Completely normal everyday life (in India)

Every night, those two stray dogs that have claimed my floor in the monastery as their territory, fight furiously to keep the floor clear of the invasion of monkeys. Sometimes the growling and fierce barking mixes with screams when some courageous ape dares to touch the floor. After about a week of disturbed sleep I start hallucinating about how the monks are really shapeshifters who take on a canine form to guard me through the night.

Morning starts before sunrise when the gongs call for meditation. I ignore them and wake up well after sunrise to the creaking of cicada mixing with the traffic that sounds like it was denser than it really is. I grab my water bottle, toothbrush and -paste, the essential strip of toilet paper, lock my clanging metal door with a padlock and head for a cold shower and the hole in the ground.

To get anywhere, I have to walk up and down in a town that seems to be solely made out of stairs and hillsides, located almost two kilometers higher of my normal habitat. The first five days I have no appetite and breathe heavily while struggling uphill on the streets. After only a few days I suddenly find that the way to my room is fairly flat. Then the panging hunger arrives, leaving me bouncing between the endless variety of restaurants and culminating with a bucket on my bedside the night before I plan to climb the nearby 3km high pretty hill.


My way towards chai and a meal goes through the theoretically left-hand, but in practice the-biggest-bossiest-and-loudest-car-hand traffic. I arrive at the usual meeting point past construction workers dressed in colourful saris carrying bricks on their heads; swarms of red-cloaked monks and nuns on their daily walks; shoe doctor and rice porridge salesman; cows and goats having breakfast in rubbish piles; dog mafia that keeps a keen eye on their territory by fighting outsiders and befriending humans; and monkeys doing, well, monkey business.


I have a rendezvous with some other sleepy lone travelers who have happened to stick together since the first night in McLeod Ganj. Before moving on, we buy sweet milk tea from a hole in the wall and bread wrapped in newspaper from a wrinkly old man sitting on the street. It's 6am, the sun has just risen, and the plan for today is to walk almost an hour through the forest to attend the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan Children's Village school and hear the Dalai Lama speak.

On the way uphill two dogs join our pack. They want to hear the speech too but need protection from the schoolyard gang and they will not be easily deterred. Once the speeches begin we all bundle up like a litter of puppies to snooze in the stinging hot sunshine on the school stairs. All the school ceremonies in the world are the same - deadly boring. When the Dalai Lama finally starts speaking, it's clear that the boredom doesn't derive simply from the incomprehensible Tibetan language: although I still don't understand a word I find his speech captivating. I conclude that it doesn't matter what you say at all until you know how to ooze charisma.

When evening falls, at 6pm sharp, we meet again in the community cafe called Cafe Panda to eat the absolutely heavenly chocolate-peanut butter momos, drink more chai, cuddle the cutest ever week-old puppy called Panda, help some old refugees learn English, watch the reflection of the sunset on distant snowy peaks, then see a more or less documental movie about Tibetan struggles for independence or enjoy an open mic session. Other options include Italian restaurants and excellent pizza, open air bars that serve the best banana lassi in town or a French bakery with a view on prayer flags and green hills. All that comes accompanied by frequent electricity blackouts. Sitting in a dark cafe in the monastery waiting for dinner is something to live for.


There's so much life going on in McLeod Ganj that I have no real reason to leave. Additional benefits of the higher latitudes and altitudes include clear air. When I first arrived in Delhi, I could look straight into the orange sun with the naked eye and closely observe the movements of grey air creeping into my lungs. The glimpses of roadside lush greenness seen while hanging halfway out of train door was mostly in my imagination as the green didn't quite show through the thick layer of dust. Up here, we have views! I can see not only the sun but also the lopsided moon and the stars forming familiar constellations at weird angles. Also, I still have that mountain to climb before I can move on.

Should picking grapes be considered extreme sport?

We are all insane here!


... and then we all jump into the back of a small truck and have a ride onto the fields, bundled up on the wooden floor like gypsies, legs hanging out of the open side door. Safety? What's that? Hanging out the door is the only way to get a dubious whiff of clean air where the thick mix I'm constantly forced to breathe in contains all the known smokable fauna at once. Several times I am asked why I don't smoke. What can I say? We come from such different universes - where I come from, I would never even imagine the possibility of this question.

