Around Iceland in 14 days (article 1 of 10)

Why Iceland?

Visiting Iceland was a far, far dream for me as I saw Iceland as a mysterious (& expensive) place to visit and meant for people with thick wallets and a super adventorous spirit. I was and still am fascinated with its beauty from the pages of National Geographic and the many photographs I've seen of the place; not to mention the Aurora Beoralis.

Came summer 2015 planning, I planned to spend 2 weeks in Spain's Granada area to discover the Islam civilisation trail and understand the history, the impact it left behind and the beautiful architecture. Then, reality sank in when I saw that temperature is going to hover in the high 30's and low 40's in summer. The idea was quickly ditched and started to look for a cooler climate. Many options were looked at including Scandinavia, but none felt that off-the-beaten path like Granada did. That was when I started to look at Iceland...like why not?

A few You Tube and trawling the internet later, I braved myself and declared Iceland it is!!! Iceland trip requires a lot and meticulous planning. It is not one of those, Prague here we come, visit the info centre once you arrive and off you go. Initially we wanted to surprise the kids and not announce it until the airport, but considering the many details required, it was quickly abandoned.We told the kids early on and built the excitement.

You may sort of use my 10 articles as a guide to cover the 1,300+km of the epic road trip.

Day 1
22 Aug 2015
Munich stopover, Dachau Concentration Camp and Reykjavik

22 Aug 2015

There are not many flights to Reykjavik and the Lufthansa flight we planned to take will reach Reykjavij at night via Munich. I deliberately took a long stopover in Munich, rented a small car and we visited the infamous Dachau concentration camp. My other choice? BMW museum. It was a difficult difficult choice for me to make. 

Figure: Dachau concentration camp now is a museum. The administration building here are well kept. It has a slogan 'Never Again' coined by the former survivors of Dachau  and the cammp was turned into a museum around 2000. The barracks were torned down by the government and only two blocks remain. Not sure if these blocks are original or 'replicas'. 

We arrived in Reykjavik airport late at night, picked up the luggage and when we were in the airport lobby, exchanged some Euros with Icelandic krone. You don't need to change so much as all outlets big and small accept credit cards for even the smallest amount. You convert your money with no commission and the same when you return with a minimal loss due to the selling and buying transaction difference.

When we were outside the airport, the weather was nice and within minutes it started to rain lightly confirming the famous Icelandic quote "If you don't like the weather in Iceland, wait 5 minutes" which throughout the trip held true.

We took the Flybus from the airport to Reykjavik. You buy and print your bus ticket back home before you leave including providing them the address of your hotel/apartment. The bus while it is cheap, it is a hassle. First, you need to find it when you leave the airport, and sort of guess where it is as there were no signboards. Being a small airport this was easy to spot. Then, you flash your paper ticket in the air and when the person confirms your ticket, you load your bags into the bus and you go on the bus. This is not the end. Then the bus stops at a bus terminal in Reykjavik. You now need to take down your stuff from the big bus. You will then be redirected to a small coach where you re-load your bags again. The coach then take you to your doorstep. When we were off loaded, we realise he dropped us at the wrong place! 

Fortunately I had roaming data and was able to use Google Map to walk to our place which was perhaps 10 mins walk away. With the heavy bags? This was not fun. 

Next time, I am just renting a car from the airport to Reykjavik and next day go fo r a short spin and drop off the car or take the taxi. It will just save a lot of hasle. 

We stayed in an apartment 1 block away from the Laugavegur shopping street for 3 nights before we start our trip around Iceland. I booked it from www.booking.com/apartment.

