Trip to see the colourful sky in “Paris of the North” where sun could barely make it. Northern Lights in Tromso!!

Archana, Pooja and I left from our Canary Wharf offices in London at 4pm rushing to Gatwick airport. We were so excited about seeing northern lights in Tromso that when there was an announcement at a station “you can change here for northern line”, of course we heard northern lights :) We were little nervous, as there have been few days of chaos at airports in London due to severe snowstorms. Luckily all flights were running on time. We eventually changed the National Rail train to Gatwick Airport. It was very busy as everyone was going to the airport and we managed to find three separate seats. I happened to sit beside a Swedish girl who started chatting; we talked for the entire 30 minutes about everything from Sweden to India. I didn't realize it then; but Archana was sitting on the other side of the aisle and wasn’t quite appreciating the discussion for reasons all married people would know. She changed seat to somewhere in the front with an empty seat next to her (I honestly didn't realize). She seemed to be little jealous which I thought was very cute. Jealousy without irrational outburst is a sign of true love :)

We headed to our terminal and managed to choose seats near the exit row, felt like business class seats. All airhostesses on the flight talked to us in Norwegian, not sure which Indian feature of ours resembles Norwegian. We chatted, tried to sleep and bought a water bottle for 25 NOK (Norwegian Krona, approx. 9 to a GBP).

We landed at the Oslo airport and temperature outside was -16 C. We bundled up, easily went through immigration desk and reached the bus stop for our shuttle to the Gardermoen Motel (60 NOK for ticket per person). We got off the shuttle to see there were heaps of snow everywhere;yet surprisingly the fern trees were dark green. We tried to make a snowball but it was as light as powder on the sides, and formed ice on the road. Clicked some snaps and quickly checked into our very nice room. Girls were brilliant to pack Maggi and use the kitchen facility in the room to cook Maggi (quick Indian noodles – all time favourite). Had some snack and went to sleep.

Next morning we woke up at 5:30, bundled up and headed to bus stop for our shuttle to the airport. And of course, Pooja had to forget her purse at the hotel that herself and Archana went back and retrieved. Reached the airport in shuttle and searched for our flight in the display of scheduled flights. And we were aghast that we could not find any flight to Tromso by Norwegian at 9:00am. After getting little nervous we went to the airline counter and they confirmed there is a flight at 9 (Thank God!). Went through security and of course you can't carry a water bottle through security and therefore we drank the whole bottle in the supervision of the security personnel who said you can take the empty bottle with you. It was 9 am and the sun was just about to rise while we were heading towards a city where sun will refuse to show-up for few months. When we reached Tromso the rays were much less than when we started in Oslo because of being above the Arctic Circle.

We landed amidst heaps and heaps of snow and unlike London, the airport had no issues running it normally with probably 10 times more snow than London. We took a taxi (it was 20 seater – but given the non-peak season during Christmas holidays we could hire it was the same rate), reached hotel in 10 minutes or so. The driver said you can see northern lights almost everyday and didn't seem particularly excited about it as we were. When we reached ABC Hotell Nord, we found friendly people and nice room overlooking the city and majestic mountains surrounding Tromso. All the fancy hotels were down the slope in downtown but I would say we had a better view from this place. We instantly realized that we had forgotten our backpack in the taxi and panicked, asked receptionist to call the taxi company to see if we can get it back. Fortunately the driver had found it and promised to drop it back.

As the supermarket was going to close soon we headed out to get some food for next two days the whole town looked like a ghost town. We came back to hotel and were relieved to see our backpack. We went down in the common room and had our meal, talked to few people and took some tips about tours, northern lights etc. The only tour operator open on 24th was Gunnar's aurora theatre and food. We got some sleep in the afternoon and woke up in the evening due to no sunlight most of the time. Evening and morning are purely based on time. We woke up, had some food and went out to apparently attend a midnight mass in a church, which was closed, and a bunch of students instead directed us to a bar :) We came back disappointed and went back to hotel room staring at the window waiting for northern lights but found none. We were now hallucinating northern lights and were dreaming about it.

In the morning, I called a tour operator ‘Tromso Villmarks Senter’ and went for dog sledding. To continue the saga of forgetting this time it was my wallet but couldn't find it and rushed to the tour with cash. Clearly Archana was upset because of her wanting to make sure everything is well organised. I was sure it was somewhere in the room and that was enough for me. When we reached there after half hour ride, we were welcomed by many of Alaskan huskies barking . We patted? some dogs, registered and told the lady we will make partial payment for combination of dog sledding and night northern lights tour as I had no wallet and just some local currency. She agreed.