There's this one war veteran that holds infinite heated conversations with his imaginary friends and another one, equally crazy but more so from the old age, who keeps laughing at him, and sometimes they talk, laugh and call each other insane - it's hilarious even though I don't understand a word;

there are these smug old countrymen who keep calling me a petite gazelle until they realize that it's a genuine 4x4 off-road vehicle they're making dirty jokes to, and adopt more respectful manners;

there are these girls mixing milk, rum and coffee in a plastic bottle early every morning to have a wake-up cocktail on the fields; there's this boy cutting brown smokable matter into 20-Euro cubes in the bedroom where I'm stealing my usual 8-minute siesta after lunch;

there are those two dudes playing drums - and doing it very well - with a huge cooking pot, singing their one-word-song called Merde while someone lights a gigantic joint, someone juggles, someone plays guitar and sings, someone repeats stupid teenagers' jokes, someone plays chess, someone chats and laughs together with yet another invisible friend and someone chuckles at the surreality of all of it, refuses all drinks offered, reads quantum physics, goes to sleep and wakes up much too early believing she must have quantum leaped into one of those alternative realities.



The eighth day. Another steep hill, another rainy afternoon. As our grumpy team picks and carries its way up, we see something mysterious: another team of vendangeurs drives in, hops off the truck and runs downhill, singing. On the neighbouring field, they are obviously singing and dancing much more than working. We look at them, stunned: they can't be real workers! They are too happy! Then these mystical creatures rush onto our field, pouring their thick dark red wine into our mouths straight from the barrel, shouting that we are too cute to be left here like this.

When their boss arrives, I am convinced it's a theatrical set-up: he looks like a real-life leprechaun, exactly the kind that I met a few times when I was hitching in Brittany last year. He comes from Brittany, too. I conclude that my leap into fairy world really happened.

But it was not all fun and games: the emotions peaked both very high and very low, changing their polarisation fast.

There was always sweat


It's the dawn of the fourth day and I'm about to head onto the fields. The work is very hard but we are fed no worse than kings. The muscles of my back are tense and sore but at this precise moment, at least not painful, which is already a huge improvement. Also, I can feel them growing. Literally.

I drop off straight after dinner with the sun at 8 o'clock and sleep like a good baby straight through until breakfast between 6 and 7 in the morning. During the day - work and eat, with the emphasis on working, of course. I work until I fall off my feet and then some more. This too, I mean literally.

From the very beginning I decide to approach the experience like it was a sports camp: I stretch, eat, sleep and stay away from the wine they start serving at 9am with the second breakfast. As a result, the mighty vastus lateralis that grew on me this summer got a matching pair of erector spinæ.

The work is physically very hard, especially so for the porters who walk up and down steep hillsides and climb ladders with about 60-80kg of grapes on their backs. I gaze at these superheroes in awe until on the seventh day I wake up feeling particularly brave and become one of the few porteuses ever known. Surprisingly enough, this job tires me much less than crouching over to cut the grapes, and I continue stomping those 30° slopes for 4 days.

Le bonbon is unveiled only after we have proved our worth as workers: in the very last evening we are directed onto a slope so steep that all exhaustion that I might have felt is blown right away by the adrenaline that kicks in. I am not the one to carry a heavy load down a 70° slope that triggers endless jokes about missing ropes, harnesses and parachutes. There, even cutters keep falling over and sliding down and I have to apply all my wall climbing experience to balance. Needless to say that all the remaining porters instantly restore their unshakable status as superheroes.


It's day 13 and I just had my last shower. However, it doesn't mean that I have any clean clothes to wear: I swear that my socks are not only standing on their own but also walk by their own means!

There was often blood

Be that drunk cutters slicing their fingers and sneaking their sauces into the wine or be that tired cutters stumbling over everything at the end of the working days. There was definitely blood on that one fateful occasion out of hundreds when I decided to trust the ladder and skipped the usual triple double check before climbing it with a very heavy load on my back.


But of course, wine out-flowed all blood by long measure. Most days I took my half a glass of wine after dinner but as for others - our ~30-headed team had 600 litres of wine prescribed for the duration of "10 days or whenever the work is done" and many went into the village to buy extra. No wonder about the blood then.

There were sometimes tears


The end? Day 11, afternoon, about half a day before the initially predicted end of vendanges: I quit and walked away at zero minutes' notice, having promptly decided that our boss is too nuts to be tolerated any longer. It's about time someone shows some attitude. But really, I was choking in tears and leaving was more in line with my principles than lighting a(nother) joint as seems to be the prevalent strategy around here. Nor am I proficient enough in the 'swearing like a sailor' vocabulary in French to sound as convincing as the others do; my actions will serve as body language.

