Oslo to Bergen road trip

It was 2 hours past midnight. Little did we realize about our flight at 8.45 AM to Oslo from Paris, first of the destinations on our much awaited holiday to Norway.

It was very difficult to wake up after falling asleep in Val Girard hotel. The only thing which made me and my friend Praveen wake up, is the morning view of Paris at the Eiffel tower. And it was all worth it.

Early morning sunrise @ Paris. 

Chirping birds and an amazing view.

It was a windy, cloudy and drizzling morning in the end of April. It was like a great escape from the scorching heat of India. Well, at least we thought so.

We almost missed the flight to Oslo and were hoping that Uber will save us. We crossed the boarding time by a minute or two. Luckily the system is advanced in the Charles de Gaulle Airport that it could recognize our condition. There came in our wonder woman, the airport staff lady who helped us to quickly get into the special lane and pass us through security. We gazed at the 200 members waiting in the security queue and smiled at those. Sometimes being late is better, but you are not always lucky.

I had to remove my belt on a 30" waist for a 32" trousers. And the boarding gate was far. As Praveen ran along with my belt, I resembled a kangaroo with my hands around my waist to save the embarrassment. We were the last to get inside the KLM flight and the seat belts on.

Oslo Chapter

Recollecting the incidents, a quick nap helped us get through the lack of night's sleep. We landed at the Oslo Airport, Gardermoen. Norway, here we come finally (I sighed looking at my friend).

Plan was to do the famous "Oslo to Bergen" road trip. Hence, the need for a car. We were not sure if Indian driving license will be allowed to drive in Norway. We expected the booking agencies would fill us in. We walked to the Hertz. Indeed our doubts were realized to be true as the agent himself was not sure. Oh boy, we were desperate to do the trip. We insisted, showing the cases where we drove in the US with Hertz. He bought that and took us to the cops to check on the rules. We enter the police station.

I thought majority of the cops were bulky considering males (NYPD, Dutch police, Indian police.. shh let's not talk about it) but here we found the lady boss bulky as well. With her deep pitch voice, raising the right eyebrow looking towards us she started the conversation in Norwegian. When our Hertz buddy explained, we got to know that we need to wait as she checks on whatever! That wait we expected to be an innings break in a 50 over game, turned out to be the whole innings time. Frustrated, Praveen started with a beer. I couldn't as I had to drive, settled with a soda, pizza. We rose our eyebrows too & started staring at the interesting people. Yeah, you guessed it right!

We passed the test and cops gave us a written document that I can drive. For that moment, I felt like that paper was the declaration of independence given to India in 1947. There started the bigger problem. We imagined the cars in all the windows wallpapers we've seen before.. BMW Z4, Dodge charger, Ford Mustang, Mercedes whatever class. With that imagination, we walked in. Typical jugaad indians ask for list sorted by price: low to high. We were no different. None of those cars were there even in the 5th sheet. We settled down with the cozy VW UP. Geared, 1000cc, petrol engine, disaster (atleast we thought). Seat belts on as we started playing "Zindagi Ek Safar Hai Suhana.."

Drive Chapter

Road trip route map

Looking at Norway from a satellite landscape view is pretty amazing. You feel like the nature is nicely carved and added with a serene makeup of ice like a bride in the wedding. Pictorially, It looks like the human brain with neurons, active & inactive segments. Mostly like a top and bottom brain unlike left and right separated by a river in between. Praveen started delving into neural networks and similarities in nature, I stopped him saying "For heaven's sake it's a biology class and not machine learning". Seriously, Norway du ser vakker ut ("you're beautiful" - Norwegian). 

As the map suggests, it was a 476 km drive. We were having no clue what's coming except for the destination and the saying that it is the best route. We took the exit and entered the freeway. One unique thing to mention in Norway is the roundabout. We have a 4 road junction in India with signals. There the analogous one is the roundabout. It looks as shown below. It's a no signal & FCFS algorithm implemented ideally. But as I violate regulations in India, Norwegians do the same. That makes life heck of a being honked or badly stared. "It's life, we should move on!" I said to the car literally by pressing the pedal.

roundabout traffic model

We entered the early May season. So ice started melting and unveiled the treasures underneath it. But surprisingly it was only half. One side of the freeway was all green, the other side was all ice [below pictures]. Now, that's nature showing off again. We drove over 230 km to reach the entrance to Geilo. The place where it's deserted with ice. Lonely neighborhoods and spooky surroundings. We stopped for a nice view there. Temperature was very low like close to 0 degree Celsius on the positive side. 

left side of the road
[water in the stream solidified to hard ice (behind us)]

right side of the road
[dried up trees. yellowish color of the leaves] 

"Cars don't like cold weathers" - Jose carter, Person of Interest. I had ignored this dialogue till the moment I have put my keys back and tried to start the vehicle. The vehicle doesn't start anymore. It was freezing, only 2 houses in the visibility and they are so huge. We were certain that they're not going to like unexpected visitors and we become Indian food for their dogs. We ran out of supplies. Palms getting numb... All we could remember is Newton's law of cooling as we started becoming cold, The rate of heat loss of a body is directly proportional to the difference in the temperatures between the body and its surroundings. "You're screwed!" started my brain whispering to me.

<To be continued>