Figure: Reykjavik is the largest city in Iceland with a population of 120,000 and the whole of Iceland is only 320,000. My hometown of Kuala Lumpur has a population of 6million! It has a long history and it is believed its first inhabitants were Norwegians.This was taken from the top of the Hallgrimskirkja Church. (photo by Mye)

Figure: The Hallgrimskirkja Church has a unique design and you are able to go to the top with a small fee of EUR6 per adult of the church for an excellent view of Reykjavik. And yes, you can reach the top via an elevator. It is worth the trip to see Reykjavik city (photo by Mye)


Day 2
Reykajvik City

23 Aug 2015
It easy to distinguish the tourist from the locals. The tourist tend to wear ...well what tourists wear: technical jacket, technical shirt, technical pants, trekking boots and a branded knapsack like North Face or Jack Wolfskin. The locals is a different story: to my surprise these folks are quite fashionable; not as fashionable as Luxembourg folks, but perhaps as equally fashionable to Basel.

Stuff are expensive here, but they are of high quality. Restaurants can set you back EUR80 for a fairly simple meal. Fortunately, grocery is not that expensive....and the shops on the shopping street are opened on Sundays.

Along the shopping street, you will find the normal souvenir shops (we collect fridge magnets and snow glass bubble), the camping shops selling everything you need for the trip, bakeries and restaurants including a few Asian eateries. At the camping shop, I bought a portable gas stove. Not that I need it in the campervan, but will be a cool addition to my camping gears. We spent sometime collecting maps and brochures at the Information Centre which you can find on google.

Figure: Laugavegur Street - Reykjavik's main shopping street. The trolls seen here are famous in their folklores which I suspect is an influence from the Noordics who are one of the early settlers in Iceland.

Figure: Icelandic houses are cute and in a way typical of Scandinavian homes - simple and multi coloured.

All shops big and small accept credit card throughout the trip around the island. So, you will need perhaps EUR500-1000 (if you want to be safe) cash with you.

English is widely spoken here and you will not have a problem getting around.

Day 3
Trying out the Famous Hot Pools in the Cold Outdoors!

24 Aug 2015

We mustered enough courage to visit the famous Icelandic bath and after this, we lost count on how many times we visited these places which is called 'Sundlaugar' in Icelandic. They are available even in the smallest of village consist of a shower/locker area to clean yourself, hot tubs with varying temparatures and swimming pools. Some may have more facilities such as water slides, steambath, ice bath, etc. The Sundhollin Sundlaugar (link) is a walking distance from our apartment which is the oldest in Reykjavik. It will cost you approximately EUR4 for adults and EUR1 for child and you have to follow a very very strict protocol and etiquette in there.

Understanding Iceland's Community Hot Pools

Note: The pre Bathing Ritual must be done NAKED!

You are expected to be thoroughly clean before you join others at the hot pool. This means you have to shower, soap and shampoo prior to that. You have to strip yourself of everything when you shower and heard that there are shower police that monitors that although I did not see any. Anyway, when in Rome, do what the Romans do! Locals hate (deliberately use this strong expression) it when you do not do it naked as they feel you will not be throughly cleaned. The shower area has no cubicles or shower curtain, mind you except in one place I went to. Steps as follows:

1. Bring your swimming attire, towel and swimming goggles if you intend to swim. Shampoo/soap are provided in all the Sundlaugars we visited except for one. So, we never brought soap and shampoo with us.

2. Enter the lobby and pay at the reception (pic). You will be given a bangle with a key attached for your locker.

3. Proceed towards the shower area where you first take off your shoes and leave it on the rack. Don't worry, your expensive trekking shoes will still be there when you come back (pic).

4. Next enter the male/female locker area. Go to your locker and remove all your clothes and bring with you a towel and swimming attire. You proceed to the shower area. You can walk with the towel wrapped around you although it is an exercise in futility as you will bare-it-all in a short while anyway. Etiquette: respect the others by not looking at their privvys, hence always look up. Law: you are not allowed to take pictures in the locker and shower area.

5. Once you reach the shower area, place your swimming attire and towel on a pigeon hole, rack or hooks provided and only then proceed to the available shower (no cubicle) au-naturel. The south part of Iceland uses natural geothermal hot water and hence, it has a sulphur like smell (like rotten egg they say) which you quickly get used to. Wash yourself properly i.e shampoo and soap.

