Chasing Aurora

One of the things I was most eager for on this trip was a chance to see the aurora borealis, or the northern lights. There are also the aurora australis or southern lights that occasionally pop up in the south of Tasmania, but due to geography and physics, they aren’t nearly as strong or prevalent.

When booking the holiday I looked around to find a guide to take me out to hunt the aurora. There were some options for self supported cabins in the far north of Finland, but that seemed a bit much. I found a guide, Thomas, who operated out of a town called Oulu, about halfway up Finland on the coast, that seemed to be a good compromise. I booked two nights, the theory being if we don’t have good weather on one of the nights I would get a second chance the next day.

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Cooking with Fire

On our second day in Chiang Mai my sister organised for a Thai cooking lesson. We were picked up from the hotel in a songthaew (or สี่ล้อ / S̄ī̀ l̂x – four wheels). The car did a lap of Chiang Mai picking up other groups are other hotels.

One group got in the back with us. Michael started talking with them and we soon found out they were a family from France, and their father was Greek. They then got on like a house on fire for the rest of the afternoon.

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Bernina Express

There had been many highlights this trip, but today was right up. Back when we were planning all the places the visit we were also planning how to get between them. One of the reasons to visit Milan was the train trip back into Switzerland. The Bernina Express.

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