It was like 8 AM, I woke up early than normal in this cold weather. The day before I have told the Mexican guys that I would make the tea to clear off the balance milk I had. So I finished making the tea and going through my mobile, there is small thought that I should somehow to visit Finland before leaving Europe. So I went to the reception area to inquire about public transport. The reply was “Am traveling to Finland in 15Minutes, if you are ready you can join with me…”
That was a perfect coincidence, I said yes and let the Mexican guys know that am leaving. I packed my stuff and ran again to the reception like a school kid 🧒 who wants to go to school.
I started the ride with a big smile without realizing the ride is going to be like 7hours.
We started the conversation with whereabouts and speaking about her camping business and how she entered into the business…
She told the route we are going to travel is going to be very scenery as the autumn season is coming and the color of the trees would keep changing every level of altitude we down. Because Alta or the route from Alta to Rovaniemi in Finland is high to low altitude.
Indeed the colors were astonishing, I couldn’t distract myself by looking at those colors. Those trees have a gradient color of green, yellow, and Red. 2 very specific colors which interest me was the gold type color and another very light green color in the middle of dark green color.
At some tree leaves, there were like the red dotted color as if a painter mistakenly drops few droplets in a yellow colored tree(I couldn’t exactly capture that plant as we have been trying but there are similar captures).
I realized a few land similarities from my home town in India and here. There are a lot of trees which are colorful but are not beneficial(Karuvelai Trees in India) to anyone in term of consumption even for animals. This is good because the industrialist and corporates wouldn’t eradicate as there is no money there 😀 but also not useful to common people like us except that it gives us a peace of mind when looking at them. Of course, they could be used to burn fire.
I was very able to clearly see the height of the trees on different altitude after the back and forth trip. The very high altitude places are short and low altitude places have taller trees than the first. Am not sure there is a relation about humans :D where Finnish are Tall as well and a certain part of Asia is short :P
After a few hours of admiring this colors, she stopped the car at a place (The Notice Board Image) where she showed the Major Sami Area where people live. As shared in the other topics, they are the indigenous people of Northern Europe who has been protecting and conserving the Arctic circle environment. I missed the chance to visit museums fully focused on Sami on Kotakinoeu but read the brief information about them in different museums. That community is spread across the north of 4 countries(Norway, Finland, Sweden, And Russia) (Wikipedia about the population of them). Their major business seems to be animal husbandry especially with Reindeer(check the spelling) and moos(check to spell). While on a trip back from Finland, I hitchhiked with a guy who shared that he owns 3000 Reindeer and his family own around 15,000. I was trying to calculate the valuation of his company 🤨
Once in a few months, they would bring all the reindeers together to identify whose reindeers belong to who. Because when there is newborn, they need to mark their reindeer ears 👂 with some sort of sign. So how they do it when their group is the newborn knows their parent and go together with them. By this knowledge, they know which newborn belongs to a parent which already has it’s marked.
When I look at the face of those people, they have few similarities on how Mongolians look.
Then we started our travel again reaching the residential areas of kontakion (part of Lapland) where she showed some homes particularly have top proof as stones(picture). We can say stone homes. This is notable as most homes in northern Norway are built with wood materials
Food habits
There was a group of reindeers are crossing on the road, we slowed down the car. She told with a deep breath that we need to be careful in this route. When we hit the reindeer, we need to call the police and tell them about this. Also paying a fine for hitting them which would go as a claim to the reindeer owner. Which I felt makes sense. If we are living on the past, the land belongs to one who has been protecting and taking care of long-term. We can assume like current national divisions are renting their land to use for the transport?
While we reached the border of Finland, she helped to stop the car and so I could take pictures of them. Thanks ___-!
Also, we crossed a place called Levi where I could see the viewing towers in the peak and the shaved land which is getting ready for the winter games. This is the place where a lot of ⛷ skiing games would happen. The one who has winter season has a chance to experience this sort of games quite often. Am also fond of this winter seasons whenever I look at the photos of homes 🏠 in winter season but ya need to come back again, Insha Allah! Sometimes I really miss those moments! Hmm let’s see
She also shared about husky dogs. There would be a husky dog race that would happen soon. They run for 1500Kilometer in a race. Husky dogs(Wiki) which are strong are used in Christmas game activities and I saw some of them in the husky park in Santa clause village, Rovaniemi. 1500Km is too long though! Not sure how they even do a rehearsal to make sure they could travel as far as this.
She seems to be excited to see her daughters who are currently in Rovaniemi. And they are married. I replied to her “You finally crossed a stage where you need to worry about daughters marriages :)”
“Ya nowadays the people seem to be very self-thinking. The men or women easily divorced and marrying for 3–4times. Thye only think what I can get and not vice versa”
Even though I can able to add on a point that in my home town the parent’s advice that nothing could be perfect and we could only find only a balanced approach, I thought 💭 about myself that sometimes I think like that as well when thinking about marriage. I believe this sort of instances would slowly change how I consider and decide things in myself.
The conversation kept on going about the family traditions in different countries. The winter is approaching and everybody is up for next shopping it seems. Every season it changes there seems to be a celebration of welcoming and doing a farewell bid for them :) They need to spend a lot of money whenever seasons change from changing the tire in the car to what to wear for the seasons. It is a big business though!
Even though there aren’t any big seasons in Singapore, the companies I work with and others in the market seems to do a summer sale of discounts and variety of dress 😀
She dropped me in the Rovaniemi camping area ⛺️ which I finally ended not staying. Why? It’s in the next story.
