Icelandic Winter

March 29

One of the first things that hit you about Iceland is the flight to Reykjavik itself - Icelandair has the next best in-flight entertainment to Emirates, with USB charging, wide screen, and so much content before taking off, that you don't get bored for a second from the moment you enter the flight. Some of the points I noted from the entertainment system in the flight was:

·         Iceland has the highest waterfall (Gulfos) and the largest glacier (Vatnajokul) in Europe

·         Words like “heck”, “berserk” and “geyser” are originated from places in Iceland

·         There are 126 swimming pools, that's 1 for every 2500 Icelanders 

·         50% of them believe in Elves and most can trace their origin back to the initial settlers (Vikings)

The next thing that hits you is the water! The sulphur content in the water is so high here that it takes you to your biology class when you prepared H2S in the lab and had everyone cringing because of the smell. 

Next on the list is the weather. Icelanders normally say that if you don't like the weather, give it 5 minutes. And that's absolutely true, because the weather can go from sun to snow to rain and back to sun in about 5 minutes.  

The moment I stepped out of the flight in Reykjavik, it was snowing, and that was the first snowfall I had witnessed. It wasn't on the top of the things that I wanted to do on this trip, but it was definitely something I've been waiting to do for a long time and happened to be the first thing that greeted me when we got out. 

We got out without immigration at the Reykjavik airport as the check happened in Paris itself, and it was all internal flights after that. Figured our bus ride and got to our apartment which was a self check in type where you don't have a reception, and simply have to punch in the code that was sent to you by mail. This was another first and a neat experience. 

Soon we got unpacking, had the food that Geet's mom sent with the Gull beer that Naan picked at the airport, and it was the lent breaking moment for me, which was apt coz there was church right outside our apartment that I managed to say a short prayer to and get back to regular hedonism after over a month of abstinence. 

We then crashed for a bit and rushed to the rendezvous point for our first Northern Lights tour, but landed at IST and the tour promptly left without us. Taught us to not remain Indians and switch to non-IST mode if we have to ensure no more gaffes likes this for the remainder of the trip. 

So we made up with a drink at a restaurant called Bravo, which came after a lot of hunting at Downtown Reykjavik for a good place to pub since it was really quiet given Sunday night. Bravo offered a DJ, a pretty ambience, and some crowd, that some of the other Tripadvisor recommended places like Kaldi Bar, Chuck Norris Grill, Lebowski Bar and Dhillon lacked. So we sat there for a while and had an Icelandic beer each and cabbed it back to our apartment. 

March 30

We began the day by preparing Bru that Naan was looking forward to and waiting for Lael to land. 

She soon got to our apartment in an i30 she rented from the airport, and we used that to drive to Blue Lagoon, which was our agenda for the day. 

Blue Lagoon is a geothermal spa in Iceland, and the best of the 126 such geothermal pools available in the country by a long shot. This is because the experience you get here is unparalleled. First of all, its a natural 2-5feet deep pool which is at a temperature of ~40 when it is near sub-zero outside. The entire pool is surrounded by ice capped mountains, and there is natural silica that you can pick off the rocks and apply to your face as a mask, and to top it all, you are served beer right in the pool itself! There are other things to keep your fancy like an in-water massage, an artificial waterfall you can stand under, and a natural steam room made of hot rocks! The entire concept is fantastical, and easily the best spa experience one could get anywhere on the planet!

After chilling till our fingers went numb, we drove to Downtown Reykjavik for dinner, and randomly selected a restaurant called Old Iceland coz it looked quaint and didn't have images of fries and burgers put up outside which Naan indicated is a clear sign for touristy international cuisine, which is not what we were looking for. 

Old Iceland turned out to be a fantastic restaurant where we had our first Icelandic meal, and later got to know that it was actually among the top 10 restaurants from Tripadvisor. I had Steak, which was the next best after Goucho in London. Geet had Fish Pasta, Naan and Lael had the Lamb and all of us enjoyed our food. The Lamb here had a slightly different taste that Naan seemed to really enjoy, but was somewhat a bit too much rare meat for me to take in. Avoiding the lamb was a perfectly fine thing to do, as the fish was all fresh and amazing, and there were tons of other dishes like whale and shark and horse meat that we tried in due course. 

