We're Home

Saturday 9^th June

We’re home!!!

Thai Airlines excelled again, left Bangkok on time and arrived into Melbourne half an hour earlier with service plus, all the way together with an excellent menu.

I don’t know the reason but at Bangkok Airport, after passing through security and into the Duty Free area, people flying to Australia cannot buy any drink and at the entrance to the boarding lounge all hand luggage was searched, again and any liquids confiscated.  The sign said the Australian Government won’t allow more than 100 ml total of liquid on board, I wouldn’t think they could do that at a foreign airport and a foreign airline.

I haven’t experienced that before, I wonder if someone in Government has shares in the Australian Duty Free shops and are forcing people to buy when they arrive in Australia.  Oh well, I have 500 Baht to spend on our next trip to Bangkok.

We have never experienced such a quick exit from the airport as we did today.  Thirty minutes after landing we were on the Airport Bus, having bought some duty free, been through immigration and customs, a five minute wait for a train at Spencer St, (refuse to use that other name, it’s in Spencer St.) and we were home in two hours.

What an interesting trip, we have experienced hot and humid 34C in Bangkok, 30C in Berlin and down to zero within the Arctic Circle, sunny days, overcast and rain, snow and hail, gentle breezes and Force 9 gales.  We say we don’t travel for the weather but if we did we have experienced the full range on this trip.

I have made some comments earlier about the difference in service and facilities between SAS and Royal Thai Air and I would also like to comment on what I would call, “Let’s squeeze everything we can from our guests” attitude of the big hotel chains.  Without exception the Youth Hostels, Hostels and inexpensive hotels provide free wi-fi connections, as did Viking Cruises on their boat and Hurtigruten Ferries, many trains in Europe also provide connections.  Hilton, Novotel and others charge around $5 per hour on top of their accommodation charges, they need to learn something about providing customer service. 

Time to start planning our next trip; it’s probably Australia’s turn to receive our dollars.

Bangkok - Next stop Melbourne

Friday 8^th June

We’re back in Bangkok and halfway home, we had a good flight from Copenhagen, took off on time and landed half an hour early.  The SAS service is good but their business class lounge and the food on the plane was not exciting, in fact if you arrived at their lounge to catch a late flight about all that was offering was some fruit and cheese and biscuits, all the other food disappeared very early.

Arriving at passport control at Bangkok we were confronted with a queue as long as that at security in Oslo and resigned ourselves for an hour’s wait but we were directed to the Priority Gate, being over 70 has some advantages.  The result was we were in our room at the hotel, compliments of SAS, within an hour of landing.  A quick swim to refresh ourselves and we now have an eight hour wait till we depart for Melbourne.

We are now in Royal Thai lounge after our stay at the hotel, nothing like a short sleep, a shower and fresh clothes to prepare for the next leg home.  From the hotel we could see the airport terminal about 300 m away and could have walked there across the car parks but the hotel shuttle bus must have covered 3km on the road to drop us.

Once again our age gained us a quick trip to passport control and on to security and into the giant duty free shopping mall, when I went to buy a bottle of Scotch to take home I was informed it wouldn’t get through security in Australia.  I wonder if that’s if you fly into Sydney and transfer to a domestic flight.

Thai and SAS code share the flight to Melbourne but there isn’t any comparison with their lounges and facilities and perhaps SAS could learn a lot from Thai when it comes to customer service, it also applies to on-board their flights.

Next stop Melbourne

Oslo - Last day then home

Thursday 7^th June

The day that all holiday makers either dread or welcome; the day to return home has arrived.  After eight weeks of travel I think we are ready to go home.

As our flight to Copenhagen didn’t leave till after 4:00 and our Oslo card is valid to midday we set off to walk to Akershus Castle to arrive at opening time.  The castle dates back to the 13^th century and was extensively remodelled in the first half of the 17^th century and is still in use today for State and Royal functions and the Royal Guard is based here.

Using an excellent audio guide we wandered through the many halls and banquet rooms, private quarters, the dungeon and Royal Mausoleum.  King Haakon VII and his wife, Queen Maud’s tombs are in the crypt under the chapel.  Queen Maud was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria.  The tombs of their son King Olav and his wife Crown Princess Martha are beside them.

