Next stop: Yangon, Myanmar

Obviously, it's been a while since I've posted. A lot has happened in the last 8 months. I returned from Iceland. Got horrendously sick for 3 weeks after my body said F U for subjecting me to so much in the last 3 months. I left LinkedIn but got a new job in San Francisco which is killer since my daily commute is about an hour, 45 EACH WAY so I'm pretty exhausted by the time I get home.

The good thing is things have finally started to stabilize at work so that means getting to plan and book some more travel. So I leave tomorrow to spend Christmas in Southern California, fly back on the 26th, then depart on the 27th for Myanmar!

Jokulsarlon

Day 5, 4 days remaining

I woke up nice and early on this day to continue my drive up the east coast to make my way up to Jokulsarlon, the glacial lagoon for Vatnajokull. The weather was supposed to change drastically so I wanted to go to the furthest destination first so I could stop on my way back to my hotel if necessary. 

Vatnajokull is the largest glacier on Iceland and apparently has been the site for 4 movies. All I can tell you from my own experience is it's enormous. I drove for over 45km with it on my right hand side, within view the entire time. Wikipedia says it covers 1300 square miles. There is a rather large lagoon a short distance from the coast that allows runoff to flow into the sea. It also is where icebergs break off the glacier and settle until they melt, which could be many, many years if not decades. This spot is absolutely beautiful. Even on a day with heavy cloud cover, it was still amazing. 

We also got to see these fun, little guys chilling out on the ice. The one in front seemed to like the attention and kept hamming it up for photographs. 

After spending a couple hours at the lagoon, I started making my way back to Kirkjubaejarklaustur with plans on stopping on the way at the Skaftafell National Park. It's a great area with dozens of hiking trails that allows up close access to the glacier. Trekking on a glacier should obviously be supervised by a professional guide but there are areas to certainly get close enough to take spectacular photographs. 

On the way back, I stopped once again to admire the black deserts in this region of the island. Miles and miles of virtual nothing. 

I know the east coast isn't a big destination since there isn't much out there in terms of civilization, but if you come to Iceland, you should definitely make the effort to try to see it. Not to mention, the chef at the Hotel Loki in Kirkjubaejarklaustur cooks the best lamb I've ever eaten in my life. His rack of lamb alone is worth the trip. 

Hitting the Road

Day 4, 6 days remaining

After 3 days in Reykjavic, I rented a car for the rest of my time in Iceland so I could explore on my own. Iceland has 1 ring road (Route 1) that circles the entire island. I did about 1200 miles over 7 days.

Above is a map of Iceland. I marked some of the more notable locations in blue and the route I drove in green. Most people tend to stay on the southwest, close to Reykjavic. It's a shame because the south coast and east coast are absolutely stunning. Once you get about 2 hours out of Reykjavic, prepare to be alone. You can go long stretches without seeing another car. I also marked the peninsula on the west coast which is the Snaefellsjokull national park. I didn't make it out there because of bad weather but that peninsula was the inspiration for Jules Verne's novel "Journey to the Center of the Earth".

I headed out of Reykjavic around 10am and immediately headed east. I took my time and made periodic stops along the way to look at some things we spotted along the way a day earlier on the "Blue Ice" tour.

One of them was a waterfall called Seljalandsfoss. It's not quite as big as Skogafoss, but the neat feature of this waterfall is you can walk behind it.

I actually walked up to it, then went back to my car to put in my rain gear. I figured I would regret coming all the way to Iceland and not taking the time to see and do everything I could.

So after stopping for about 30 minutes here, I continued on my way. I drove along the south coast, admiring some of the landscape and the immense isolation. This is route 1. Both directions looked like this.

Then I continued on to Reynisfjara. Also known as the black beach. The weather by that point had changed considerably so I only stayed there for maybe 30 minutes. Struggling to stay on my feet in the wind and freezing from the wind and rain.

Along the way, I stopped at some of the lava fields and "black deserts". Miles and miles of ash covered flatlands. They are truly jaw dropping.