Day 12. Nope, that was not the end. I let the other inmates of this lunatic asylum convince me to stay. To be honest, another day's salary is very appealing and the curiosity to see the end of this comedy show too big to leave yet. From now on I keep my distance from the heart of the forever ongoing nuclear attacks and stay well hidden behind grape bushes while picking my way uphill. Thus I occasionally get to laugh at various incredulous scenes that would turn me mad were I their subject.

The incident of a flying ladder, followed shortly by a separate incident of flying humans which was in turn followed by an incident of flying buckets... and soon followed by the incident of flying grapes as a direct result of an effort to prevent another bloody incident of a flying ladder. Result: tears, lots and lots of tears. The next tears - lots and lots of tears - poured out of the eyes of a grown man whose self esteem had received a good beating on behalf of an evil rake; and the next after these flowed when another girl was badly insulted and the next after those when... Double X chromosome comes with a licence to cry whenever need be (and no other combination is denied this privilege either).


I would totally do it again, by the way. If not for anything else then for the most amazing sunrises over the distant Mont Blanc. That sun - it never rose quietly. When it came out, it came accompanied by a symphonic orchestra starting with a loud bang and as a porter I had the full privilege to stand upright and enjoy it. At all other times, it was the main theme of Kusturica's "Black Cat, White Cat" that didn't stop playing in my head.

Where did all the heroes go?

Scorching our mighty artistic tans even more artistic, the hot weather was pretty much all that Finland had to offer us. The change from Norway was abrupt and radical, starting the moment we crossed the border and only becoming more pronounced as we moved on towards the darker nights.

Having become accustomed to the talkative, outdoorsy nation, it was hard to believe the words of a French cyclist who we met in Olderfjord. He had done our planned route in the opposite direction and had just finished pedalling his way up through Finland. Obviously, we tried to squeeze some information out of him, including the answer to the question that interested us the most: How was it?


While praising the beauty of the endless forests, he couldn't help but mention that everyone he met in this country, was drunk. And I mean drunk! Like really, really, really drunk! We'll see and judge that when we get there, we thought, knowing already that people are like bugs - whether you attract flies or butterflies depends on more factors than simply where you are.

Soon, we learned that he knew exactly what he was talking about.

Whether trying to catch the eye of passers-by in an attempt to be polite and say Hi or simply smile and nod, or trying to be chatty with waitresses and cashiers, we quickly learned to keep our eyes firmly on the road. With a few friendly exceptions, almost anyone who came to acknowledge us was dead drunk and generally more interested in our breasts than our itinerary, thus ruining our bread-and-chocolate breaks (because, unfortunately, Finnish and Estonian are sufficiently close for me to understand their drunken raving). Then again, I can't blame people for shutting themselves off or boozing themselves up if the best entertainment around is several hundreds of kilometres of forest to gaze at. You gotta find a way to open up some new dimensions in the world!

In contrast, the people we stayed with near Rovaniemi, in Oulu and Helsinki, were all exceptionally friendly and interesting personalities, shining new light onto their country. Without them, we would have been lost in dullness!

After finding our way out of Oulu we hit the straightest possible road to the South expecting it to continue as it was before. To me, almost every single hour in Finland felt like I had just sneaked out for a short afternoon ride in the outskirts of Tallinn and would be home shortly. The difference was that home never actually arrived. Do I need to stress that it became quite frustrating after a week? Even on the boat to Helsinki the realisation that it was finished didn't hit me until I finally saw the famous "sardine tin" silhouette of Tallinn glistening in the sun. It was a very special moment.


We hadn't actually used any maps since the Lofoten or maybe even Trondheim, because in the North the choice of roads is pretty slim. There's usually only one and you follow it straight or else run the risk of falling off a cliff or being swallowed up by a swamp. Then, all of a sudden we were in the middle of civilisation and needed to find our way out of or into fairly big towns like Oulu, Jyväskylä, Lahti and Helsinki. The first two had a special knack of driving us mad with their many intermingling bike lanes and motorways going off in every direction. Cycling slowly in circles for 30km to get out of Oulu while edging forward only 16km ate away many precious nerve cells and called for an early afternoon de-stress break in a motorway services cafe. The next few days followed a similar pattern.

