Iceland, The Healing Journey- Part 3/9: Golden Circle

Checked out our BnB in Reykjavik early the next morning and headed to Golden Circle. We estimated to spend half the day there before departing to Kirkjubaeklaustur slightly past / above Vik where our next BnB, Giljaland Accomodation was located at.

// On the way to Golden Circle. As we left Reykjavik, we were greeted by the snowy hills and sides

// And as we drove near Thingvellir National Park, we were greeted by the frozen lake!

If day 1 started with cool-rainy-morning-turn-clear-blue-sky, day 2 started off with bright blue sky amidst the snow-capped mountains and landscape throughout the journey to Golden Circle. 3 main attractions in Golden Circle- Thingvellir National Park, Geysir Geothermal Area and Gulfoss Waterfall. Thingvellir National Park is about 45km away from Reykjavik so it takes roughly under an hour to reach there. The whole Golden Cirlce is about 200+km, takes around 3 hours driving in total, not including stops, sightseeing and other delays. You can also opt to book Golden Circle tour/s from Reykjavik.

D took the driver seat and N became the co-driver, and we couldn’t stop gawking at the sceneries unfolding before us. I'll just let the pictures describe them okay.

It's a huge park. In the summer it gives you a totally different scenary.

First stop: Thingvellir National Park, where there are a lot of hiking trails & waterfalls you can discover, especially during summer time. The park is HUGE and the lake was frozen still in March. But the white landscape that was before us was breathtaking nonetheless. There's a visitor centre and toilets along with small cafe and souvenirs sold. There's a parking fees per vehicle but there are no other entrance fees and you hike up the trails at your own risks as long as you walk within the stipulated paths- which is pretty much similar every where else.

The hiking trails

The view from near the Visitor's Centre

As you walk down the walking trail on the right, you'd hear the sound of waterfall & river rushes

And if you walk down further on the trail, you may find the Oxararfoss Waterfall

Next: Geysir Geothermal Area where you can hike up the viewpoint area and witness an epic view of the valleys below. There are a few geysers around- Strokkur erupts intermittently so you can wait to catch it. I didn't manage to catch it on the video unfortunately and we didn't want to wait for another round to walk up to the viewpoint. 

Ok, so we took the wrong entrance, but the background was perfect for photos!

Finally found the right entrace; this is Litli Geysir

Strokkur is the biggest one, couldn't catch it in action when it erupted

Blesi- yes, the temperature of the hot spring is 80-100 degree celsius!

On the way up...

The view from up here was just breathtaking

And the weather suddenly changed while we were up at the viewpoint. So we decided to go down to the visitor's centre for lunch before going to the next stop.

Gullfoss waterfall is just around 10-15 minutes away from Geysir- I have no other word except MAJESTIC to describe the waterfall where the glacial water run below us! In summer, the trails along the waterfall (the Trail of Sigridur) are open to public and you could walk alongside it and just appreciate the sheer magnificent beauty of the waterfall- you might even catch a rainbow!

The first thought that came to my mind when I saw this before my eyes: MAJESTIC!

The yellow lines are the hiking trails

Presenting to you: Gullfoss!

We decided to have lunch at the Geysir- each of these attractions, they have visitor's centre with restaurants and souvenir shops. You can either make your stop at Geysir or Gullfoss for lunch/meals. We made that decision because it was starting to be windy and snowy, and we were already hungry. 

From Gullfoss, it took us another 2 hours to get to Kirkjubaeklauster, where we would be staying. 

I overlooked the fact that Seljalandsfoss Waterfall and Skogafoss Waterfall were just off the road along the highway to Vik so we had to forgo Skogafoss in the interest of time and decided we would drop by on the way back. We were able to stop at Seljalandsfoss waterfall however but it was getting late and the walkway to walk behind the waterfall was closed. There were 2 smaller waterfalls near Seljalandsfoss if you walk along the trail path.

Seljalandsfoss Waterfall- where you can walk behind the curtain of the waterfall falling

These were the other two smaller waterfalls along the hiking trail

Freshwater where you can refill your water bottles

I kid you not, we did just that

Short walk due to an interest of time, but it was worth it! Wish we could spend more time here.

