Finland - a great place to see

For most of us in India Finland is famous for Nokia. I thought I will buy a Nokia phone here as it may be cheaper but its expensive then India. Any way, I am not sure why the name Finland but my wild throw on this may be because theres lot of fish these guys eat :-)

Finland is in northern Europe with Sweden on its west and Russia on its east. It has some 6 million people and is a beautiful country. Finland landscape is covered with pine trees, hills and lakes. My host mentioned that there are more than 10000 lakes. Every family here must be having a summer home near the water. Most of the people as I understood leave in the southern part of the country with the capital Helsinki, Turku, Tampere all in the south. The most popular sport here is Ice Hockey and people follow F1 racing in a big way. Naturally the present world no 1 is from Finland. My travel took me to Turku, Tampere and Lahti. My days were in my meetings but got some time in the evening to see the places in this places and also on my drives between these cities. My first night was at Turku which is one of the oldest city in Finland. I had mentioned about my day at Turku in another blog so now I start about Tampere. Tampere is the third largest city of Finland and is surrounded by lakes, ponds and ridges. There are more then 200 lakes and ponds in Tampere. After my business meetings I strolled along the city , its parks, water bodies. Weather was superb and sunny. For dinner I went with Teppo and Kirsi, my hosts to a revolving restaurant on a 110 meter high tower by the sea. What a view. The sun setting at 10 pm into the sea, Great five course meal and a wonderful company made the evening a memorable one. Any one visiting this city must go to this restaurant for a dinner. great food, great ambiance. I am attaching some pictures taken there. And if you want to get close to nature make FInland your next tourist destination.

What a Day

I am at my hotel roon now at 10.30 PM after a great day, may be one of the most memorable days of my life. Its still day light outside. My host here Teppo picked me up from my hotel and we drove to his beach house on the Baltic sea some 30 kms from Turku. The house is located amongst some of the most scenic places you will see facing the sea. Turku is in the south west of Finland with Baltic sea on the west. Teppo has a weekend house here and its a great place to spend you weekend. It was cold and windy Temperature around 5 degrees during the day and Teppo suggested my jacket that I was wearing was not good enough for this place and he gave me a complete dress with trousers , jacket, cap, gloves etc. And then we rode on his Motor boat into the sea. What a fun. He let me drive his boat and it was thrilling. Here inside the deep sea I was driving a motor boat at 150 km per hr and what an experience. Its hard to describe. Such a great fun We went into an island and roamed around. Then we drove back to his home. He is into motorbiking also. And he has at this place a old 350 cc Dakota motorcycle he bought from the army. It has place to keep two machine guns. We drove it to the woods and he allowed me to drive it in the woods. It was such an adventure driving this motorcycle into the woods on tough terrains, real fun. We came home at around 3 pm where his wife had cooked a wonderful meal and with all the adventure I was really hungry and my plate was all clean. Teppo is very much into F1 races and so we again took the motorboat to another island to go to his fisherman friend who has a TV and saw the F1 race. Unfortunately within the first round Force Indias one car was out and saw Vijay Mallya looking shocked but his another car was 10th. One of the basic reasons for Teppos interest I believe might be because todays champion Kimi Raikkonen (I believe thats what its spelled) is from Finland driving a Ferrari and he won the race. Its always a proud moment when your countrys flag goes up on the podium. We drove back in the evening to Turku and am surprise to meet Rajesh rathore with whom I am going to have a meeting in Burlington, Canada in three weeks is also at Turku and we go out for dinner three of us in a boat in the river behind our hotel. Good Food and we have a great time. During the day I came in close contact with Teppo and I learnt couple of things from him todays which I will never forget. When we entered his house in the morning I asked him how safe it might be in this country as his motor boat or house remains un attended for weeks and nothing is lost - is he not worried about this. At our home we cant even think of locking the home for few hours and going out for a family dinner even though we have servants etc there. He replied he never falls in love with his materialistic things , its better to keep in cash then love your car or boat etc. If it goes insurance is there but these things are there to bring enjoyment not worries. So rightly said. Maybe we try this time all of us going to Purulia for my birthday locking the house for 4 days and enjoy being together away from the daily hassles of life when in your town. Another thing he said which I will remember forever was its not how you begin but how you end that counts. So right. I have already requested Teppo use of his property for a vacation in summer some time in the coming two years. Its a place to see and enjoy. No pollution, no noice and complete peace. From tomorrow again the routine meetings start. I will be in Finland for the next two days before I fly on tuesday to Germany - again a long journey - train from lahti to Helsinki and then flight to Frankfurt further flight to Stutgart. Stutgart will be my two nights stay again before I fly back home.