This is a lava field. Miles of moss covered lava rock. Equally stunning as the black deserts. 

About 5 hours after I set off, I arrived at my hotel in Kirkjubaejarklaustur. On the map, it's the 3rd blue box from the right. It's about 500km from Reykjavic. Tomorrow, I would be exploring the east coast and the largest glacier on the island, Vatnajokull.

Why you should want to come to Iceland

Ok. Enough pictures... for now. Let's get to the nitty gritty. I'm sure you're asking yourself, "Yeah yeah, but why the F would I want to go to Iceland?"

Let me count the ways.

1) Pay for water? BAH! - Coming from India, where the tap water will make you spew fluids from all orifices, the tap water here literally comes from a glacier. It's what people all over the world pay an absurd amount of money annually on but here, it flows freely and is ice cold coming from the tap. As soon as I tasted it, it brought me back to Scandinavia, 2009. If that's not pure enough for you, you can also drive an hour to the glacier itself and fill up from any of the running streams. 100% pure, unpolluted water. I drank about 5 water bottles worth off the glacier and have had nary a side effect, other than happiness.

2) Northern Hospitality - The people here are quite frankly the most friendly people I've EVER met. Not just traveling, EVER. They are all incredibly friendly, courteous, and welcoming. They all speak better English than most Americans and are quick to offer a suggestion or to help.

3) No Reservations - I've been here for a week now and I haven't had a single bad meal. The food in Scandinavia is largely unimpressive but Iceland has been the opposite. They serve a lot of lamb and fish on the menu but the lamb is the BEST I've ever had. They know how to cook lamb, lemme tell you. Cooked perfectly medium rare. They also have some of the best and freshest ingredients. The fish is extraordinary. I still need to try sushi which I've heard is excellent. Even the "Noodle House" in Reykjavic had some of the tastiest noodle soup I've ever had. Meals are not cheap. Expect to pay over $50 per person average for restaurant style meals. The noodle house was $10 for a big bowl but if you come to Iceland, do yourself a favor and enjoy the cuisine. I promise you it will be some of the best food you've ever eaten.

4) Be a rubbernecker - The landscape and scenery here is beyond belief. You need to keep your head on a swivel at all times or else you risk missing something beautiful. Waterfalls, icebergs, glaciers, canyons, sunrises, sunsets, northern lights, lava fields, deserts, wildlife, this small island has it all.

5) Get out of the city - Renting a car is a MUST. Renting a 4WD should be law. Driving is amazingly easy. There is no traffic. Not when the entire population of the country is 320,000 people. There are half a million fricking horses but only 320,000 people. Incredible. I've gone stretches of 20-30 minutes without seeing another car. Then you'll see 1 and once again, you're all by yourself. My little Kia Sorento is a great little car. AWD, Bluetooth sync with my iPhone so I can play music. I could not be happier. The only thing to keep an eye on is your fuel gauge because fuel stops might be 200-300 km apart. Err on the side of caution and fill up with a quarter of a tank left just in case.

This is the first country I've visited that I've truly said to myself, I want to move here. If that's not possible, I'm for sure returning in the summertime. 

500 year old ice and Pepperoni Tacos

Day 2, 7 days remaining.

We got back from our Northern Lights Explorer hunt around 12:15am. I knew I had to be up at 7:30 the next morning for another tour pickup so just took off my cold weather clothes and went to bed.

My alarm woke me up the next morning and it left me with a choice. I could A) sleep in for another 30 minutes and go get breakfast or I could B) get up, shower, then go get breakfast. I opted for A. So if you're paying attention, I'd be going another day of sweaty physical activity without showering. But what the hell, we were going to be outside all day anyway. I went down to eat breakfast, which I made a point of doing here since I knew I would need the calories these first few days, in fact most days I would need the energy. My Fitbit said I was walking over 7 miles a day. Mind you none of it is flat. It also said I was burning close to 6000 calories a day. So I ate a breakfast of protein and fruit.