6. After the shower, wear your swimming attire, leave your towel behind and proceed to the swimming area. MAKE SURE YOU WEAR YOUR SWIMMING ATTIRE FIRST! Haha, I nearly joined the public pool au-naturel!

7. Now you have conquered this (they should issue a certificate of bravery for this), you can enjoy the facilities.

8. When you are done, the process is reversed. You take off everything, hang your swimming attire, take a light shower, no need to fully cleanse yourself if you don't feel like it.

9. Wring out water from your swimming attire as much as possible and in 2 places there are spinning machines that help to do this, in most places you have to do this by hand.

9. THOROUGHLY dry yourself. As you leave the shower area towards the locker room, there will be an area where there is a plastic grid on the floor. Here, you can THOROUGHLY dry your feet. You now proceed to the locker room with your dry feet. Icelanders wear socks in the locker room, so they will not be happy if you wet the floor.

10. Go to your locker, unlock it and dress.

11. Proceed to the shoes area, return the locker keys to the reception (or a box) and leave the premise. You will feel so much refreshed.

Figure: Sundhollin is the oldest community hot pool ("Sunlaugar") in Reykjavik and our first ever experience. Nervous!

In most places you will see varying temparature of the hot bath. It is an outdoor circular pool (some are rectangle) with a concrete, tiled bench in the water where you and others sit around in the warm water while your head is exposed to the cold Icelandic air! The outside temparature when we were there varied between 10-13 degrees Celcius (50-55 Farenheit) . So it is cold since we only have our swimming attire on. These pools operate all year round. I cannot imagine doing this during winter. The temparatures are (29, 39 and 42 degrees C or 84, 102, 107 F). We generally prefer the 39 degree C (84 F) one. You are suppose to be in the pool for 15 minutes, get out and you can join again after that for health reasons. The Icelanders are shy people and sometimes you can strike a conversation and sometimes just 'Hi' when you go to the village Sundlaugars. Mostly are curious where we come from as I suspect not many Asian tourist will do this - what a wasted opportunity I think. One is a farmer 20 minutes away and his son has to travel an hour by bus to his school as the area is sparsely populated. The locals tend to socialise at the pools enjoying conversations. Some pictures at Sundhollin Bath.

Other places: Some may have swimming pools, some swiming slides. You may see ice pools as well; apparently its good for your health.

Overall you spend 45 minutes up to 1.5 hours there and I can appreciate why the Icelanders love it so much. A survey revealed that on average they go there at least once a month, but quite a large proportion, weekly.

My trusty G-Shock watch survived all the Sundlaugars!

We then went to do the Asian thing - 'malling'. We spent sometime at Kringlan mall (link) Iceland's biggest mall; used google map to find out which bus. Nothing much to buy; just can't beat Asian malls.

Went out and about around Reykjavik.

We stumbled upon this indoor market and bought a 2 pairs of thick woolen socks. Should have bought more as the quality is very good.

Figure: The beautiful Lake Tjornin walking distance from the city centre.

Figure: Scuplture at Lake Tjornin.

Laugavagur Street.

Day 4
Campervanning!!

25 Aug 2015

I booked the campervan from www.campervaniceland.com which had what I wanted. The choice was either a 4 person campervan or a 6 person. I chose the 6 person one as I preferred a bigger sized van. I also ordered the chemical toilet which in the end I never needed for the whole trip, a picnic table and 4 picnic chairs. The other very important extra I odered is a DC/AC converter which was heavily used to recharge our batteries. Make sure you bring multiple plug points to charge your camera, phones simultaneously.

On navigation, I brought my own GPS which I don't really need as there is only ONE MAIN ROAD around the island and relied mainly on maps! Make sure you buy a good quality map with a reasonable scale; mine wsa 1:425000 and I bought before I left to plan for the trip. The roads are also well signposted. I only used the GPS when I wanted to find sites or in cities, but in most cases, the signposts are enough to get you to the interesting spots. There are good GPS app like Here.com that you can download. The whole island caters for the tourist trade. 

