In February 2010, the tiny tropical island nation of Singapore announced its intention to send a representative to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, rationalising that Asian physiques were actually quite suitable for winter sports such as speedskating and snowboarding. Unbeknownst to the Singapore Sports Council, my secret training had begun two months earlier…
In the days after Christmas 2009, Michelle and I had made a trip to the little-known village of Jostedal in the heart of Norway’s Jostedalbreen National Park. A shower of snowflakes greeted us as we disembarked from the Fokker twin-engine aircraft and huddled into the tiny arrival hall of Sogndal Airport. Bjonar, our guide from Fimbul Jostedal (a small adventure company based in the region), had been waiting for some time and had the complicated task of trying to sort out us two Singaporeans amongst the new arrivals of ten Caucasians and two Asians. He wore a thin beard, stood at six feet plus and drove a beat-up Toyota with a cracked windshield, manual transmission, and spluttering ignition. Hmm… did we buy enough travel insurance?
Under the cover of darkness, we made our way to Jostedal, passing snow-capped houses with warm yellow lighting, most with Christmas stars hanging from the top of their windows and flickering electric candles on their window sills. It was nice to celebrate at least part of the 12 days of Christmas surrounded by snow. This was the Christmas spirit we hardly ever get to experience back home where Christmas is always celebrated in 30ºC heat and with frantic shopping to take advantage of year-end sales. The Christmas lights along the shopping streets and the decorations in and around the malls have always been a welcome distraction, but it will never be the same.
Sleep came easy after a long day that included a transit through Oslo, and we were both famished the next morning. But on the breakfast menu was hard bread, freshly cut cucumbers and tomatoes, hazelnut spread in handy tubes, pickled herring, cereal, cheese, hard-boiled eggs and several jam spreads — hardly the sort of food to set Asian palettes alight, so imagine our anguish when we were told that we had to use the same ingredients to prepare a packed lunch. Why didn’t we bring more instant noodles, some solid fuel and chilli sauce?
The purpose of our trip was to experience what it was like inside a glacier cave. From the correspondence with our guide, we had anticipated an “easy” one-and-a-half-hour trek through the snow each way to and from the cave on snow shoes. However, when we stepped outside after breakfast, we saw Bjonar waxing a couple of skis by the side of the car. Skis...? Who said anything about skiing?!
Unwittingly, we had signed up for a cross-country skiing expedition to the Nigardsbreen Glacier, and the “easy one-and-a-half-hour trek either way” turned into a six-hour and ten-kilometre return trip in the snow. Sure, it could have been one-and-a-half hours either way, but that is if you were a member of Norway’s winter Olympics team, or if you were born with a set of skis instead of feet. It was also a shame not to pause, savour and cherish the wonderful winter wilderness around us, to admire the amazing expanse of the valley, the crystals of ice weighing down the branches of the trees, the undisturbed carpet of snow on the frozen lake, the jagged peaks of the mountains around us, and the strips of glacier blue hidden beneath the layers of snow.
We struggled to keep pace with Bjonar, but after all the huffing and puffing (and c*#sing), we finally stood in front of the mighty slab of ice, and quickly ducked into one of its caves to eat our frozen lunch. It was surreal inside the cave, nature’s very own blue room, with the light shifting as it bounced off the walls of ice and rock fragments littering the ground inside the cave, cracked by the sheer weight and force of the glacier as it moved backwards. All that was missing was a disco ball, some lounge chairs, some speakers and a turntable!
We then climbed up into a larger cave, stepping over thin panels of ice which cracked like glass sheets under our weight. This main cave was around the size of a basketball court, and certain sections of the roof had fallen in. Mounds of snow lay on the ground below those fallen sections. The walls were various shades of glacial blue and the air bubbles and impurities trapped in the alternate freezing and thawing cycles turned the walls into mini art galleries that even Da Vinci would have been proud of.
We wanted to stay longer, but the light was slowly fading. It was going to be another long, long trek back to the car. The swift curtain of darkness fell as we reached the halfway point back to the car. But thankfully, a full moon lit our way back. The mood of the landscape had changed from welcoming to eerie, but Bjonar turned back every now and then to make sure we were okay and to give us encouragement to complete the journey. “It’s just another five minutes!” he would say. What a liar!
After what seemed like an eternity, we finally saw the outline of the car. But why was the bonnet raised? To our horror, the battery had frozen up. Did that mean we had to also ski back to the hotel?! (“Don’t worry its just another hour or so!” — I imagined Bjonar lying through his teeth again.) Thankfully, five minutes later, another car pulled up and the driver helped jump start the frozen batteries, and within half an hour we were enjoying our first warm meal of the day…Norwegian meatballs the size of snowballs!
The next day, ten pounds lighter from the previous day’s mega aerobic workout, we got Bjonar to bring us on a tour around the Jostedal area, stopping to photograph and admire the beauty of the area from the comfort of the spluttering car. The sun had risen just above the horizon, but only the top half of the mountains were bathed in sunlight, and everything below was still in their shadows.
As we drove around, we passed jagged stalactites plastered along the walls of the mountain, and in the distance, we could make out the frozen wall of water that was a running waterfall two months ago. The roofs of the houses in the valley were all covered with thick blankets of snow and their predominantly red and yellow wooden exteriors added simple yet bold colours to the magical, wintry landscape. We also passed a few smiling locals on their way to work, and a couple of Bjonar’s friends on their way to a ski expedition.
There was nothing glamorous about this place. It was just a little town within a peaceful little valley with a little church, far, far away from the popular tourist tracks. But everything seemed so idyllic and blissful, the pace of life so serene. It was isolated, yet seemingly self sufficient; and small, yet possessing bags of character. And speaking of characters, who could forget Laila? The jolly owner of Jostedal hotel was always cheerful, always attentive, always obliging, and always punctuated every sentence with a smile and an emphatic “Please!”
Our three days in Norway came and went faster than a 300 pound man going down a ski slope in nothing but a rubber tube, and despite our unintended “training session”, it was time well spent.
Now if only I can find a sponsor for a pair of skis to continue my quest for Olympic glory…