Seljalandsfoss in a nutshell:

The scenery changed from snowy mountains to roads alongside yellowish-greenish hills with a lot of small waterfalls at the back of houses and accommodations. Imagine, having a waterfall at the back of your house! A scene you will never get bored of. 

We then passed by the seaside area of Vik and made our journey further east back into snowy hillside and gravel roads into small wooden cabins in Giljaland. I honestly couldn’t believe my eyes, it was like a scene out of a book, the place we were staying. Small but cozy. And dreamy.

Small but cozy...!

And comfy!

And convenient!

Another bed up there! How awesome is that?

And the view...!

Our host informed us that you could even see Aurora from where we stayed. D installed the Aurora Forecast app on her iPad; unfortunately, both nights when we were staying there, the sky was cloudy and we couldn’t see any Aurora. 

There are a few factors that increase your chance to catch Aurora- cold air/night (and hence why the chances are pretty slim in summer), a clear sky without low hanging clouds, out-of-air-pollution area (so if you’re traveling away from the city, the higher your chances are) and highly active aurora activity. And a lot of luck. And that’s why some websites suggested to increase your chances, book a tour because they will try to forecast where the Aurora activities best take place; but there’s also a lot of waiting time so you have to be patient. We didn’t have that much luck on our side, however.

Next: Part 4-  Fjaorargljufur Canyon & Black Sand Beach in Vik
It will be another long post with loads of pictures and videos

And also, because I still can't move on from Gulfoss, enjoy the slow-mo of the waterfall!

Iceland, The Healing Journey- Part 2/9: Reykjavik

 Our journey took a total of 27 hours from Kuala Lumpur to Reykjavik, via Doha and Heathrow. So I was pretty much jet-lagged and kinda disorientated when we first arrived... So my best advice is still to try to get as much sleep as you can while on the flight.

When you're cleared from the custom and claimed your baggage, first thing first- toilet, simcard, and car rental. Toilets are clean and well maintained. Simcard provides you with 5G of data at least, so bring a spare phone as a hotspot point- Waze is pretty reliable throughout the journey; our accommodations were easily found via Waze, even the off-road one. The car rental process however took a bit of time. Your alternative is to book the bus chartered to the point of drop-off near your accommodations.

We have booked an Aurora tour on the day of our arrival so that in case it got canceled, we could rebook it again. Which was what happened- the unfavourable weather made it impossible to catch Aurora on the day we arrived so we rebooked it for the next night, decided to unpack, have dinner at our BnB, and have a good rest instead while re-look into what we were supposed to do the next day. 

The playground in the neighbourhood

Going out so early in the morning to explore the area around

Our itinerary on day 1 the next day would be driving to Sneafellsness Peninsular. However, looking at the weather and studying the roads leading up to the northwest side of Iceland, they were quite inaccessible by our Kia hatchback with 3 inexperienced drivers to drive in the snow, so we decided to postpone the trip and planned to book a tour to Sneafellsness instead. So we decided to explore Reykjavik and to find tourist information centres and maybe book our tour(s) from there.

Entering the city and greeted by the frozen lake!

Parking in the city is quite convenient

Partially frozen lake, from the other side of the city

Walking around the town early in the morning

Hallsgrimkirkja, the largest church in Iceland, you can go up the tower to see the surrounding Reykjavik view

Unfortunately there’s no centralized tourist centre, rather they are scattered throughout the city, so we walked around the city, finding that most shopping places save for some tour booths and eateries were closed on Sunday. While walking in the city, we stumbled on Braud and co- do check them out! The pastries are just so soft and yummy and so did their hot chocolate!

Inside Braud & co.

The Sun Voyager and the view it offers

When when you have so blue and white as your background, what do you do?

You take photos!

Near the art museum

Art Museum

We decided on whale-watching with Elding Whale Watching. They also helped us to book for Sneafellsness tour that we schedule on the last day we’re in Iceland, which would be the coming Saturday.