So Here I am at Turku in Finland. This is the 15th country I have seen in my life time and except for Dubai all has been business related.It was a two hour flight from Frankfurt to Helsinki and then three hours bus journey to this place. Helsinki looks like an old airport. The bus drive was great and I think the best time to come here is may be one more month from now. Still there are no leaves on the trees after the winter onslaught. I recollect participating in my school drama when I was in 5th standard on Indian Freedom struggle and the starting lines of the drama were "The sun never sets in the British Empire" but even if the sun sets here it is for really small time. At 10.00 pm when I reached this place the sun was still out like we have around 5.00 pm in India. The birds were flying to there nests. So that means it was going to set shortly and till the time I went to bed it was still not completely dark. The hotel I am staying here is great. They have English channels on the TV. And the most important the internet is free. Using internet has been the most expensive thing for me here. You pay almost 10-12 Euro for an hr. or you need to take daily packages which i usually took for 30 -40Euros. This brings me to the topic I wanted to write. Having been to almost 6 countries In Europe in my four trips here I have found travelling and leaving in Europe more tough and some what not as carefree as you find in US for Vegotarian Indian like me. One of the major reasons is the cost. Its really expensive in Europe and I dont know how they survive with this kind of cost and working just 40 odd hours in a week. What I found that things cost same in US and Europe just the currency changes and thats a 60% effect. Hotel rooms here average 80-100 Euros and same in US but in dollars. Gas here is 1.5 Euros as compared to .80 Euro in India or now alsmost same in US. A taxi ride of almost 40-50 kms can kill your days budget. The secod biggest problem is language. I mean its so funny they have no signboards in English or no announcements in English and its different language every where like here its Finnish and German in Germany. There was a bus change to my ride yesterday and the driver announced about it but I didnt understand a bit and when I saw everyone getting out I just got out and then found out that for this bus this was the last stop. So you feel very unfriendly type. In US its so different - Any place You go you can understand every thing and relate with them. Its more adventures here like you dont know whats going to happen next. Infrastructure both palces is same. Superb, something I dont know India will ever have. Systems superb and everyone follows the law and respects it. The better thing in Europe is the History. You can feel History here and old buildings with typical European architecture. Its same from a small village to Munich or Vienna. While travelling to Europe you feel a bit out of place where as in US its so much like i know this place. And to top it you end up seing every 7th to 8th guy Desi in US.Food - absoultely no problems in US. I will be travelling to US in another 2 weeks and will be driving with Duane may be 2000 kms in 5 days but its nice and enjoyable. In next 15 minutes my host is going to pick me up from the hotel for a sight seing to this town, Turku look like a beautiful place. My hotel is by the side of a river and great view. I am taking my camera today and hopefully will be able to share some of the pictures of Turku. Enjoy your Sunday. But one think I must confess about Europe - the people are good and help you out.

India Here India Everywhere

I write this blogl from a small town in Austria - Graz with a population of 20000.