Once again, packed up my day pack with what I would need today and waited for my pickup. Today's tour was the "Blue Ice" trip. Hiking on a glacier and ice wall climbing. The glacier was 2 and a half hours from Reykjavic so we stopped halfway at a bus stop for a restroom break as well as to buy lunch to eat on the Glacier. This is where I was introduced to Pepperoni Tacos. But I will get to that later. We hopped back into the van for the 2nd half of our journey to the glacier.

Upon arrival, we got a quick safety talk and got our gear. They provided helmets, harnesses, crampons, and an ice ax. Then we walked the quarter mile to the glacier.

Once we got to the base, we were instructed how to properly fit our crampons and more safety talk. IE, do not tear off your own calf muscle with your crampon (it has happened). There is no aid and if you do, you'll probably bleed to death. He didn't say that part but all of us made damn sure not to tear our own calf muscles off.

Our guide's name is Thor. He is awesome by default. His full name is Thorvill but he goes by Thor. I would too. 

This glacier is called Myrdalsjokull and it's one of probably 20 in Iceland. I will be visiting the largest in a few days. It's quite surreal. It is approximately 250 meters thick in the middle and it is approximately 500 years old.

I hereby declare thee Mt. Brown Bear

After walking around for about an hour with me eating pieces of 500 year old ice and our little wiry mountain goat safety guide was hopping all over the glacier looking for a new ice wall for us to climb, he finally returned and announced he found a new one. Completely untouched. They asked if we wanted to try it and we all said hell yes so we set off for this new location.

Our guides making it look easy...

This is what they found. 30 feet of sheer wall on the left. 30 feet of sloped wall on the right. I would suck at both.

Before we continue to my failures as a ice wall climber, let's go back to the topic of lunch. While our guides were setting up the ropes and whatnot, we all broke into our packs to eat our lunch we bought earlier. I bought a coke, a bag of dried fruit, and a "Pepperoni Taco". It's basically ham, pepperoni, cheese, and "magic mayo" as quoted by my new friend Kim from North Carolina on a parmesan roll. It is quite frankly the most amazing sandwich I've ever eaten. Forget the pastrami sandwich from Carnegie, forget anything you see on Food Network, you want a Pepperoni Taco from the bus stop on route 1 outside of Hella, Iceland. You will not be disappointed.

Ok. Back to the glacier. They got all the ropes anchored and we got in line to get climbing. We had a group of about 15 people so it took some time for my turn to come around. Good thing too because I apparently wasn't paying attention when they talked about proper boots. Let's get one thing straight. My boots were perfectly fine... for hiking. They checked them... for ankle protection and I declined the 1000 kroner to rent climbing boots. Which I would find out later are like ski boots but with tread. They are rigid as hell. My boots are "soft", which makes climbing impossible because once you try to kick in and put any weight on your feet, the boot flexes which makes the crampon slip out of the ice. I got about 15 feet up the first wall and 15 feet up the 2nd before calling it a day. 

For the record, I was the only person to get to try (and fail) on both walls so I have that dubious honor to be proud of. But we all got a good laugh at me hanging off a ice wall. 

Here's some pictures of skilled people with proper equipment doing it the right way. 

It was still crazy good fun and I met a bunch of amazing people to continue the rest of the trip with. After 3 hours on the glacier, we walked back down and headed back to Reykjavic, with 1 last stop on the way.

About an hour from Myrdalsjokull is the waterfall Skogafoss. We arrived around 4pm with the sun shining on it from the front. It made for quite the view.

I got the shower I so badly needed

This country keeps getting better and better and I still have almost a week left. I can happily announce Iceland is now atop my list of favorite countries in the world. 

The main reason I came to Iceland

There are a few things I have an infatuation with. One is ruins. Another is history. I've wanted to go to Egypt since I was a kid.

Another infatuation I have is with nature. Even though I live in a busy area like the San Francisco Bay Area, I love nature. I watched too much Bob Ross I guess because I see the inherent beauty of being outside. Especially when you're all by yourself in the middle of nowhere. Don't even dare to bring a cell phone to a glacier because if it rings, I'm likely to throw it into a bottomless fissure.

