see these contrasting elements exist together. Volcanic mountains on one side…snow-capped mountains on the other. Lava fields and frozen lakes. Sulphur fumes coming from the boiling mud pools and just a couple of kilometres away it’s snowing. And all these places are close by.
Mt. Krafla
My favourite place in Iceland. The parking spot is surrounded by boulders of snow. The ice here has a blue colour to it. As you start ascending a little further, you can see the crater with a frozen lake inside. It felt like the entire landscape was painted in only 2 colours – blue skies, white snow, blue ice, white clouds, blue frozen lake. Truly a magical place.
Dettifoss Waterfall
Located in the North eastern part of Iceland, this is the Europe’s most powerful waterfall. You can hear the sounds of the waterfall from the parking lot. As you approach the waterfall, you can see a beautiful rainbow if it’s sunny. The ruthless waterfall with a backdrop of the rainbow does create quite a spectacle.
Night halt at Egilsstaðir
The night before my birthday. 🙂 It was here we had our first real encounter with a local. We were sitting in the bar and this friendly guy joins us. We start chatting up and in no time we are invited to his place to spend the night. The dream of spending a night in an Icelandic house started to seem real until an argument started between our new friend and the manager of the camping site. The manager was upset about his business being swindled off. But it wasn’t too late when we realized that our friend was actually drunk and now we wern’t sure about his invitation even though he kept insisting us. We decided to stick with the camping site. As others started to leave, it was just me listening to him. After keeping quiet for sometime, I made the mistake of talking by asking about his children. All of a sudden he became grim and tears started to roll down. He couldn’t stop crying about how his son wouldn’t visit him and how lonely he had become. I felt bad as I left him. I celebrated my birthday cutting an extra large pizza with my mind still wandering amid mixed feelings.
Day 5 (Egilsstaðir – Djupivogur)
Djupivogur
This was a complete detour from our itinerary. We met some fishermen on the road who turned out to be Polish. They took us to their place of work and gave us a guided tour of the fishing factory. Then they invited us to stay at their place. Our dream of spending a night in an Icelandic home finally came true. The gracious hosts prepared fish for us and offered their homemade wine. One crazy night. The best things are often those that are not planned.
Day 6 (Djupivogur – Jökulsárlón – Skaftafell)
Jökulsárlón Glaciers
The most awaited destination on the itinerary. I call this place as the cover photo of Iceland. It was very windy when we reached there. Had a hard time holding the camera still but worth all the trouble. This place is a photographer’s paradise.
Fun fact – Die Another Day and Batman Begins were shot here.
Day 7 (Skaftafell – Vik – Skógafoss)
Vik
The rainiest part of Iceland. And not surprisingly, it was raining when we reached the Vik beach. And it was here I got my perfect shot of Puffin (the most popular bird in Iceland) after staring at its ass for ten minutes in the rain. The Vik beach is listed as one of the ten most beautiful beaches of world. And it is indeed quite beautiful in it’s own unique way. Vast stretches of black sand/pebbles with hardly any soul around. Your own private beach!!!
Night halt at Skógafoss
A business based on Trust. Amazing attitude.
The camping site was equipped with kitchen/shower facilities.
Cost – 1200 ISK
Day 8 (Skógafoss – Gulfoss – Geysir – Thingvellir)
Gullfoss
Another spectacular waterfall. Its part of the Golden circle tour. It’s a tough comparison to make between Gullfoss and Dettifoss. If Dettifoss is the ferocious warrior, then Gullfoss is the gorgeous queen.
Geysir
This is something unique and I guess can only be seen in Iceland. Hot springs erupting upto heights of 10 – 15 metres makes quite a spectacle. And yes, you have to be patient enough to catch the glimpse of these eruptions.
Night halt at Thingvellir
Free stay once again for couple of days. The cold had really started to get to me. My lips started to crack and I had this tired feeling quite often. Decided to sleep in the warm laundry room.
Day 9 (Thingvellir)
Beautiful landscapes with lava fields and moss. Lovely place to have those long peaceful walks.
Day 10, 11, 12 (Reykjavik)
The capital of Iceland. Nice place to settle down after the beautiful journey around the island. Food and liquor can be expensive. As I have mentioned in the Food and Liquor section, get your stock from lowcost supermarkets around the city. But you can still target the happy hours in the bars around the city.