March 31

Our 2 day tour to East Iceland was to start at 830 and we got ready promptly to avoid any further mishaps. We were picked up by Diddi from Extreme Iceland Tours who was our driver and guide for the next 2 days and began our long journey East as he regaled us with stories from Iceland. One of them was about Mount Heckla, from which the word Heck comes from, which basically means "Hell". This mountain is an active volcano that erupts every 100 years, and last erupted in 1918 and therefore should be blowing up anytime now. But back in the day, people believed this to be the very place where the Devil himself stayed, hence the name Heckla, and folks believed this till 2 young Icelandic adventurers climbed the mountain to look down at the crater, and when they came back, their Danish authorities asked them if they saw the Devil, and because Iceland was a Danish colony back then, these guys replied saying yes they saw the Devil, but wasn't Icelandic, it was Danish. 

Iceland became a sovereign Republic around the same time India became independent, and before that it was a Danish colony for a long time and a Norwegian colony for even longer before that. 

Today Iceland is a country of 3lac people on its own, with Tourism as its biggest industry, followed by Fishing and IT. The lack of military is indirectly another source of income, and Iceland is one of those rare countries that has absolutely no army navy or airforce, and only depends on NATO for protection from pirates and things. We hardly saw any police as well in the country, which is again odd for a place that is supposedly very safe. 

Anyway, through all of these stories, Diddi took us to 2 waterfalls and a wonderful black sand beach before we reached Hotel Gerdi where we were spending the night, and saw one of the most spectacular sunsets this evening here. Soon we started socialising with the folks from our tour over dinner, and stayed up for a while in the hopes of catching the Northern Lights. But slowly people started trickling to their rooms and by about midnight we gave up on the Lights as well and crashed. 

April 1

I woke up to a beautiful view from our room. Something I hadn't noticed the previous night, but in the morning, what we saw was the Atlantic Ocean with the sun rising from it, right outside our window. I woke Geet up with a start saying I could see the Aurora, and when she came rushing, I called "April Fool" and got back at her for being the first one to fool me for the last few years on April Fools Day. 

Well, we got ready after that and reconvened with the rest of the group over breakfast and learned that nobody managed to catch the Aurora the previous night. Feeling content that we didn't miss much, we began our journey to Vatnajokul, the first of the three National Parks at Iceland that we visited over the trip. 

We were given an entire gear; helmets, axe and crampons, which we suited up and began our hike on the glacier with Diddi leading us. It was the typical walking on snow in a straight line you see on NGC, and we were at it for about 2 hours, meandering through crevices and caves on the glacier, before getting to the nearby town called Vik for much needed lunch. 

I tried out the Fish and Chips here, and they were by far the best we've had. Naan who normally avoids Fish, ended up enjoying this as well. 

We continued on our journey, seeing Icelandic Horses, visiting the Eyjafletlajokul mountain which erupted in 2010 causing all those flight delays across Europe given the ash storm that covered the skies, and somewhere around 7pm, our bus broke down. 

Diddi managed to flag another bus that could only fit in 8 people and we were 14 of us. So we 4 decided to stay back along with another American couple. 

We had our Whiskey flasks that we purchased in Bombay filled with “Yoki” whiskey, which was the local Icelandic malt that Naan had picked from duty free when we landed, and decided to drink that with some short eats that all of us carried to kill time. 

The breakdown turned out to be a good thing coz 2 things happened. One, we managed to prolong our trip enough to have enough night time driving to spot the Aurora. Two, Diddi took a lot more interest in showing us the Aurora this time around given he felt guilty for screwing up with the bus. 

So by around 9pm that night, after the bus was fixed and we were en route, Diddi stopped at a place that was freezing cold, but where we managed to catch our first Aurora Borealis experience. 

