Hotel Kusten offered something
that was not there in any of the hotels we had stayed in during the journey. It
had a reception area with plenty of seating that was open 24 hours. It also had
coffee and water stocked for those wanted them. I gravitated to the reception
area at 3 am to write the blog posts of the past two days. It was peaceful
without any disturbance at that time of the morning and the hot cup of coffee
helped start the thinking and writing process. It took me more than three hours
to finish the documentation. However, I was unable to upload the posts to the
site since the WiFi was down. All the hard work done and the last mile
connectivity gone!
We had planned to leave by 8 am
and hence, were down for the breakfast buffet a half hour before that. I took a
bowl of muesli and looked around for cold milk. I found a carton that seemed to
contain milk; I found out it was yogurt when I poured it into the bowl. I
wondered if it was the start of a curdled day for the forecast was for rain and
more rain! Soon I located the right carton and the rest of the meal was done in
quick time. At the reception I completed the check out and sought directions
from the receptionist. It sounded fairly simple and I trusted the Navigator to
second the suggestion. The garage had a simple door opening device. At the exit
door hung a chain that had to be given a light tug to lift the garage door.
That done, I turned right and right again and found the sign which said Oslo,
just as the receptionist had said. The Navigator too, after finding the GPS on
exit from the garage, seconded the route I was on!
I encountered heavy rain en route on E6 to
Oslo; the dark clouds on the horizon refused to blow away. Lal and I resigned
ourselves to being confined indoors in Oslo. The rains were intermittent but
heavy. Even when the sky was blue rain would suddenly come down in buckets. It
was about 170 kms to the border with Norway, which was covered in about 2 hours.
Fuelling at the last post in Sweden cost us about Euro 2 per litre, the costliest
fuelling done in the journey thus far. As we entered the territory of Norway we
were diverted to the Customs station. We could see that some officials were
making a few checks on the vehicles ahead of us, including opening the boot of
the car. I was sure that we would be detained for thorough inspection since it
had a non-EU registration. We were waived down for a lady officer to inspect.
She was taken aback initially by the right hand drive. Then she came around to
my side and asked why we were there. I gave her a synopsis of the journey when
she asked me to take the breathalyser test. It was different from what I was
used to in Kerala. I had to blow hard into a small tube that was attached to a
handheld equipment. The lady officer showed me the result – 0.00. I told her
that we didn’t have enough money to buy liquor for all of it was spent buying
fuel for the car! She laughed and wished us well for the rest of the journey.
We were in the 22nd country with 5 more to go.
It was plain vanilla landscape
all through to Oslo with rains appearing now and then. The hotel reservation in
Oslo had been done courtesy a friend in Bangalore. I was not sure of the street
name where the hotel was located. Calls to the hotel went into an electronic
machine that spoke a foreign tongue. Quite close to the entry to the Oslo City
Centrum I parked the car with hazard lights on and tried to get the Navigator
to recognise the address. After many tries I succeeded. The fact of the matter
is that I had not understood the address correctly, in the first place! After
that it was smooth sailing all the way to the hotel. Many narrow lanes and
streets later I was parked in front of the Scandic Hotel on Parkveien Road.
I asked Lal to be in the car and
went to the hotel reception to confirm the reservation and parking for the car.
What happened thereafter was straight from some yet to be done movie script. A
smart young man stepped forward to take my queries and I took him to be from
Sri Lanka. He confirmed the room reservation and said that the hotel garage
parking would cost NOK 225 per day, which he also said would be the best deal
in town. I told him that we were in town from India and in a while unearthed
our common roots in Kerala. And it turned out that he was a huge fan of Lal Jose!
Shaiju, the Front Office Assistant Manager, not only waived the garage fee but
also upgraded the room status to make us more comfortable. He did comment that
I looked fresh despite the 21000 kms we had travelled in 2 months from Kerala!
Later he sent a bottle of Champagne in a bucket of ice with two flute glasses
as a mark of his respect for the inimitable film maker from his homeland.
We decided to
keep the Champagne for the evening after the day’s walking had been done.
Shaiju suggested the Olivia restaurant at the Aker Byrgge waterfront, which was
just a short walk from the hotel. The Aker Byrgge is part of the Oslofjord. Fjords
are almost always identified with Norway. A fjord is a long and narrow inlet
from the sea between slopes of mountainous coasts. They occur when ater from
the sea flow into valleys formed by glacial action near the coast. The
Oslofjord links the North Sea to the Baltic Sea. the views from the Aker Byrgge
were glorious in the noon sun – the rain had ceased and it was pleasant walking
around the water mouths. We wlaked to the Olivia restaurant and waited for a
while to be seated. Lal was in a mood to have something ‘fishy’ and the
waitress at the Olivia told us that they did not have any dishes with fish. So
we moved on and found that most of the waterfront restaurants were priced so
heavily that a bottle of water would cost more than a litre of fuel! Then we
chanced on the Rorbua restaurant and ordered a fish and chicken dish, the
former for Lal. I walked around for a while when the order was being done and
discovered many sculptures and stone carvings near the restaurant. It was an
excellent place to explore. When the dishes arrived we thought that we were
condemned to a full day there. The portions were more than what two people
could eat. Lal’s plate overflowed with shrimps and I had three huge pieces of
chicken stuck into two sandwiches! Moreover, there were leaves and greens to
get through too. We shared each other’s order and with some extra effort we
managed to finish most of it. We walked around the waterfront a bit to work
some of the calories off. Then it was sleep and rest for a while till the
contact provided by Shaiju arrived to conduct us around the city in the
evening.