Some of the tour companies could be found at the Old Harbour- including the bout tour for aurora watching. There are also a few eating places near the Old Harbour- please do try the Sea Baron Restaurnt- the lobster soup is just too delish! We arrived there at around 11.30 am, just before the crowd came in.

Quick brunch before boarding the whale watching boat at 1pm

Inside Saegreifinn, the Sea Baron Restaurant

Lobster soup and salmon grill

The whale-watching boat tour takes roughly 3 hours- if luck is on your side, you might be able to watch a lot of them playing around. Ours came nearing the end, but they were shy enough to surface for too long. Oh, do take the anti-motion-sickness pill provided. I usually don’t have any but took one anyway and the way the boat swayed while waiting for the whales to surface, you WILL get sea-sick even if previously you don’t experience it. 

Whale was too shy, could only catch the glimpse of its fin

By the way, there are Hop-on-Hop-off buses around, near the Old Harbour / Harpa Concert Hall- do check them out if you have time. 

We decided to go home to eat and rest before our re-schedule Aurora tour that night. Unfortunately, it was again canceled, which puzzled us because the weather was quite bright and clear during the daytime. But alas, it was out of our limit.

Next: Part 3- Golden Circle
Please bear with the many photos in coming post

Iceland, The Healing Journey- Part 1/9: The basics

To be honest, I have never imagined myself traveling to Iceland. But I couldn’t imagine traveling my first trip there without the two girls who pulled me into their trip this time around- D and N who both are seasoned travelers and were very much the backbone of the trip. 

Hamad International Airport (HIA) Doha, Qatar- 1st layover

I practically knew nothing much about Iceland, so I couldn’t really imagine planning in detail for the journey, so much of the itinerary was based on this website: https://fullsuitcase.com/4-days-in-iceland/

The first draft of the itenarary, to roughly know what's there and where the places are. Sneafellsness is located in the purple circle 

I didn’t really have much time to probe around further and list other potential places/tours, but since we had an extra day to travel, we added in Sneafellsness Peninsular. Most of the tourist attractions are on the South Ring Road hence Sneafellsness which is more to the western tip of Iceland wasn’t on the itinerary in the first place. Apart from the South Ring Road, our next big thing, which was why the trip was on in the first place was the Aurora chase. You’ll find out what happens in the next few entries. 

Breakfast in Heathrow Airport, London our 2nd layover while waiting for the last flight into Iceland 

Anyway, this log is more for my future references, but if it helps you, go ahead. Be warned that there will be tonnes of pictures because, in all honesty, I’m still amazed at all the different landscapes, sceneries, and weather that we went through throughout the trip- it’s totally a different sight to see coming from the equator and you could just see and appreciate how great God’s creations are.

So on to the basics:

1) Choose your month carefully. Winter has short daytime and perhaps less time for sightseeing so maybe you’d need a longer duration of the vacation. We were told that the best time to see Aurora is around October-November when it’s about to start winter. Summer, on the other hand, will give you totally different sceneries and perhaps a lot more tourists around. We decided to go around March because Ramadhan falls in April.

2) Weather: Iceland’s weather is pretty unpredictable, especially around wintertime. We went towards the end of March, which was still during winter but at the tail end of it- still a lot of rain and snow and wind but on good days we got clear sky and sunshine. Do check the daytime hours, sunrise, and sunset on the days you’re having your trip. That said, keep in mind that the weather can change instantly too so you probably have to be flexible with your plans.

Found this in the pocket on Iceland Air

True, this

3) Driving seat is on the left side, so if you’re coming from South East Asia like us, we drive on the right side back home; it takes a bit of time time to get used to but definitely do-able, although you do need someone to keep a tab on your driving because everything is just the other way round including the roundabout.

Introducing your first driver, yours truly, thank you. Lucky these girls keep reminding me of the turning and whatnot

4) Taking into consideration the two above points if you go in summer or not-winter time, driving would probably be easier. In winter, it could be challenging. So do make some research about the driving conditions during the month you’re making your trip. Iceland is all about maintaining the natural habitat and nature hence most of the out-of-town roads are single lanes and some off-roads gravel roads too. Winter could be icy-road all the way or muddy, wet roads and you have to switch on your lights at all times. A lot of websites warned that apart from changing weather, the one thing that you need to be on the lookout for is other drivers on the road because you may not know how they would behave. And stick to the speed limit- I mean it, especially when we’re not used to driving on the icy roads.