This is not a cheap holiday, the campervan alone is EUR3400 for 11 nights (RM15,600 ~ EUR310/night). Hotels and car rental in Iceland are notoriously expensive in Iceland, so I am not sure if a hotel and car rental will work out to be cheaper, but I am sure will be less epic!!  

You are not allowed to use the road marked as 'F' roads as these are only accessible by 4WD vehicle. If you do use those, you will void the terms and conditions of the rental agreement. Your vehicle is also tracked by the company. There will be many gravel roads here and there throughout the journey, that is OK, as long as you don't enter F roads.

The van is BIG, and it was scary at the start and what more in the city centre the streets are narrow. But after 2 junctions, I no longer felt the size of the vehicle. It feels and drive like a normal car. So, don't make this a showstopper for you to enjoy your Iceland trip.

 

  

Figure: The campervan is big which is a Ford transit van similar to the ones used by DHL where you can stand inside it. This will be our home for the next 2 weeks. The white shaft on the background supports the sliding table that can be pulled out and becomes the dining table. One beauty about this campervan is it comes with a fridge (next to the shaft) instead of a cooler box like most of the campervans.

Oh yes, make sure expectations are made clear from the start that everyone has to chip in during the 2 weeks and it turn out quite an effort needed to make sure the van is tip-top all the time as I cannot stand a messy place.

Figure: everyone must contribute towards the chores no matter how tired you are.

Understanding the Campervan

The campervan has 2 sections. The front (for driving) and the 'house' the rear where the kitchen, the beds and the storage areas are located. These 2 different sections are operated by 2 different batteries. Hence, if the house battery is dead, the van's front battery is still ok to start the engine.

There is a 40L fresh water tank. The tank is connected to the sink's tap. Then there is a 20L waste water tank. Any waste water from the sink leads to this tank. A house battery powers the house lights, DC/AC converter and the heater. It is recharged as the car moves.

We rented a DC/AC converter kit and connected the kit to a multiple plug that we brought. Then we were able to recharge multiple phones, a computer and batteries and the same time.

There is a sink and a double hob cooker. All the necessary utensils and cooking pots and plates are available with kitchen cloth, washing liquid, sponge, etc. There is sufficient storage space for everyhthing we needed, our cameras, chargers, etc. We are provided with bedsheets, pillows and towels. 

Once we reach the camping sites, we remove the 20L waste water tank and dispose of the waste water in a sink. For the fresh water, there is a long hose that you can use to top it up which we use for drinking and washing. We never ran out of water throughout the trip, but on one occasion the waste water tank was full and we desperately had to find a camping site to dispose of it. Do not dispose of it indiscriminately goes without saying.

Figure: The utilities for the house is behind the left hand side sliding door. That is where you remove the waste water jerry can (20L) and also refill your fresh water jerry can (40L). The house battery and the cooking gas are also located here.

Figure: The Campervan has a lot of storage space. The top frame is the top bed - 6 ft wide (i.e king size) and the frame at the bottom for the bottom bed. More than sufficient for us. 


End of Article 1.            Next Click Here >>>

Links to:
Article 1 - (this article) Reykjavik
Article 2 - Bridge Between 2 continents, Seltun Geothermal steam, Blue Lagoon, first overnight stay in Campervan, Aurora
Article 3 - Pingvellir Parliament, Geyser Southwest

Article 4 - South Gulfoss, Gluggafoss, Eyjafjallajokull volcano

Article 5 - Black Sand Beach, View of the Glacier

Article 6 - Glacier Walk, Zodiac Boat Ride in the Lake, Ice Beach
Article 7 - Hofn and Fjardabyggd
Article 8 - Hverir, Myvatn Nature Bath and Lake Myvatn
Article 9 - Whale watching, Exploration Museum, Godafoss Waterfall, Akureyri Sundlaug 
Article 10 - Akureyri Christmas Shop, 14th Century Port, Old Church, Dalvik, Beautiful valley Oxnadalur, Overnight Varmahlid, Glaumbaer turf house, Hill with crater, Reykjavik city, Last Sundlaug