April 9th: Tulips and a glimpse of Middle Earth

This series of posts will chronicle, as faithfully as possible, our recent trip to Iceland and Andalusia. Comments and thoughts are most welcome! Photos from Iceland are courtesy Gireesh, Anchal and Janani and the ones from Andalusia courtesy Gireesh. :)

Our vacation started off with a 12 hour flight from Hong Kong to Amsterdam, where we were catching up with our friends from Singapore and heading on to Reykjavik. It was a surprisingly comfortable flight and since we slept through most of it, we landed in Amsterdam fresh and raring to go. We had a few hours to kill so we decided to visit Keukenhof, which was being heavily advertised as THE place to see the famous Dutch tulips. Being an Indian, the mention of Holland and tulips evokes memories of Bollywood songs choreographed amidst rows and rows of color, where a dapper ‘hero’ serenades his virginal yet saucy ‘heroine’. And that is exactly what we hoped to see in our detour to Keukenhof. Unfortunately, the garden turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax. It is lush and vibrant with an amazing collection of multi-hued flowers, beautiful landscapes with pretty little brooks and even a windmill to boot, but it did not have seas of tulips extending into the horizon contrary to our expectations. Having built up these images so much in our minds (and even imagining a few Amitabh Bachchan inspired photo shoots!), we were a bit disappointed. And I personally find landscaped gardens a tad too artificial, so I think I was a bit biased as well. The gardens seemed quite popular with tourists and locals alike, and a couple of things really stood out during our trip there – a forty-piece orchestra conducting a free performance below the windmill and a chance encounter for the boys with a classmate from India whom they hadn’t been in touch with for years (it is a small world and Indians are slowly conquering it! :D). It was a beautiful day with blue skies and just the right amount of nip in the air, and we were all glad to be outdoors rather than lounging around at the airport, so I don’t regret dropping by anyway. One suggestion, if you decide to visit Keukenhof in transit – there seemed to be a few tulip fields outside the gardens and you can rent bikes to go around. We were a bit short on time so couldn’t check it out, but it looked quite promising.

Keukenhof

After that, it was back to Schiphol and over to Iceland Air for our flight to Reykjavík. Speaking of Schiphol, there are two things to note – they don’t sell chewing gum at the airport and for beer drinkers, Heineken is really cheap! The flight was quite smooth and so excited were we that when we saw our first glimpse of green and brown contours, we mistook it for Iceland (we were flying over Ireland instead). But we were in for a shock as we were landing at Reykjavik. All of us were peering out of the windows to catch a glimpse of the city as the flight started its descent, but there was a heavy cloud cover – expected but not welcome at all – and by the time we broke through, we had already landed! The clouds were so low and the visibility so bad that it really broke our hearts. There was no turning back, of course, so we went ahead and picked up the car, enquiring quite optimistically about the weather en route  and being informed, quite ruefully, that it would be the same for the next few days.. *sigh*

Our first destination was the Northern Lights Inn in Grindavik where we were to drop off our bags and head to the Blue Lagoon spa to relax and recover from the long flight. Grindavik, the name, reminded me of Lord of the Rings – you could expect places like this to dot the map of Middle Earth. The drive from the airport to Grindavik was quite unearthly -- bright green moss clinging on to very low, black rocks, strewn all over vast, almost limitless plains. Every once in a while, we would pass a shallow plateau with these rocks arranged into totem poles, like sprightly scarecrows which had neither grains to defend nor birds to repel. There was a small debate over whether they were natural or man-made – we couldn’t arrive at a conclusion unfortunately. For as far as the eye could see, which wasn’t too far unfortunately, it was just a show of black and green. I have never seen anything like this, but this is how I would now imagine the entrance to Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

After a brief break in our rooms at the inn, we headed to the Blue Lagoon, which is one of the most famous public spas in Iceland. Apart from the usual spa sessions, it has a big milky blue pool where you can take a dip in silica gel infused warm waters to rejuvenate your skin and of course, yourself. It had started to rain by the time we reached, and the mood in the car was somber, to say the least. Then suddenly the road turned and there was a small pale milky blue stream running along the road. It made quite an amazing contrast against the black barren rock as it twined along the road. The stream led on to the spa, and as we figured out later, it was probably just a run-off from it, but the first glimpse did perk us up in anticipation of more things in store, so I guess it served its part. The spa itself was quite nice and worth a visit, though I must say, the short dash from the main building to the open-air lagoon in temperatures that were touching zero and searing winds that made it feel a few degrees lower has to be one of the toughest things I have ever done!

Little stream off the Blue Lagoon 

And then, just as we were heading out from the spa, as if to serve us a special treat for visiting her favorite land, nature had a surprise in store for us. The clouds had miraculously cleared off and the sun made a fiery appearance well above the horizon (at 8pm), lighting up the blue, black and green below in a way only he can, and we were completely awestruck. We could see some mountains far away in the distance, some perfect cones, some a bit more randomly constructed, but they were all aglow, basking and rolling in the sunlight. This definitely was the highlight of the day for me, and a precursor of the sun and rain show that would be unfolding for us over the next few days.

Evening sun

Since it cleared up so much in the evening, we were now hopeful we would be able to see  the Northern Lights too. We were on a quest in Iceland, and a sighting of the Aurora Borealis was one of the treasures we were seeking. :)  We requested the inn staff to wake us up if the show did happen and stayed up a few hours into the night in eager anticipation too, but no wake-up call came, the stars dimmed gradually and the next morning woke up cloudy again. But had we managed to catch the lights on the first night itself, I think it would have been a bit too much for us to handle! I wanted to be surprised by this land every day, with a hint of mischief here and a sprinkling of brilliance there, rather than receive a brimful on the first day itself, because as we all know, a little bit of an awesome thing goes a long long way!