Iceland has proved to have all of the natural beauty I expected. Plus the ability to appreciate it. Want to walk behind a waterfall? Go for it. Want to swim in a natural thermal lagoon? By all means. One thing that I have desperately wanted to see for many years is the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. I'm no scientist so all I know is it has to do with magnetic particles reacting to the Earth's atmosphere. Like I said, I'm no scientist. We got back from our Golden Grand Slam tour around 6:45pm. That left me 1 hour to scarf down a Subway sandwich, repack my backpack with my camera gear, and put on a few extra layers. Then we got picked up and drove a good 2 hours back into Pingvellir National Park. We sat around for a few hours waiting for it to get completely dark (around 10:30pm) and for the scattered clouds to disperse. We changed locations a few times as well. It was looking like a wild goose chase when around 11pm, our guide pointed off to the distance and said that he thought he could see it moving. None of us were really sure what we were looking at so we took a few pictures to check and this is what came up.

A few things to note about trying to see the Aurora Borealis. The main one is they are a natural phenomenon. You need a perfect combination of elements to see them and even more to take good photos of them.

1) A clear to mostly clear night sky (some clouds create cool effects)
2) Complete darkness. We drove out 2 hours from Reykjavic and still picked up ambient light. It's the orange glow in the photos. It looks cool but really isn't supposed to be there.
3) A tripod. This is a must. Even a Joby would do but something to keep your camera from moving.
4) A DSLR is best but a camera with adjustable shutter settings. You need to keep the shutter open as long as possible to get the best effects. With a DSLR you can set the shutter and aperture settings to let in the right amount of light.
5) A wide-angle or fisheye lens works best since it captures a much larger area of the sky.

I also discovered Iceland is NOT a good place to view the Aurora Borealis. It's an island in the North Atlantic. The weather changes by the hour. The best places to view are northern Scandinavia (Finland and Sweden) and even northern Alaska.

I've gone out to look for them every night and I've only seen them twice. But once you see them, you become obsessed wanting to go out again and again to see them one more time. They are quite hypnotic to watch, albeit a little underwhelming. On partly cloudy nights, it's quite difficult to tell the difference between them and clouds. You just have to set up your camera, take the picture, and see what comes out. Once you distinguish them, then you can sit back and enjoy the show!

What's even more incredible is I saw and did so much on my first full day with 10 more days go go! 

The Golden Circle... Part 3 (Geysir and Pingvellir)

With the day only half over, we drove the few kilometers down the road to Geysir. Geysir is the town that is full of geothermal hot springs, including geysers. The word "geyser" was derived from the area of Geysir. Pretty neat huh? The main Geysir geyser collapsed on itself so now the main one is called Strokkur. It erupts every 5 minutes or so up to 120 feet into the air at a temperature of 500 degrees Celsius. That's Celsius, not Fahrenheit. 500 degrees C is 932 degrees F. That's pretty hot. Since Strokkur is located on half privately owned property, the owners decided they should cash in on the tourism boom and they charge 600 kroner to enter. It's the ONLY tourist destination in Iceland that costs anything to see. The rest are completely free. Yet another reason why Iceland is amazing.

To be honest, I don't know if it's worth 600 kroner to watch a geyser erupt but as the guide said, we've already travelled all the way to Iceland, what's another 600 kroner. Valid point. We all paid the 600 kroner, watched the geyser erupt 3 or 4 times, then left. It's a pretty good show though.

Then for our last stop of the day, we headed off to the Pengvillir National Park. It's the site of Iceland's first parliament. It is also where 2 tectonic plates meet, creating natural fissures in the ground and massive cliffs above ground that is basically the earth forcing one up and one down. It's quite a sight to behold.

Those are coins in the water. It's 100% glacial runoff so the visibility is extraordinary. 

This is the view from on top of those cliffs

By now, we had been going for a full 9 hours and still had a 2 hour drive back to Reykjavic and had to be back by 7:45pm for another tour pickup. It was going to be a long day but what came next is the main reason I came to Iceland during the winter.