We put on some warm jumpsuit from them, shoes and gloves. I had requested to drive my own sled with Archana as the passenger. When we got to the sled I was explained the instruction for balancing, breaking and dog behaviour. Very unexpectedly, Archana got very scared with big barking dogs and already had tears in her eyes. She said it feels like we’ll be thrown amidst all the hungry and aggressive dogs with sharp teeth to feed them. She said she wants to go with a guide and not me. I explained to her as well as called a guide to calm her down. She agreed to make me happy and as I desperately wanted to ride the sled and didn't want to be just the passenger. Now the sled was unanchored and dogs were desperate to run. I was driving a dog sled and controlling the speed by a physical brake on my feet. Dogs exactly knew where to go and there were tracks already made. We went through some amazing landscape overlooking snow covered mountains, Norwegian Sea and trees. It helped our memories to reflect on the documentaries we have seen on Planet Earth, Nat Geo and Discovery. So heavenly!! And dogs were very excited to just run. I had to brake a lot to avoid them overtaking sled in front of us. I was told to help dogs uphill by pushing the sled but they didn't need. Instead I had to break it to make sure they don't overtake. Archana was also enjoying as she realised this was very controlled environment and she was not in danger. She was taking a lot of pictures and videos and I was having the time of my life. We came back to the camp in about an hour and we went to all the six dogs individually and pet them, asked their names. Archana noticed one of the dogs was bleeding, she asked the tour operator. We were told that the dog already had a wound and it just opened due to the freezing temperature. We were feeling guilty; Archana and Pooja mentioned that we weren’t any less hypocrites. Anyway, we then headed towards the Sami tent; native north European tribes are called Sami’s. It was very warm inside the tent and everybody was sitting and talking inside (mostly English and French). We had requested a vegetarian meal and were not expecting much when they were focused on serving the local delicacy of reindeer meat. To our great surprise the meal we were given was amazingly tasty. It had peppers, lentils and other vegetables with very Indian flavour and spices. It looked like a vegetarian version of Ratatouille (French cuisine). We were happy and also later complimented/thanked the chef. While Archana was holding a glass of nice hot tea that was served, something fell in it from the top and she freaked out. It was a snowball that came in from the top of the Sami tent that is slightly open to the sky. It was fun. We took some pictures in the tent and outside. With expert advice from Archana and Pooja, I agreed to postpone the northern lights tour to the next day. We headed back in the van to the city. We walked around in the city and went to the hotel, relaxed and decided to be outside in the evening and convinced (read forced) Archana and Pooja for walking in the city crossing the bridge and went to Arctic Cathedral to the other side of river. When we started coming back, Pooja's hands were freezing and since she had forgotten her hat at the dog sledding camp it was even more uncomfortable. This made me feel little guilty ‘cos I was the one who wanted to stay out. I gave them both another pair of gloves and Archu's hat to Pooja as she had the hood. Archu's boots were killing her and that made her walk very fast to the hotel room. We reached back made few packets of Maggie and with some ready-made naan. Went back to the hotel room, kept staring at the window for northern lights and went to sleep. Woke up few times to see out to window and search northern lights but found none.

Since the next day was 26th we knew the aquarium was going to be open and we decided to start the day with the Polaria aquarium. Before that we had some breakfast talked to some people about any northern lights viewing. We were so desperate to see the northern lights that we literally dreamt about it. To our surprise someone mentioned they saw northern lights with Lungsfjord Adventure and showed us the pictures. We couldn't stop feeling guilty and changed our tour operator for that night to be Lyngsfjord adventure. According to the prediction from Alaska geophysical laboratories the particle activity that generate northern lights was even better this day. After booking we were quite excited and headed to the aquarium, watched two great movies on Svalbard and Antarctica, experienced seal feeding some good exhibitions. Went out to our first restaurant meal in Egon restaurant, ordered unlimited pizza and salad for three and ate plenty. Since we had little bit of time we went back to hotel room nearby and Archu took a power-nap, I surfed the net and Pooja took a stroll through the city for creative writing.

Finally we headed out to our one big hope to see the northern lights with Lyngsfjord adventures. The van was full of hopefuls with people doing dog sledding, northern lights, snowmobiling and reindeer sledding. We drove for little more than an hour to a remote place. I had my eyes outside the window the whole time but the time was still not ripe. We reached there, put on some warm gear, paid 990 NOK each and headed with a guide on a short walk further to a campsite with some Sami tents. The guide, Roy, gave some tips about capturing lights to the people with fancy DSLR cameras. But our digital point and shoot had no hope, not that it bothered us. The guide was very nice, funny and talkative. We walked over a kilometre in the wilderness, snow-filled jungle, if I may say. Reached the Sami tent, put some fire to warm us up and started the waiting game outside staring at the sky. We started staring at about 7 pm and stayed disappointed for quite some time until we finally gave up on -25 degrees temperature and went inside the tent to warm up. After lot of wait and frustration, the aha moment came and we did see the colourful lights dancing in the sky. Yes, the northern lights appeared. I yelled to call Archu, - I was already out J. The smile and excitement on her face was priceless. The northern lights were amazing but honestly, it was more rewarding to see the expression on Archu’s face.