We decided to make the last desperate dash towards the finish, push as hard as we could and do the remaining 600km after Oulu in just four days. It seemed reasonable, considering the density of awe-inspiring sites and the "gradient" of the road. But on the second day Finland surprised us with considerable hills for about 100 kilometres and cut the 200km-aim short at 165km. My stallion is a heavy horse to force uphill.

By then we had finally reached the more attractive parts of the country. Getting off the main road to see more lakes, fewer lorries and find more physical challenges was a new idea prompted by an initial glimpse of something actually worth looking at. On the spur of the moment, we added one day and some distance to our trip, rediscovered the pleasure of physical challenge over the constant need for hard-core self motivation due to a severe lack of mental stimulation, and saw some lovely landscapes. The only other biker that we met in Finland told us that we were passing through the most beautiful region of the country. But honestly - it was still average among even the most boring kind of Norwegian beauties.


That evening, seeing a wooden spire rising up above the village at the end of the road, we saw the opportunity to finally cross out "sleep in a church(yard)" on our list of slightly unusual camping places. The next night though, under the cover of darkness that hid us as well as the identity of the place we went to, we managed to pitch our tent directly under the office windows of a school in the centre of Lahti. When four men, including the heavyweights - the headmaster and his deputy in suit and tie - came to throw us out in the morning, they weren't expecting to meet two apologetically smiling girls already packing and explaining how they hadn't been able to find a safe place to sleep so late at night. The astonished bouncers were stripped of their weapons in an instant, only the manners remained. They asked if we slept well and wished us a good trip to Helsinki.

Did we ever consider quitting?

There were countless moments when the indescribable beauty of the scenery took our breath away more than the effort of climbing uphill to see it; or when the thrill of racing downhill at 73km/h only spiced it up, adding to the experience rather than being the experience itself; or when a short stretch of flat road felt like it was heaven sent. There were countless moments of pure happiness.

Most of it was in Norway, as you can guess. Finland was a whole different story - a mental challenge more than a physical one. It needed to be done and now it is.

There were many moments when climbing uphill was so hard that we had to continue motivating ourselves to pedal on instead of stopping and walking if only for few metres. There were many moments when we both felt down simultaneously and many when either one of us was more tired physically, mentally or both while the other one pedalled with ease, singing away and feeling her most energetic. There were many moments when we sat in cafes or in supermarkets, safe from torrential rain, fatigue or boredom, trying to pretend that we would magically move forward and it would all go away if we just sat there... and then, eventually, we always needed to move on. There were moments when stopping for the day was all we could think about. But quitting for real - never crossed my mind nor Alice's. We're a stubborn pair.

We did it :)


Only one thing seems very wrong: we should be feeling like heroes but we don't. Now that's disappointing!

---

Day 44: 143.52km on the roads 78, 924, 849 and 20; nothing to see there;

Day 45: 38.05km to Oulu; couchsurfing;

Day 46: 153.22km on the roads 847 and E75; the E75 is an unimaginably long, straight, flat main road with heavy traffic;

Day 47: 165.44km on the E75 to Äänekoski; ... including the hundred km-s of Finnish hills, spiced up with heavy lorry traffic;

Day 48: 119.76km on the roads 642 and 637 to Jyväskylä. Then on the E63, 610 and 612 to Luhanka - a smaller calmer and a bit hillier path through the lakelands;

Day 49: 121.39km on the roads 612, 314 and 24 to Lahti;

Day 50: 96.52km on the road 140 to Helsinki; couchsurfing.

Day 51: 21.34km to Helsinki port. THE END:)

Distance cycled from the last stop after Rovaniemi (in 8 days): 859.24km
Total distance cycled in 51 days: 4410.98km

Thus, our average daily distance over 51 days (composed of 7 full rest days + 44 cycling days) was 86.5km; full rest days excluded, the daily average was 100km (min. 21.34km and max. 165.44km).

Food, glorious food!

Six weeks have passed since we saw the orange moon rising over the seas as we advanced towards the land of the fairy tales... rising, dark blue, from the horizon. Six weeks it took us to cross the Arctic Circle twice, shake hands with Santa Claus and see our first dark night and our first star again! This, this is true magic.