List of happy hours in Reykjavik –
Flea market
It’s very close to a magnificent piece of structure known as Harpa. Good place to get Icelandic woolen sweaters and also taste the local delicacy, rotten shark. It is open only on weekends.
Icelandic Phallological museum
You have to definitely see this. It’s hilarious and very creative. Never seen anything like this anywhere. 1000 ISK well spent. 🙂
Random pics
A perfect shot by Witek. 🙂
The Lebowski Bar – Didn’t try it even though it seemed like an interesting place from outside. Not because I belonged to any of the mentioned categories but I was just too tired. 🙂
Sun Voyager waterfront
Was so tempted to go inside and ask how to immigrate
It was difficult to bid goodbye to this magical place and all I kept thinking was different ways to immigrate here. Iceland is way more beautiful than these pictures. I hope this place retains it beauty for the years to come and is not ruined by excessive tourism. Iceland makes you feel royal. The empty streets, the deserted look of the airports, the lonely vast beaches – gives you a feeling that you are only person on this planet, which makes you value yourself more. People often ask me how much did the trip cost…and I just feel like saying…14 memorable days of my life.
Iceland – The planning and the chaos
This phase was one of the toughest of my life. I had decided to do something that was considered ridiculous by my family and friends.
Why ridiculous?
I come from a conservative Indian family and so does 90% of India. For us, travelling is limited to Goa, a honeymoon in Italy (if you are rich) or going on a guided tour around the city. Travelling is something that doesn’t come naturally to me or the people I know. I was at the stage of my life where the next logical things to do as per society routine were to buy a house, get married, have kids, be a good grandfather and die eventually.
So when I announced that I wanted to go to Iceland, it was madness ofcourse.
“What is this guy thinking?” “Has he completely lost it?” “Why are you wasting your hard earned money?”
Those were common responses. Even by own standards, I thought this was crazy. I questioned myself many times..’Was I really ready for this?’ This was a trip that will involve lots of ‘Firsts’.
First time outside India.
First time camping.
First time travelling without my friends/family.
First time I am going to see snow.
Inspite of the staunch opposition and lots of counseling, I decided to stick to my decision of going to Iceland. When you are staring at a picture of Iceland, every criticism falls into deaf ears.
So how it all began?
The only memory of Iceland I had was while filling the nationality column in online forms where Iceland used to pop-up while searching for India. And it all started when I came across some pictures on a website. The landscape was so mesmerizing that it was love at first sight.
The normal routine after seeing these pictures would have been to mark these places in your wish list and keep dreaming about them for the rest of your lives. But that day something unusual happened. I don’t remember whether I was drunk or sober that night but the next thing I know it was 5.30 in the morning and I had been researching non-stop about Iceland for the last 5 hours.
Fixing the budget
I had fixed a budget of 1 lakh rupees for the whole trip when I began planning. I decided that if the cost of the trip exceeds the budget, I won’t go. With the rupee value higher than Icelandic krona and Iceland unfortunately still recovering from the effects of recession, Iceland on a budget seemed possible. A rough breakup of the budget-
Flight tickets – 55k
Car rental and fuel – 15k
Stay – 15 k
Miscellaneous – 15k
Convincing friends
Now that I had made up my mind, how do I convince my friends? I explained them the budget and tempted them with pictures. Though they seemed to be excited with the plans, none of them gave me a confirmed response. I decided to make the itinerary first and then focus on convincing them.
Itinerary – the biggest headache
‘To cover the best of Iceland in 12 days’ – keeping that in mind, I started designing the itinerary. But this was not as easy as it sounded. Different sites recommended different things. Some said you can’t miss the Northern Lights, some said a visit to the Blue Lagoon is a must. I ended up with so many places that it was impossible to cover them in 12 days. Also the names of these places were a big pain to remember. Forget about remembering, you can’t even pronounce them. After 2 months of brainstorming, I had nothing to show.
Regina – the saviour
With repeated failures to design the itinerary, I finally stumbled upon Regina’s page on Virtualtourist.com. Her travel pages are like an encyclopedia for anybody travelling to Iceland. I got to see Iceland from a local’s point of view rather from a commercialized travel site. The little unknown places that only the locals would know; that’s the sort of places I want in my itinerary. With a detailed account of all the places, I finally had a guide from where I could design the itinerary. After reading her pages, I made an itinerary for 12 days covering the best places of Iceland. I sent her the itinerary and she helped me fine tune it to make it the best possible itinerary. If you are planning to travel Iceland, do check her pages:
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/m/f4b0a/
Sorry…where is this Iceland?
