Monday, March 23, 2009

Aurland - Snow Road

20th September - Sunny & Nice

As we parted with Sanden Pensjonat the next day, our journey for another day begins.

Life during travel is so simple. Wake up, eat, see as much as we can, then rest. I wonder if I would've done this for 3 months, what would I turn into. Someone with wisdom? Or nothing but a brainless idiots that doesn't even exercise a single brain cell...

Anyways, while I was thinking we should quickly cross over with the ferry, my dad thought we should try again with the Aurland snow road. This time round we start from the other side of the road.

Surprisingly it was nothing terrible as what we saw yesterday from the other side.

The scenery, it is different from what we saw yesterday and look just as gorgeous.

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Aurlandsvegen

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While we are still on our way up, there are some sheep still munching here.

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Their owner will come search for them on a 3 day hike before winter returns. I ask the question why don't the owner just put gps tagging on the sheeps, especially these sheep are so vulnerable to predators like wolves, so the owner can find for them sooner, but I guess it is just the way how Norwegian love doing things just like their ancestors did. Tradition, in many ways, is a thing they tried to adhere as much I felt.

Snow road as its name depicted, this area has snow the whole year round as it is on the highland. But at the end of Autumn before Winter returns, there was very little snow left. I can imagine how high the ice must be to be able to supply snow the whole year round throughout hot warm summer even.

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As our car climb higher, the scenery changes too. From lush greenery, surrounding gradually change to small short shrubs, wind blow very strong here. Eventually we reach plateau with large pieces of stone, with lakes made up of melted snow in between.

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It feel like we are no on earth anymore, more like on moon as if...I feel so small in the universe after being in the Norwegian fjord.

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I feel so insignificant, like I am nobody here compare to great mother nature. It is like paradise on earth really, like a place you'd never know it would exist at all, then you are here and when you see them everywhere you just sigh with the creation of mother nature...

Soon we started to decent, the view from top to down in the car is magnificent...

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We then reached the At Stegastein, dramatically located with a spectacular view over Aurlandsfjorden, is the award winning viewpoint, designed by architects Todd Saunders and Tommie Wilhelmsen.

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Took many pics here, then we decided to have a picnic here. Live like the westerners you see.

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It is really not a choice as food is expensive, nearby no restaurants nor cafe, we are always on the go so it is no time for finding restaurant for lunch.

Notice that we are well equipped here with a large thermo flask as well. My mom initially detest the idea on me carrying so many things in my luggage, and she made sarcastic remarks if she could offer her fridge and microwave to tagged along as well.

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Look here at the end who was the smarter one? :P

Later we continued downhill back to town, stopped by at the supermarket to refill on food supply. Still nice scenery, even just outside the supermarket. SIGH!!! People here must be living a long life!

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Saturday, March 14, 2009

Sanden Pensjonat, Lærdal

19th September - Cloudy

After the exhilarating experience at Norway in a Nutshell, we continued our journey towards the east side. We were wanting to get there through the Snow Road which was said to be very nice with views from high atop of the Aurlandsfjorden. Coming from Aurland side, we try and try to search for the road and our GPS keep pointing us on some off road through some people's backyard which is kinda scary since it look totally inaccessible by our car. I thought that road must be like a 4x4 experience.

So... as the end we had to cross that longest tunnel in the world, like 45km or so, and not see anything but a pitch dark cave all the way to Lærdal.

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With such a small population of 500 people, it didn't take us too long to find Sanden Pensjonat in this small village. It is located just right next to the tourist office. And the whole small old touristy Lærdalsøyri area is empty with us.

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Though the our lodging looks very petite from inside, but this old wooden building was very well preserved and stayed by a couple doing some artistic work. The rooms are very very cozy, fit for a smurfs! Not forgetting the bathroom, all revamped with nice hot shower and heated floors too.
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We had very early dinner, as there was another couple waiting to use the kitchen too. I think they were amused with the amount of cooking we were doing. Can see their eyes rolling wide as I saw they were only planning to have only pizza and wine that they've got from the supermarket nearby. My mom on the other hand was just dishing out the yummy beef rending she prep the night before.

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View from 2nd Floor

There are not much to do here at night. We just took a walk to the nearby river and took some pictures. Loud Malaysian like us spoke like thousand horses roaring over, and I thought we did startled some old folks that still stay around here. Haha...

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We had some great time spent up in the attic throughout the night, with my mom gulping beer away and my dad cannot be parted with his free wifi access. I was just doing nothing scanning through pics that I've taken today.

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Thursday, March 05, 2009

Sick

In actual fact, I feel fine most of the time. But neither do the doctor (2 of them) nor I can pin point exactly what when wrong with my head. I feel very very very dizzy when I start to lay down on the bed.

Maybe god is trying to tell me that I rest too much, therefore it is time for me to be awake more often, so that I can get more work done.

But anyways, I am getting a day off tomorrow under doctor's recommendation so I am all ready to rest and was told to relax. :P