... in the meantime, we continued cycling from unbelievably far North to even more unbelievably far North, passing by more and more stunning natural sights. There were low glaciers, crawling down the sharp black cliffs into the fjord, feeding our hungry eyes while the sun was warming our cheeks. The greenery softened the impression of the overall scenery down to majestic friendliness and I wrote in my notebook: I'm here and nothing else matters.



The contrasts never cease to surprise us. It is amazing how fast conditions can go from freezing cold to burning hot; from desperate to ecstatic; from soaking wet to sunny and dry; from stunning views to hours in zero visibility; from completely drained to bursting with energy; from sheep on the road to reindeer everywhere; from scooping peanut butter out of a jar with a spork to eating salmon with silver forks in a lace-clad dining room.



All of a sudden, after having climbed up the last two hills after Alta, we were on flatlands. For the first time in weeks we couldn't see any high peaks. It was Finnmark, the poorest area of Norway - where the Samis herd reindeer. We crossed the roughly 300m high barren swampy plateau and reached Olderfjord before night fell. Somehow, a lucky succession of coincidences managed to change our plans from throwing our bikes into a bush for a day to leaving them with a random farmer to being accommodated and fed for two nights and a day in between.


When planning the road in the first place, we never wanted to visit Nordkapp, having only heard about the pointlessness (other than "having been there") of the place. Once on the road, it seemed strange to go so close and leave the last bit undone. Therefore, our aim was to leave the bikes and do a quick hitchhiking day trip. As it rained heavily the day we meant to hitch, we decided to live in tempo with nature once again and warmed our tired bottoms on the couch in the nice dry indoors instead. We paid the visit to mainland Europe's most northerly point the next day in perfect sunlight.



It was very pretty.



Every day is an adventure as we can never be absolutely sure whether we are able to meet the day's goal or not. There are too many variables: the length and gradient of the climbs ahead; the strength and the direction of the wind; something going wrong with the bikes; something going wrong with ourselves; or factor x decides to intervene.


From Alice's diary: Norway blessed our last morning with glorious sunshine. Leisurely breakfast under warming rays - but something was wrong: Triini wasn't hungry!

The first day in Finland welcomed us with hot sunny weather and a bit hillier terrain than we had expected. It wouldn't have been hard if it weren't for the fact that I had a started the day feeling a tiny bit puke-ish, unable to eat any of that food, glorious food of Finland I had been dreaming about. With the hills rolling more sharply up and down than I liked, I went more and more feverish until we had to stop in the first civilization we saw - Kaamanen - where I curled up in my sleeping bag on the blueberry-laden shrubbery of the forest and slept for an hour. Good sleep works miracles and we were able to cycle another 5km on the flat until a petrol station where we camped in the neighbouring forest. This is a good example of a day cut short by unexpected circumstances. Oh, and I had a flat tyre the moment we arrived to this petrol station. And it started raining.


I was cured only two more nights of sleeping and two more days of easy pedalling later. Alice was cheering with delight when hearing the words "But I'm still hungrrrrrrrry!" coming from me after dinner. She would never have believed that she'd be so glad to hear them.

Yesterday was the day of breaking some more personal records. In addition to chatting to Santa and peeking into Lordi's restaurant we spent a mighty 8 hours in the saddle. A more usual cycling day consists of about 6 to 7 hours of pedalling and a lot of slacking off. Sometimes, we call it our training camp, especially when our days turn out to be well structured: we wake up at 8 and start cycling between 9 and 10 o'clock. We stop, eat and rest when we need to. Yesterday, for example, had three "training sessions": 80km before lunch, 35km before dinner and 46km before going to bed. The sauna and bed felt very well deserved.

---


Day 32: 93.53km; ferries: Breivikerdet - Svensby and Lyngen - Olderdalen; joined the E6 again;

Day 33: 105.01km on the E6;

Day 34: 102.73km to Alta;

Day 35: 112.3km to Olderfjord; couchsurfing;

Day 36: day off

Day 37: hitching to Nordkapp and back; cycling 29.78km towards the South;

Day 38: 114.27km to Karasjok;

Day 39: Finland! 90.39km to Kaamanen;

Day 40: 100.31km on the one and only road ("Santa's Rd") towards the South, through Ivalo;

Day 41: 147.78km to Sodankylä and beyond;

Day 42: 161km through Rovaniemi and then on the road 78; couchsurfing;

Day 43: day off.