This was on day 2, at a stop and viewpoint on the way to Golden Circle. 

5) If you have no confidence in driving, or are going in a smaller group or solo trip- don’t drive but book tours instead. There are a lot of tour groups that you can scout and book online- from day-trip to days-trip. Most places have day-tour trips from Reykjavik including Sneafellsness Peninsular, Golden Circle, Blue Lagoon, Vik/Diamond Beach/Glacier hike tour, and even aurora tours. You will probably have to do a lot of research on this though- there is a lot of information online. Unfortunately, Reykjavik doesn’t have a central tourist center rather they are scattered throughout the city hence your best bet is still online. But the good thing is, they are quite prompt with their replies via email so online is still the best way to deal with it.

6) Accommodation: There are a lot of hotels and BnBs in Reykjavik but limited at the outskirts. My suggestion is to plan the places you wanna see first and then see where the nearest accommodations are and work around that. We made our trip as far as Skaftafell/Jokulsarlon but now looking back I wonder if we could have gotten further east to Hofn. We did however decide that we wanted an “our pace” trip, slow and steady knowing that we would be driving in winter and did not want to rush things through, so maybe these places next time should the opportunity arrives.

The view from our 1st BnB

Our journey took a total of 27 hours from Kuala Lumpur to Reykjavik, via Doha and Heathrow. So we were pretty much jet-lagged and kinda disorientated when we first arrived… well, I was anyway, trying to make sense through the inability to sleep during the flight and sudden weather change- from tropical sunshine to sudden icy-cold around me. So my best advice is still to try to get as much sleep as you can while on the flight.

First thing first when you’ve gotten cleared from the custom and claimed your baggage- toilet, sim card, and car rental. Toilets are clean and well maintained. Simcard provides you with 5G of data at least, so bring a spare phone as a hotspot point- Waze is reliable throughout the journey, and our accommodations were easily found via Waze, even the off-road one. The car rental process however took a bit of time, but if you’ve booked it online, you just have to be patient.

We planned a few free nights in Reykjavik- on the first day of arrival, we booked the Aurora tour so that if it got canceled, we could rebook it again. 

Which was what happened- the unfavourable weather made it impossible to catch Aurora on the day we arrived so we decided to unpack, have dinner at our BnB, and had a good rest instead. 

Next: Part 2/9 Day 1 in Reykjavik

Iceland: A Healing Journey [Prologue]

Up till March 2022, my personal journal has been filled with unspoken words of anxiety, worries, self-contempt, and burnout cries. I was finding it difficult to move on, a lot of factors contributed to that, and I wondered if it was even worth it to keep going.

So when there was an invitation to travel and just break away from everything else, I jumped into it.

Perhaps, it was what I needed.

Iceland, to be honest, has been a healing journey for me.
The next coming entries will be about our trip to Iceland; maybe interspersed with some rants here and there

Kinda dread going back to work next week, to be frank. Fortunately Ramadhan will join us in the next couple of days so I'll be using that and writing the travel log for the Iceland trip to keep my mind away from work.

Introducing the travel companions, N in the middle, D at the back, and me in the front.

One of my favourite photos. Actually, there are A LOT, I just don't know which one to choose

Reasons

I feel like... I have no reasons to keep on going
Every day feels like I'm forcing myself to get up and go to work
Every day is a struggle to find reasons to keep on moving for the day... and even with no reason, I just walk along aimlessly and at the end of the day, I wonder why am I still here, why can't it end?

This has been going on for slightly more than a week now...

I wonder how long this weight will last?