Murugan had
checked the weather forecast before he arrived after 5 pm in the hotel. He said
that the rest of the day would be fine and better weather was forecast for the
next day. That was good news. Murugan had come to Oslo 8 years ago with his
Norwegian wife, who he met and married in Varkala, Kerala. His wife had worked
for three years in the International School in Trivandrum before they moved to
Oslo. They have a 7 year old son, Manu, who will go into Class2 when school
reopens. The different manner of bringing up children in Norway was brought rather
dramatically with the arrest and incarceration of the Indian couple in Oslo. Murugan
took us on a long and interesting walk of the city. We first went to the
Norwegian Nobel Institute near the Aker Byrgge. The administration of the Nobel
Foundation was from this building. It was built to as a residence but by the
turn of the 20th century became home of the Nobel Institute. The
place was closed for the day. We decided to come back for a visit again the
next day. The City Hall is a large red brick building near the Oslo harbour. It
was built in 1950 to commemorate the 950th anniversary of the city’s
founding. In front of the City Hall is a large recreation centre that was
getting decked up for the ‘Mela Festival’ that was organised by immigrant
Pakistanis. A lot of Asian food, handicrafts and music were up to be
appreciated. Murugan gave me to understand that Pakistanis are the single
largest immigrant community in Norway. Sri Lankans too, there are in plenty.
Norway, in the recent years, has also been experiencing immigration of Swedes
in search of jobs.
We walked
through many quays, some of which had old military ships and wooden ships
anchored as museums. The Oslo cruise terminal and the customs offices were also
at the quay we walked by. The walk took us by the side of the Akershus Castle
that had been built in the medieval times to protect Oslo. The fortification
was also used as a prison. It now has three major functions, namely, state
representation, public activities and housing the headquarters of the Armed
Forces. It is open to the public during the day. I visited the Stena Lines
terminal to find out if they had a service that could link me to Aarhus. They
didn’t and I was also put off by a service agent looking me up and down and
saying, “It costs a lot, you know”.
After that all
that I had eyes for was the Opera House. It dominates the Oslofjord. The
massive modern building has more than 1100 rooms, spread over 400,000 square
feet, and is home to the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet. The building has
a roof that gently slopes up and invites visitors to take the walk up to see
commanding views of the city and the harbour. The fully white granite surface
has been so done as to be slip resistant. The reception of the Opera House,
which can be visited without ticket, is jaw dropping. The aesthetics cannot be
described. Even the toilets have been done such that I did not want to move out
of it in a hurry. The pot is a square cascade of gently flowing water. The tile
tones and lighting provide serenity in case the visit is an emergency!
The National
Theatre is one of the most prominent venues in Norway for performing arts. The statues
of famous theatre personalities and playwrights greet you at the entrance to the
theatre, which came into existence in 1899. Ibsen’s plays have found full
expression at the National Theatre. The Parliament building of Norway is in
central Oslo. The majestic structure has been in use as the legislature complex
since 1866. To the left of the yellow brick building is the Grand Hotel, where
the Nobel Peace Prize winner is hosted annually. The hotel is where the famous playwright
used to dine frequently and Roald Dahl wrote his autobiographical work. As I was
walking down to the Palace I came across two lady police persons on horseback.
Murugan told me that they would pose for photographs if requested. They did
that without any hesitation when I approached them. Right down the promenade and
where it ends is the Royal Palace, the official residence of the Norwegian
Monarch. The massive Palace reportedly has 170 plus rooms.
I had arranged
with Shaiju to book online for the ferry from Larvik to Hirtshals on the 16th
for the crossing to Denmark. He got it done for the best rate possible. When we
got back to the hotel Lal and I spent little time in polishing off the
Champagne. Later we went down to the restaurant and had a lovely dinner of
chicken and fish. The bread served with garlic butter and chopped olives were
so delightful that we asked for a second helping of it. It was such a
coincidence to find out from the waitress that her live in was a Keralite; she
did not from where in Kerala, though.
We decided to
sleep late, for the programme for the morrow was set for 10 am. It was also the
intention to go to the Indian Embassy, if possible, to attend the Independence
Day flag hoisting ceremony. 60 days had gone by with travel to 22 countries over 21000 kms. The end of the journey was almost visible.
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