Distance cycled since Tromsø (9.5 days of cycling and 1.5 days off in between): 1057.1km
Total distance cycled in 43 days: 3551.74km

---


Our favorite song, the one that we sing the most often:

Food, Glorious Food

[BOYS]
Is it worth the waiting for?
If we live 'til eighty four
All we ever get is gru...el!
Ev'ry day we say our prayer --
Will they change the bill of fare?
Still we get the same old gru...el!
There's not a crust, not a crumb can we find,
Can we beg, can we borrow, or cadge,
But there's nothing to stop us from getting a thrill
When we all close our eyes and imag...ine

Food, glorious food!
Hot sausage and mustard!
While we're in the mood --
Cold jelly and custard!
Peas, pudding and saveloys!
What next is the question?
Rich gentlemen have it, boys --
In-di-gestion!

Food, glorious food!
We're anxious to try it.
Three banquets a day --
Our favourite diet!

Just picture a great big steak --
Fried, roasted or stewed.
Oh, food,
Wonderful food,
Marvellous food,
Glorious food.

Food, glorious food!
What is there more handsome?
Gulped, swallowed or chewed --
Still worth a king's ransom!
What is it we dream about?
What brings on a sigh?
Piled peaches and cream, about
Six feet high!

Food, glorious food!
Eat right through the menu.
Just loosen your belt
Two inches and then you
Work up a new appetite.
In this interlude --
The food,
Once again, food
Fabulous food,
Glorious food.

Food, glorious food!
Don't care what it looks like --
Burnt!
Underdone!
Crude!
Don't care what the cook's like.
Just thinking of growing fat --
Our senses go reeling
One moment of knowing that
Full-up feeling!

Food, glorious food!
What wouldn't we give for
That extra bit more --
That's all that we live for
Why should we be fated to
Do nothing but brood
On food,
Magical food,
Wonderful food,
Marvellous food,
Fabulous food,

[OLIVER]
Beautiful food,

[BOYS]
Glorious food
Marvellous food,
Glorious food

It - It is in the people

So far, most of our days off happened to be in clear sunny weather. It wasn't any different on our rest day in Bodø, when the Atlantic ocean and the Norwegian mountains had agreed on a cease-fire and let the air fronts breathe peacefully. Immediately, we took advantage of the occasion: with the help of two Norwegian girls and a Swedish medicine student, we conquered the Keiservarden hill overlooking Bodø and offering a sneak peek out to the distant Lofoten islands emerging only as a light touch of blue pastel on the horizon.


The more our journey advances, the less predictable it becomes. We did not preplan to visit the Lofoten as it seemed to add too much distance. But, as we have become used to jumping on and off ferries, skipping the islands seemed to be almost a criminal decision. Looking forward in time - to skip Tromsø and Nordkapp feels like it would definitely be a crime, so we felt that we must also tick those coordinates off our "to visit" list. Also, it is only normal that communicating with various other travellers on the road helps develop a better sense of the area and the experiences worth getting.


That said, the concentration of travellers was one thing that the Lofoten is low on. Its rich landscape offering all kinds of activites from bike tours to hiking, mountain climbing and even surfing next to snowy peaks, attracts visitors like flypaper. There, you can meet hundreds and hundreds of tourists and still feel a lone traveller in the world. After this the brief encounters with the rare likeminded become all the more valuable.

What's the difference, you ask? And how can I tell who's who? The difference is in feeling the unity. By saying this, I consciously take the risk of sounding like a hippy tripping on acid, but the truth is out there and it becomes so obvious once you learn to see it: we're all in this world together. In more precise terms, the difference is in being an interactor vs being an observer-consumer, not so much in what kind of activities you're participating in. We are used to saying Hi to other passing cyclists or approaching and talking to (or being addressed by) anyone interesting (or interested). Other travellers are too. No tourist ever is.


By keeping our minds open we met Kris the Pole, cycling for the who-knows-how-manyeth-time to Nordkapp, who shared with us another of the secret recipes of cyclists who need to eat a lot and survive in Norway on their non-Norwegian budgets. Pasta with jam remains in our emergency list for the day when we're so fed up with Wasa bread that we can't possibly face eating even a single slice more. Up to this day, we're still holding on and trying to vary what we put on it. Spoonfuls of salty butter is one of our secrets of not getting skeletal too fast.