The chapel is used for regular services and members of the guard may be married there and their children baptised.  The chapel was altered and modernised in the early 1900s.

 

Throughout the castle are many tapestries and portraits of early rulers of Norway together with a large collection of period furniture, a very interesting visit.

In the castle grounds in one of the old buildings the Norwegian Resistance Museum is housed and has an extensive display of old newspapers, films, models of many military events, weapons, radios and other displays about the events during the Nazi occupation, resistance activity and also the Allied  involvement in the war against Germany.  All the displays also had captions in English and were very informative.

Returning to the hostel to eat lunch and collect our luggage we walked to Central Station to buy our tickets to the airport and found the price had apparently double.  This created some concern as we had only saved the same amount of cash as we paid on the inwards journey.  Making some enquiries we found that a different company runs the more expensive airport express, so we purchased tickets on the normal service and just spent an additional fifteen minutes on the train.

At the airport we had problems checking in at the automatic kiosk so had to stand in line for nearly half an hour to be checked in at the one and only staffed check in counter until another was opened when we beginning to wonder if we would catch our flight.  Also the security staff at the airport is on strike, more like a reduction of services and a go slow.  Only four of the x-ray machines out of ten were in operation so the queues snaked for 100 m or more.  Ann’s hip set of the alarm – again! so she received a very thorough checking over, by a man (at last!) before being able to proceed.  However we finally entered the departure area with an hour to spare and were able to talk our way into the business class lounge – we were flying economy to Copenhagen.

I am writing this in the business class lounge in Copenhagen and we still have about 3hours 45 minutes to departure and then around nine hours wait in Bangkok when we arrive.  Oh, the joys of travelling.

Oslo - Day 2

Wednesday 6^th June

Our last full day in Oslo and the sun has shone all day, the first full day of sun for two and a half weeks.

Today was our “messing about in boats day” we caught an early ferry to Bygdoy and walked to the Viking Ship Museum, hoping to beat the influx of tour buses, there were only three there when we arrived.

The museum contains three Viking boats from around 820 AD.  They had all been used as burial ships so the owners must have been rich to be able to use a boat as a burial chamber, many of the valuable treasures buried with them have been looted over the centuries but many household items including a horse drawn wagon and sledges survived but like the boats needed restoring. 

We then walked to a series of three museums all involving boats.  The first the Kon-Tiki museum which contains the Kon-Tiki, Ra II and a model of the Tigris, three boats used by Thor Heyerdahl in his voyages, where he set out to prove theories how people travelled from South America and other places thousands of years before to settle in new areas.  The display provides information about Heyerdahl’s life and work both before and after his voyages and a large display about Easter Island and the inhabitants, together with details about the statues.

The display also included details of the crews on the voyages and the building of the boats using ancient techniques.  Also an interesting display about one of the crew, a Russian doctor, who developed a technique for healing broken bones which wouldn’t mend and also a way of lengthening bones.

Continuing our boat theme, we entered the Fram museum to be greeted by the Fram the strongest wooden ship ever built and provided a safe haven in Arctic and Antarctic waters for the most famous polar explorers of all times.

The ship was mostly constructed of oak and the bow is 1.25 m thick and the sides from between 60 – 80cm.  It was designed to spend years in the ice and the construction of smooth rounded sides meant that it popped up out of the ice when squeezed instead of being crushed.  It spent many years as a base ship enclosed by ice while explorers carried out research or for explorers heading to the Poles.  Roald Amundsen used it in his conquest of the South Pole.

There are three levels of displays with photos, artefacts, equipment, diaries and other items from many polar expeditions, including Amundsen and also Scott’s South Pole expeditions together with many other trips through the Arctic region.  It is possible to go on board and visit the various decks and cabins that housed these explorers.  It may have been a history lesson but a very interesting one.

Our next visit was to the Norwegian Maritime Museum which traces the development of boats from a 2000 year old oak dugout boat to modern day super ships of all types, cargo, survey, passenger, liquid gas and many others.  In the entrance hall, displayed are many examples of small Norwegian wooden open boats which have evolved in different regions.

The displays of the development of boats are all models which are built at the museum, the attention to detail of the models couldn’t be faulted and many of the super cargo ships, bulk carriers and large ferry ships, together with bulk gas carriers also had cut-aways showing cargo storage or ferry car decks, I wonder how many hours it took to build these models.