Lights covered the northeast sky and got brighter. They were dancing and changing shapes continuously. And as we were told earlier, they were travelling east to west. The lights were in the backdrop of snow-covered mountains and can safely say it felt heavenly. We were lucky to have one of the guides take our picture with the light using his camera and we exchanged email later for him to send us the pictures. Lights started to faint slowly and vanished eventually. The whole show lasted for maybe 15 to 20 minutes well worth the whole trip to Tromso. We went inside the tent, warmed our fingers and toes and had some amazing cauliflower soup with bread. Again very good vegetarian option in the land of reindeer meat delicacy. We also had some very warm tea later and then headed to the base camp to change to our clothes (fortunately in bus this time). We changed, thanked our guides and got back to the van for our ride back. Just when we thought we are so lucky to have seen the light, Archana saw the lights again on the way and requested the driver to stop for sometime. Everybody popped out of the van with their professional cameras, we were staring at a band of light even brighter than before and enjoying it thoroughly. Most people with us had good digital SLR cameras and we managed to request them to send us some pictures by email. We continued our ride back to Tromso like a kid who got the perfect gift from Santa on Christmas. After all Tromso is considered part of Lapland which Santa calls home.

After about an hour we reached Tromso, thanked our driver and reached hotel room with a feeling of bliss and satisfied with our purpose of the trip. We all knew we were going to get very good night sleep tonight. We had our favourite Maggie dinner with pasta and bread in the hotel and went to sleep.

We had a lovely sleep and woke up with this bizarre sense of achievement. This day we had plans to visit all the famous places like the Polar Museum, the Cable Car and the Arctic Cathedral.

Polar Museum had a spectacular collection of the historical artefacts. All the exhibitions had stories for people like us to have an idea of how people survived in this region since ages, what they did to earn a livelihood. Pooja read the translated version and explained us in brief. All the stories were very heart touching. We later went to the Pepe's Pizza place to taste the second best pizzas in the world, first place is obviously, as Archana says 'Mitesh's speciality' ;) We were too full to call for a desert. Hired a cab and went on to take the cable car to the top of the snow-mountain. We were probably the last ones to have a ride up. Meanwhile Pooja saw a man cleaning the ice covered stairs and said she wanted to try doing that job at least once in life. Archana went and requested him if they could try doing it. The guy who was actually cleaning felt relieved for few minutes as both of them were doing his job for free. Cable car took us to the top of the mountain with spectacular views of the Tromso city and surrounding.

We had heard that in summers some enthusiasts do hang gliding from there. And of course there are slopes for experienced skiers. We went when it was dark and of course going when light is present will be a different experience. Archana's boots were killing her and was little bit ruining her enjoyment. The mountain had a trail to go the entire length of the mountain. We went down in the cable car and walked towards the Arctic Cathedral nearby. The cathedral, which is in the shape of a Sami tent, is very modern looking and has become a symbol synonymous with Tromso. We sat in the Cathedral; it was very peaceful and soothing feeling. We left the church and took a bus towards the city (arctic cathedral and Tromso city are connected by a bridge). We went to the hotel room to relax for sometime while Pooja inquired about the Mass in a nearby catholic church. After relaxing we headed to the church for the Mass. Even though the entire service was in Norwegian, we remained very interested and enjoyed the sermons. We then tried to hunt for a good Bar to listen to some good music but due to limited selections of vegetarian food we ended up in Egon restaurant again which conveniently remains open until midnight. We had baked potato, tortilla chips, apple pie with ice cream and hot chocolate. Stuffed, we went home and watched some detective series, news and How I Met your mother on TV. We slept very well our last night in Tromso.

Woke up at 9 am and got ready for some last minute shopping before our flights back to London in the afternoon. We headed to the Art Gallery of Northern Norway that unfortunately was closed. We decided to visit the nearby shopping mall and checked out apparels, jewellers before heading to the cafe for some quick lunch. After lunch we went to the grocery store to buy some Chocolates for Ashish and colleagues in the office. We had kept our luggage with the receptionist as our checkout time was 12 pm and we were leaving for airport at 3 pm. The receptionist had already booked the taxi for us.

We chatted with Ashish in London who told us about public transport disruptions to give us feeling of end of vacation and back to reality. We took the taxi to airport and checked into our flight. Fortunately we got first row seat with good leg space. The flight was slightly delayed but only about 20 mins. We had made plans to watch a movie ‘The Way Back’ after reaching London but it was dependent on arrival time. We were still searching for Northern lights from our plane windows like little kids. The Arctic Circle is much more beautiful than we could ever imagine!