When we're not busy meeting people and talking to the wind, we communicate with the local wildlife. The sheep, we have met before. However, it was fun to chase them and dodge the poo flying out at running speed from the back of the herd. The lilacs I haven't seen for a while since I am used to them being one of the first signs of summer in Estonia, blooming some months earlier. They were one of the first real signs of the North to me. It doesn't feel like we're in the North and going further every day - it actually gets warmer with the sun constantly around and the Gulf stream caressing the coast.


A few days ago, we finally found the mosquitoes. Or rather, they found us. We have been fighting midges in some areas further south before, but the mozzies have been rare so far. That evening, we discovered the new natural power we must start dealing with from now on. If it is not the wind or the rain or the hairpin climbs, it will be the monstrous bloodsuckers waiting for us on the roads that cross the swamps of Lapland. Luckily, we can perfect our skills for another week before arriving in their dukedom. A good technique is to stroll casually away from the tent, luring the bugs into following you, stand still for a second and then make a desperate dash towards the tent. It is generally a good idea to practice the fast opening and closing of the tent zippers beforehand or else the mozzies will have time to recover from the confusion and slip in.


Or we could take the advice of the Heia boy in the Sami tourist information, who told us to cover ourselves from the infrared eyes of the bugs by wearing heat reflecting clothing (white is better than black) or just make them puke by smearing a special stinky ("authentic crap smell") liquid on the skin.


And then, we arrived in Tromsø - the town they call the Paris of the North because of its liveliness, big interest in fashion, culture, art and cuisine. Everywhere you look, you see variety - be it the people, the buildings or the nature. This cute colourful town is filled with sparkly student life that can also be noticed during the summer holidays, when the sun never sets but only shifts its light so that even the surrounding mountains never fail to change their appearance every hour or so.


Are we in the North now? I don't know. It doesn't feel like it. Being surrounded by two bubbly Italian raggaze and a bright-eyed Brazilian boy in the house of a shiny Norwegian girl makes being here under the everlasting sun just as merry as anywhere in the South.





Mostly, when we are not too hungry (which is before dinner) or being eaten by swarms of hungry mosquitoes (which is during dinner), we feel that there's no other life we would want to be living at the moment. The simplest things matter: eating, sleeping and smiling back at the people waving to us.

---


Day 25: 82.88km on the Lofoten, following the E10 towards the mainland; ferry: Bodø - Moskenes; camping on a roadside, sheltered from the wind by bushes;

Day 26: 95.07km on the E10 until Fiskebøl (or Fish Bowl as we affectionately named it); camping in the port, on a field;

Day 27: 126.41km on the E10; camping on a field, sheltered from the wind by a bush;

Day 28: 114.99 on the E10, road 825 and E6 until Setermoen, camping on a field - no wind but hundreds of mosquitoes;

Day 29: 90.40km on the E6 until Nordskjobotn, camping in a schoolyard;

Day 30: 75.80km until Tromsø, couchsurfing;

Day 31: day off;

Distance cycled from the last long stop, Bodø (in 6 days): 585.55km
Total distance cycled in 30 days: 2494.64km

Well, I guess it's a nice view here...

The first big change of plans we made, was to swap the E6 with the Coastal Road and enjoy the world's most beautiful bike ride.


Seven days ago, we parted ways with the world's nicest hunting family, to continue our quest. Despite the sadness of leaving, it felt good to be back in the saddle. The first day bestowed us with hot sunshine and a bad road choice, adding an extra 20km with more than a little climbing, but rewarding it with a beautiful view over distant snowy mountain tops.

Six days ago, we were woken up by the tent doors flapping in the wind - the consequence of some rebellious pegs having made a short dash for freedom. As soon as we exited, the tent followed suit. However, both tent and pegs were captured as a result of a careful search. After fighting our way through the morning wind and drizzle to a petrol station for lunch, we chatted over a cup of coffee with two toughened-by-long-life German cyclists. The more we advance towards the North, the more cyclists we meet, as the road choices get narrower by the day. Mostly they are coming down from the North, but sometimes going up from the South. In the latter case we sometimes end up catching up and passing each other several times a day, getting extra motivation from the feeling of racing and a surge of pride and content when the other group turns out to be slower. But really, there is not much point in trying to race the short distance cyclers. Even though biking the length of Norway is popular, most people are on 2-week missions.

That evening, we had several hours of blissful weather, so we continued climbing up and racing down for much longer than we had planned, to enjoy the movement through the beautiful landscape.