Near the gift shop a super tanker model is displayed, nearly a metre in length but different to the other displays, it is made from match sticks.

Having reached a boat overload we had one more boat fix, the ferry ride back to the wharf opposite the City Hall and walked around to the Nobel Peace Centre which has an interactive display providing information about all the Peace Prize Laureates together with details about Alfred Nobel and his family and the development of dynamite.

There are many other photographic displays, the major one at the moment on Afghanistan women and another on the troops serving there.  Other displays feature people in developing countries working towards improving the life of their people.

Our next visit was back to the City Hall to photograph some of the wooden sculptures before boarding a tram to Central station and walking around to the Oslo Opera House.  The opera house and surrounds appears to be constructed of white marble and glass and opened in 2008 it has a gross area of 49,000 m² and the outside surrounds slope upwards allowing the public to walk up onto the roof, providing a good view over part of the harbour and town.

Now to sort out our luggage before we leave tomorrow for home.

Oslo

Tuesday 5^th June

On the move early and walked around to the City Hall, from the harbour side it didn’t look that impressive a 1930-40s building but walking around to the other side, in a cloister like surround leading to the entrance we were greeted by a series of wooden two dimensional sculpture depicting Norse legends, they were all coloured and there was an explanation of the legends they depicted.

Entering the building we were greeted by dull entrance foyer and reception area but going through a set of doors we entered a huge function area with murals on the walls and upstairs there were several equally elaborate, though smaller rooms.

From the city hall we walked via the National Theatre and Parliament House, passing very close to the scene of the bombing last July and on to the Oslo Cathedral.  The cathedral like many Lutheran churches is quite plain but with an elaborate painted ceiling, in need of restoration.  The internal area of the cathedral is in the shape of a cross with both naves of similar size and the “King’s Box” on the balcony at the “cross roads”.

We had nearly two and a half hours until the changing of the guard at the palace so decided to catch a train to the new ski jump facilities, where we were told we would have a good view over Oslo.  A half hour train ride and a fifteen minute walk up a steep hill brought us to the ski jump, a huge structure but we could only view it from underneath.  The view from here when it was completed in 2010 must have been excellent but that was before the trees re-grew and blocked the view of most of the city.  We made a rapid descent of the hill to catch the train back to the city and arrived at the Royal Palace with time to spare for the Changing of the Palace Guard.

Like the changing of the guard in Copenhagen, the public are allowed to cluster around the site and two guards are detailed to keep the people back so as not to impede the guard’s progress.  I was fortunate to be allowed to cross in front of them to the Palace side of the parade ground and didn’t have to jostle with the crowd to take my photos.

Walking back through the Palace Park we followed the street to the Historical Museum with displays from the Ice Ace to Christianity.  Other floors provides displays featuring the Inuit people, together with displays from the Americs, Africa, Ancient Egypt and a temporary display on the horse through history with artefacts and relics recovered from Norse graves,

On leaving the museum we found that the heavens had opened so we hurried around to the National Gallery to find it was closed, the security guards are on strike and it’s not sure when it will re-open.  While there we were told the security staff at the airport is on a “go slow campaign” so we should allow plenty of time on Thursday to check in.

Yesterday we were told about the Vigeland Sculpture Park and as we still had several hours to fill, we used a tram and the Metro to travel to the park, we had no idea what to expect and arriving at the station it was still pouring but we set off to walk.

Arriving at the park, there was a statue of August Vigeland a sculptor who died in 1943 and all the 212 sculptures, both bronze and stone, were completed by him.  Without exception they were all nudes, male and female of all ages and most featured two or three people in a group.  A bridge over a lake was lined on both sides with bronze statues, including a small boy.  This particular statue we have seen illustrated on postcards and on the front of several guide books, it’s probably Oslo’s answer to Brussels’ Mannequin Piss but without the water works.

Further into the park on a hill we could see a large column, probably 20 m or more high and it was composed of hundreds of bodies carved in stone, intertwined up the column.  The steps leading up to the platform supporting the column were also lined with stone figures mostly of two or three people.  The fact that all the statues in the park were created by one person is amazing; it was certainly worth a visit.