Mask

I intended to pen down our journey rushing back to Temerloh using the alternative route before it became an island and totally inaccessible; which happened last Tuesday, after studying and frequently getting updates on the roads' condition. It was my first experience of brainstorming the routes while weighing between the pros and cons and the safety vs urgency of coming back to the place where I'm currently residing for working from my hometown in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

What used to be an hour and forty minutes drive of 130km road via the highway turned into a 7-hour of 400++km journey via Kuala Pilah-Jempol-Muadzam Shah-Gambang-Maran to Temerloh. 2 cars, 3 drivers including my dad while frequently checking the road access.

The next day, the last leg of the journey had become inaccessible.
But at least Medical Department has another extra 4 physicians to mend the department including clinic, wards, peripheral referrals, covid wards, and on call.

The routes we took on Tueday, 21 Dec 2021

The routes last night, the highway has reopened and water receded in many places already

However, that is not the reason I'm writing today.

Today is one of the days when again I question myself as a physician.
The patient was so young, even less than half of my age. When my colleague passed over the case, we had that 6th instinct telling us this might be a complicated case... and true enough... the quick decisions made while weighing and thinking what's going on, the adrenaline rush while attending the rapidly deteriorating case, the added information that didn't make sense & didn't tally with the previous clinical judgment... you keep on thinking what's going on now and why is this happening?

I am grateful that the same colleague was oncall along with me; she was waiting for the never-arrived patient in critical care unit to do bedside scan and when she called the ward to ask where the patient was and got to know we're resuscitating the same patient, she came up and helped.

It was a while now, me almost breaking down while informing the grim news to the father.
But sometimes in this profession, you just had to put on that mask and wore that hat saying you're okay while delivering the gut-wrenching update in front of a large crowd.

Sometimes it made me feel like a heartless robot.

It was a very painful and difficult decision to call off the on-going resuscitation. But when we made eye-contact, we knew of the prognosis and to keep on going was probably causing more damage... At the back of our minds, what else have we missed?

As you climb up the ladder and you learn more things, you carry more weight.
You give your best maximum capacity and effort and then you pray for the best.

Today, that weight seems a little heavier. 
But you know that whatever happens, you still need to move on and attend to other cases.
So you tuck aside this case at the corner of your mind.

So that when you are all alone and the night has blanketed the world,
You can cry yourself to sleep at the incident and sift through the event to look for any pitfall or weakness on your side.

Rabbiyassir wala tu'assir
"O Allah the Most Merciful and the Most Benovelent, please bless our knowledge so that we become the tool of Your Mercy in serving the humanity regardless of race, creed, and religion"
-prayer taught by our previous lecturer and Dean, Prof Hatta S.

UKM 49th Convocation

Nov 28th, Sidang 2, Faculty of Medicine UKM

Because the date is worth a mention here.
The day we met each other day again after a while, those whom I partly owe the success to and those who walked the same paths;
The day we received our scrolls, names being mentioned, new title being announced;

Honorary mention:
Majid, JK, Agni, Ilham, Dalleen, Hema, Maryam, Ezzaty, Cheong, Hamizah, Amalin

The new norm, no guests (parents) were allowed in the hall, but families were able to watch the convocation live telecast online.

Took the opportunity to take family photos as well after the convo session;
After all, I owe my family A LOT for allowing and easing my Masters journey

And the day before, the girls took the opportunity to take photos together.
(The MDTs (MultiDisciplinaryTeam), Keep on Moving & TsumTsum girls)
These girls who were the pushers, motivators, witnesses, supporters, colleagues-came-good friends, and more like sisters in the fraternity
Each has a different background, different stories, and journeys, different struggles, different pages even though we walk the same path-

Missing Amalin

Looking back, all the blood sweat and tears, was it worth it?
Yes.
It was difficult, yes, but made easier when you had colleagues who were team players and mentors who guided you along-  
And now, each of us is walking a different pathway;
I pray the friendship lasts forever and that our paths will cross again someday.

New role, new commitments
Who knows what's in store for us in the future

Ending page "MMed Journey",
Turning to page "Physician Journey"

Rough Patch

Today is one of those days when you look back at the decisions you made and you question those decisions, wondering if you should have done it differently and if it would change the path and course that has now happened.

Today is one of those days when you question yourself if you have done justice.

I honestly don't like the day like today.