This last 5 days have taken me to the most odd places in Europe which I never thought will ever visit. My first stop was at Bad Salzgun in Germany – formerly East Germany. Theres still a huge difference in East Germany and West Germany which is clearly visible. I order for my Lunch in the hotel restaurant and only veg food that I get is boiled vergetables and that too things like Broccoli and some goat khane wala leaves.
Mind you its more difficult to search for places as in this small town of 10000 people theres no English – no English TV channels except BBC. No one speakes English and no signboards in English.
Somehow surviving the first day my host eager to look for me some veg food take me from one village to other in different restaurants but no veg food. Luckily in one of the villages ( population 1000-2000) one restaurant owner informs that there is an Indian restaurant there. It was a pleasant shock. In a village of 1000 odd people an Indian restaurant. The guy who owns is from Jullandhar, Punjab and he is also pleased to see some Indian in this part of the world. Goof food but was tough paying 10 Euros for a Dal and 4 Euros for a roti. Any way I survive another day. My next host , sorry hostess , Stefanie is aware that I am vegetarian and she has done her home work looking for Vegetarian food and we go to an Italian restaurant and get good veg pizza. After my meeting at this place – Fulda – with a population of 65000 – my hostess and her boss take me to an Indian restaurant. This one again is owned by some one from Jullandhar. The 9 Euros my host pays for that oily onion pakora makes me pinch. From here I fly to Austria – land in Graz and then 60 kms to my meeting venue at Zeltweg. This is a small town with a population of 8000 people , mostly industrial with one railway track making company employing 2700 people. The hotel room is very small and uncomfortable as nothing again is English except CNN here. Even MTv is german. So after my meeting instead of earlier plan to stay there overnight I come back to Graz and my hosts book me into a hotel here. Feeling hungry I open my home made Puri , achar and bhujia but find the puris have not been able to survive the intercontinent flights. So I set off to locate an Indian restaurant.And I reach the third Taj Mahal hotel of my trip. Again host from Jullandher. The guy is nice to me as he allows me to eat there despite his hotel is fully booked. He is here for last 38 years. As I could see he is doing a flourishing business with almost 20 guest he had to refuse as it was all booked.I order for a sag panir along with one Nan(I don’t know if I should call it Nan but beggars cant be choosers). And yes I get one cup of Chai gratis and Man I loved it despite the adrak and elaichi in abundance. I spend 40 Euros for this dinner( 20 for taxi to & fro) and come back to the hotel. As you must have noticed the only channels I saw on TV through out this 5 days was CNN and BBC. And what India is everywhere. I see CNN discussing how India and china is responsible for the world food crisis. Few stores in US like Costco and Sams club has rationed the sale of rice to each individual and how India is responsible for this. They are always showing that how 70% of our population still leaves for less than 2 USD a day and how a mother has to sacrifice her meal so that she can educate her children. I don’t know what the External Affairs ministry do in India and dont market the India growth story. Then there was a story of how a filthy British rich girls parents spent 1,00,000 pound to celebrate her 16th birthday and you know what – the theme was Bollywood. So a huge set is designed and lot of desi music and choreographers flown in from Bombay train this girl and her friends to dance to Indian Bollywood numbers. And then IPL is covered in CNN. So I am in constant touch with India either through the Jullandhar guys all over or how we are creating hunger with growing population and no irrigation. Seing these Indians here I am never gonna question again how did my great great grandfather reach Purulia all the way from Deshnoke. And how I have reached these places though temporarily – papi pet ka sawal hai.
Tomorrow I start I believe a more adventures trip going to Finland. My whole day tomorrow is going to be traveling. Starting 9Am 50 kms to the airport taxing and then flight to Frankfurt and then connecting to Helsinki and then a bus journey to Turku in Finland reaching there at 9.40 Pm. 12 hrs. Turku- Have you ever heard this name. neither did I before getting this customer. And then Tampere and then lahti – all in Finland. Bye the way I did a wonderful train journey from Fulda to Frankfurt on ICE running at times 185kms an hr. And then waiting at the station to catch my train with temeperature at 2 degrees seing train full of BMWs being ferried But as my trip progresses I am getting more confidante I will get one Jullandhar guy making some Indian food and keeping me full.