It was not that easy to spot; quick waves of greyish tinge in the sky, that we managed to capture through prolonged exposure on the camera, but struggled to do it given it was freezing outside. But after sometime under the Aurora sky, everyone ran back inside the bus to get some warmth and we were pretty soon on our way back, the Aurora following us every now and then till we hit Reykjavik where the city lights and closed cover blotted it out. 

April 2

In spite of reaching home only by midnight, we had to get out by 745am on this day for the Golden Circle Tour that we booked. We skipped dinner the previous day, and rushed through some croissants for breakfast before starting off. 

The operator was Grayline this time, and the guide John was a poor show compared to Diddi. 

We covered Thingvellir National Park, where we could see the actual divide in the American and Eurasian tectonic plates that run right in between Iceland, the Gulfos waterfall, which is the largest waterfall in Europe, and finally, Geysir, a place from where we get the word Geyser, and a natural hot spring that simply blew my mind away with the bursts of water from the ground in the Strokkur crater section at Geysir. 

Lots of interesting things to see on this trip, which is recommended as the top Tour to do at Reykjavik, but Grayline is an operator I would recommend avoiding. 

After 3 hectic days of travel, we all wanted to just go out and have dinner at a really nice place and crash for the night as we didn't have any plan for the next day. 

So we suited up, and hit downtown Reykjavik, with a plan to dine at Grillmarkadurinn which came top recommended for Icelandic food on Tripadvisor. But once we got off the cab, Geet pointed to a restaurant that John had called out earlier in the day as a classic Icelandic restaurant and we decided to check it out, and the view of the candle lit tables from outside, with an interesting menu on display sold Laekjabrikka to us, and an amazing dinner followed. We had Whale skewer, Lamb with Apple and Dried Shark as starters, Horse Steak, Fresh Fish, Duck for main course, and Lava cake and Skyr (Icelandic Yogurt) for dessert. It was the epitome of a scrumptious meal!

April 3

All of us woke up really late, getting the much needed rest we were craving, then prepared our own breakfast, which was Lael teaching me how to prepare Bacon, which turned out to be the crunchier tastiest bacon I've had, and the rest of us pitching in with Bread Toast and cut fruits. 

After a lazy breakfast that finished only by about 2pm, we decided to step out and visit Blue Lagoon once again. I researched on other Geothermal pools in Reykjavik, but somehow, none of them seemed to be as classy as Blue Lagoon. So we cabbed to Hertz, picked our Kia SUV that was to be our ride for the remainder of the trip, and drove to Blue Lagoon. We stopped at a spot where we halted even the last time, and noticed that the entire landscape has changed in these 3 days given the rains that had poured in between. All the snow was gone and the green land mass was now visible. 

At Blue Lagoon we learned another new thing this time, that the service is just amazing. We had to wait 2 hours to get into the pool given the holiday (it was Good Friday), and one of the guys who helped us, gave us wrist bands that we exchanged for free beers at the pool. That was incredibly nice of them. The whole experience at Blue Lagoon with its automated lockers, tasty Tandoori Chicken Paninis, beer in the pool, naturally heated water and saunas were all something we couldn't get tired of in spite of doing it for the 2nd time on the trip. 

Once we got back, we quickly changed and hit Downtown Reykjavik for dinner, but realised that most places were already closed and it was only dance clubs that were waking up at this time. But since we were hungry, we walked around asking for a restaurant, and found 3 people having a smoke outside a place called K-Bar, who started off by directing us to some pizzerias that had only a small probability of being open, but eventually asked us to enter K-Bar itself as they didn't want us to go hungry. The 3 of them turned out to be the bartender, waitress and chef of that restaurant they were standing out of, and reopened the place pretty much for us, and served Lettuce Wraps with Chicken and Rice which was the only thing available, and all of us just gobbled it up given how hungry swimming at the spa made us, and how incredibly tasty this unassuming dish and restaurant actually was. Iceland was truly a place we began loving at this point. 

After another hearty meal, we decided to visit a club now, but the moment we entered the car, I fell asleep, and ended up choosing Downtown as the destination again on the map, and that had Naan driving in circles till he realised I was completely wasted for the night, and allowed Lael to do the rest of the navigation and got us back to our rooms. Clubbing was just not on the cards given our fatigue, the time surpassing Cinderella's curfew, and the copious food we had by this time. So it was back to our beloved apartment for one last night before we were to check out the next day. 