This was the common response from travel agents when I inquired about tickets. Though makemytrip.com did offer the cheapest deal, I was little hesitant to book it online. This was until I found out that they also had a office in Andheri.
When to go?
This was a tricky part. After comparing prices, May seemed to be the best option because it falls in the winter (off season) and also has almost 18 hours of daylight. June – August is usually considered as the summer season and also the peak season for tourism. The differences in prices for these two seasons can be very high. The downside to travelling in winter is that many inland roads might be closed and also it is going to be extremely cold.
| Prices | Climate | Daylight | Advantage | |
| Summer (June – Aug) | Expensive | Bearable temperatures | Average 20-22 hours | Maximum time to travel with more daylight hours |
| Winter (September – April) | Relatively cheaper | Extremely cold | 4 – 12 | Chance to see the Northern Lights. Christmas and New year is a great time to be in Rejkyavik but the prices are higher during this time. |
| Winter (May) | Relatively cheaper | Still cold | 18 hours | Maximum time to travel with more daylight hours at cheaper prices than June – Aug |
For instance, a rental car that will cost you 50 euros in the winter season, will cost 80 in the summer.
Temperatures in °F
Source – http://goscandinavia.about.com/od/icelan1/ss/weathericeland.htm
Going solo
It didn’t came as surprise when my friends backed out eventually. I realized that it’s not fair to blame them as this was my dream and only I can achieve it. I started reading different experiences of solo travellers but was still nervous about travelling alone.
The Team
After lots of searching, I finally met Witold Rybski from Poland on Virtaltourist.com. He and his wife, Agata, had posted a request to share a car for a 10 day trip. We connected and luckily he liked my itinerary too. The flight tickets had already touched 65k; 10k more than 2 weeks before. I didn’t wait for their confirmation and booked the tickets. But fortunately they confirmed and everything slowly started to fall in place. With one seat still to be filled, I connected with Marie from Canada just 2 weeks before the trip on couchsurfing. Finally, the team was formed. Three continents coming together for one destination. I think travelling without my friends was a blessing in disguise; this was going to be a great learning experience. Travelling with regular backpackers and the joy of listening to their backpacking experiences – priceless.
The criticism and the obstacles
As the day of my departure started nearing, the obstacles also became more fierce. The criticism started getting more aggressive. So-called friends ridiculed me by telling not to spoil India’s name there. I started to wonder who these people are..Brand ambassadors of India? It’s really amazing that in situations like these you realize who your real friends are. For my family, the biggest concern was not the money but my relatives’ reactions. They wanted me to get married first and then go such places. The criticism started motivating me further. Maybe I wanted to prove a point that travelling is not just for the rich. But the obstacles just kept creeping up.
The biggest obstacle was Visa. The Visa requirement stated hotel reservations for the entire trip and IT-returns for the last 3 years. As staying in hotels was not my plan, I was completely clueless on how to work this out. Also. I had never filed my tax returns ever and now I was left rushing to my former employers for Form-16 and other documents. Then if that was not enough to demotivate me, they also wanted me to have a minimum bank balance of 1 lakh rupees. It seemed like the entire world was trying hard to stop me from going. All I want is to visit a beautiful place on my planet. Is it too much to ask for? Was travelling really for the rich?
Visa – The last bridge
With no hotel reservations and the flight return ticket already booked, I went ahead and submitted my application. I was at a high risk of losing all my savings if something went wrong here.
I still remember that moment with the Visa officer and her blank look when she saw my application. She asked me to wait for 5 minutes and went inside to consult with her senior. Those five minutes seemed like ages and my heart was beating rapidly. I suddenly went into flashback. Am I going to lose my flight money? Was this a stupid decision afterall? I was already imagining my family ready to show off their ‘Told you so’ look. Finally the Visa officer came back with a tense face and I became more tense. She looked at me and said, “You are lucky. He has accepted your application.” Those words will always remain with me forever. I felt like kissing her but I was rather in shock and still not sure of what the fuck just happened. Am I really going to Iceland? I went outside and sat at the Marine Drive looking over the sea. As I lit up a cigarette for this moment of celebration, only one thought kept popping in my head over and over again.
Am I really going to Iceland? Am I really going to Iceland?
Hell yeah…Iceland baby!!! Here I come!!!