Five days ago, we were once more woken by the tent doors flapping in the wind and rain. We had managed to park our canvas palace on the best wind-exposed spot in the area, so we packed up fast and made our way to the ferry with no more than a banana in the belly. As the rain got heavier and heavier, we didn't stop before the next town, where we met two boys from the South of France. They made an interesting spectacle, because they had even more improvised luggage solutions than I did. I didn't feel too crazy any more.

When we landed with the last ferry in the evening, planning to cycle another 13km or so in the rain, until the next place that had a name and possibly some toilets, we saw the two Germans, mentioned before, who had passed us unnoticed, and rented a camping hut with four beds... Do I even have to mention how hard it was to stop showering in hot water and how good it felt to sleep under a roof?

Four days ago, we woke up early and packed with German efficiency. The first 50km were done in no time and as the road went on relatively flat all day long, we put up the tent - again in the rain and again in a kindergarten - earlier than usually. It felt as if we've been somehow deceived by the universe. We should have entered the promised fairy tale land already days ago, but the gates seem to be closed for us and the windows covered by thick white mist curtains.


Three days ago, we pedalled uphill right into a hideously dense cloud with visibility for about two metres off the road. It must be a beautiful view! or I am sure it looks amazing! are the prevalent comments about the landscapes we pass. For a short while, the white curtains rip open and we grasp a glimpse of the bright green road banks, a fjord and ragged snowy mountain tops. The snow is creeping closer and closer to the sea level. No wonder it feels so cold!

As if the cold and rain weren't enough, I had a flat tyre just about 6km before the last ferry of the day. Having almost two hours before having to hop on the boat and cross the Polar Circle, I wasn't too discouraged and pushed for a kilometre before hearing a sound made by one of the most useful inventions of mankind - an advancing car. We stopped it the moment we saw it turning around the hill and asked for help. Alice cycled on, while I was conveniently stashed in the German motorhome and drove to the port. Once again, we got much more than we bargained for: they changed my inner tube so fast and professionally that I could do nothing but watch in awe; they cooked a three course meal, including red wine and strawberries with quark, and invited us to dine with them in the warm waiting room; they advised us to sleep on the heated floor of that waiting room until the first boat in the morning; I even got a hint of a job offer! More than anything else, I am learning German in this country.


Two days ago, we crossed the Polar Circle and continued battling with the elements - earth, wind and water all united against us to keep us back, until I decided to summon my own blazing fireball from within myself, since the natural phenomenon was nowhere to be seen. It works for a short while. Is the fairy tale land also affected by the economic crisis or does it have something personal against us? We managed to force ourselves through the heavy bullet-like horizontal rain until we saw a tempting shed, with an open door, behind a kiosk. We spread out our dripping stuff all around the mice-poo-infested room and went briefly back out to see the sudden appearance of the most amazing sunset and clear sky, revealing the oddest shapes of the mountains around us. Wow, the fairy tale land does exist!


One day ago, in the morning: legs - meet wet trousers! Feet - meet wet socks! Guilty girls - meet the very angry man coming to work! Oops. Leaving ASAP. That day, it was the birthday of Alice. That day, the wonderland opened up for us and showed its beautiful side. All those stunning mountain views! The struggle - it was all worth it! We had the almost-British second breakfast (baked beans and Wasa bread) and the almost-French lunch (real bread and Camembert cheese), we even had a reason to take out the camera to capture some views. Before the evening, we arrived in Bodø, to make ourselves comfortable in the big warm homey house of the friend of a friend of a friend and prepare for a well-earned day off.


Next stage, unplanned: the Lofoten.

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Day 17: 108km; ferry: Flakk-Rørvik; camping on a beach in a village.

Day 18: 124.84km; camped on a field near houses, asked permission first.

Day 19: 89.43km; ferries: Lund-Hofles and Holm-Vennesund; slept in a camping hut.

Day 20: 120km; ferries: Horn-Anddalsvågen and Fjovika-Tjøtta; camped in a kindergarten garden.

Day 21: 118km (Triin) or 124.31km (Alice); ferry: Levang-Nesna; slept in the waiting room of the Kinsarvik port.

Day 22: 95.3km; ferries: Kinsarvik-Jektvik, Ågskardet-Forøy and Vassdalsvik-Ørnes; squatted in a shed.

Day 23: 82.62km; slept in warm beds in a house.

Day 24: day off.

Distance cycled since Trondheim (in 7 days): 744.5km.
Total distance cycled in 23 days: 1909.14km