April 4

We just about managed to check out at the stipulated 10:30am on this day, with me fixing breakfast for everyone, which was scrambled egg and toast with fruits, and began the journey to Snaefellajokul National Park, the 3rd and last of the National Parks Iceland had to offer us. 

We drove to a town called Grundarfjordur, right next to the Park, which was the smallest town one could visit. It had one grocery store, which had one cafe, which had one coffee machine, and that one coffee machine wasn't working. So since we couldn’t grab coffee and our rooms were taking another hour to be ready, we drove to the one restaurant in the town and had lunch here while watching Arsenal whoop Liverpool on a big screen that was set up here which a bunch of local folk enjoying the favourite European pastime. 

We ordered pizzas and burgers and had them with fresh draught Viking beer, and once satiated, bought some groceries and checked into our cozy little studio apartment. 

We slept the afternoon and decided to go out for a party that was to be happening at the one restaurant that planned to turn into the one club for the night. But a few shots later, we were too tired, drunk and sleepy to make it, and decided to just use the groceries which I'd bought earlier to prepare a quick fix dinner of bread and noodle that actually turned out pretty tasty. 

April 5

We began our drive back by 11am as we needed to reach Reykjavik on time to drop Lael at the airport. Stopped at a cafe en route where the waitress was really excited to see us as she had visited India and went to places like Varanasi and Wayanad where even we hadn't been. Some coffee and pastries later, we continued on our journey, seeing more stunning sights of the river, fields and mountains all around. We tried visiting a place called Berserkejahraun, which is a lava field with a huge crevice in the middle, which was apparently created by 2 Viking brothers called Berserkers who created the crevice as a path in between the lava field to impress the father of the girl they were both in love with. However, the father buried them in the same lava field as they were guys out of control, and hence the term “going berserk” originating from here. We couldn’t really get to see the place as we were relying on Google which is always awry at the last 200-300 metres, and hence just stopped at some interesting waterfalls and frozen lakes on the way, before taking the impressive 5 mile underwater tunnel once again before getting back to Reykjavik.

We finally reached the airport well in time, and ate at the Joe and the Juice centre where Geet and I ate at the Copenhagen stopover on the way here, and the Spicy Tuna and Joes Chicken Paninis we had here were really tasty. So much so, that it was the first time Geet had Tuna, which was one more of her adventurous pearls during this trip as she normally never experiments with food.

Overall the trip offered some amazing food. For a change, Geet was not held down to just croissants and fruits, but actually enjoyed good Chicken and Fish that was offered here. Naan was completely loving the Lamb here and ordered that at nearly every chance he got. I was enjoying all the different types of meat that you probably cannot get anywhere else. 

So after dropping Lael and getting some sleep, we went to Downtown for our last meal of the trip before we were to fly out ourselves the next day. This time, we searched and dined at Grillmarkadurinn itself, and the restaurant really deserved to be one of the top rated on Tripadvisor. The interiors were designed with all things unique to Iceland - lava rocks, pillar stones, green grass with snow covers, and the waiters were real friendly chatting us up and offering tips for the food we were ordering. 

We had the Horse Steak, Duck, Lamb and Beef this time, but I personally didn't find the food as good as Laekjabrikka and seemed to prefer the veggies Geet was having. Guess it was an overdose of meat over the trip for me, and probably an apt time to be having the last meal at Iceland this night.

April 6

As we drove to the airport in the rented Kia, just as we were reminiscing about the past week here, the sky suddenly lit up with a bluish tinge of the Aurora. It was a far spectacular sight compared to the one we were struggling to capture during our tour, with the colours brighter and the spread thicker. Unfortunately, we were late for our flight, and couldn’t really stop for some photos, but the sight of the Aurora tailing us, as if to bid goodbye to a bunch of tourists whose main purpose of the trip was to catch these lights, was of paramount significance.

A great way to bid adieu to another great trip.