Welcome to uncle Joni's travel stories
I wrote a trip report about my climbing trip to Switzerland and Italy. Go to read it and feel free to leave a comment if you feel like it. Let me know if you find any typos as well!
Approaching Zinalrothorn
We travelled in Mexico with Inna for three weeks and had a blast of a trip! We visited some ancient ruins, did a bit of scuba diving and enjoyed the Mexican culture thoroughly. Go and read a bit more about it in the trip report if all or any of that sounds interesting.
Inna approves!
Long time no write. I really should write more stories here but I just haven't found the time and/or inspiration lately. A week ago we came back from a two-week road trip in northern Norway. The Norwegian weather proved to be worth its reputation as we got to enjoy everything from blasting heat to pouring rain. The unstable weather "forced" us to drive a bit more than we would liked: over 5000km in total but I guess it was worth it.
We drove from Espoo to Lahti to Jyväskylä to Oulu to Kilpisjärvi to Lofoten to Andenes to Senja to Varanger to Inari to Rovaniemi and back to Espoo. Lofoten was just as popular among tourists as I had feared but still worth a visit because of the magnificent landscape. My number one tip for Lofoten would be to visit the small separate island of Værøy because it would seem most tourists with their mobile homes don't bother going there. The island feels almost magical and in such pristine condition as well. Besides Lofoten Varanger was my favorite place of the trip. Pristine nature and very unique landscape!
On the way to Nusfjord
I visited Ukraine for the first time in five years and the country seemed to have changed quite a bit. One can still see the Soviet past of the country but at the same time it seems to have become more western. We also had a bit of extra time on our hands and decided to visit Pripyat with Inna and her brother Igor.
The People's Friendship Arch had received a "crack" because of the war with Russia.
Pripyat is a ghost town that was abandoned in 1986 because of the devastating nuclear disaster that happened there. It's a place with short but rich history and a place that is definitely thought-provoking and will probably take one on an emotional roller coaster during and even after the visit. I created a photo book story about our visit. I hope you enjoy it!
This café in Pripyat is only a shadow of its former glory.
We made it back from Vietnam two days ago and I must admit that Vietnam was perhaps the biggest traveling disappointment I've had so far.
Halong bay looks better in pictures than it actually is.
After quite a long trip from Espoo to Helsinki to Doha to Ho Chi Minh City we are finally resting in our hostel room. Jet lag could be worse although I was nearly falling asleep as I waited for Inna to finish her chicken noodle soup. We walked in the center of the city for some hours and I feel like there's not much to do or see here.
Tomorrow evening we'll fly to Hanoi and continue our adventure there. The plan is to visit northern parts of Vietnam before heading to Halong bay and further south. In two weeks we should be back in Ho Chi Minh City to catch our flight to Doha.
Local food market in Ho Chi Minh City
Our annual hiking trip with some colleagues of mine took place just a week ago. Go and read the trip report if you're interested and don't forget to leave a comment or two!
Inna arranged a trip to Poland to visit her mother over the Midsummer and I didn't want to just sit at home so I decided to cycle a bit instead. I looked for suitable destinations nearby and found out that there's a small national park in Southwest Finland that I hadn't visited yet. The park wasn't exactly next door though and I had to cycle 147km through rain and wind to get there.
One of the many interesting buildings that I saw on the way
Most of the places around Espoo are still very new to us and this weekend it was time for us to visit the very popular national park of Nuuksio. The national park isn't very big but it still manages to feel like wilderness despite its popularity. The weather was just as amazing as it has been lately and Nuuksio surprised us with its diversity. We saw lakes, ponds and rivers, hills and big rocks, different kinds of forests and even a place that reminded us very much of the Carpathians (no mountains though :)!
There's an amazing small island reserved for camping at Holma-Saarijärvi in Nuuksio but unfortunately it was quite crowded when we got there. I wouldn't have even minded the people that much but many of them had set up campfires and I really, really don't want to have any sparks on any of my tents. Holes in the fly sheet do not bode well for a tent's waterproofness! Luckily we found a relatively quiet spot just a bit further and it wasn't all that shabby either (picture below :). The only problem were the noisy birds that kept me awake at night!
A dragonfly breeding ball?
Most of you probably have heard about the new EU GDPR legislation. This website uses very few cookies and those aren't the problem, but because some personal information is being collected from users who sign up, I had to create a privacy policy for the site.
The legislation also states that users must be able to view all the information regarding them that has been saved. In addition users must be able to remove all their personal information if they so wish. Both of these things can now be done through the Account page. Comments made by registered users will not be removed when the user is removed but anonymized instead.
In addition to GDPR stuff I just head about a service that provides SSL certificates for free. Finally this website is somewhat secure and people can type in their passwords without being afraid ;). I forced the site to use SSL/HTTPS. Let me know if you notice things (pages, images, links) that do not work. Thank you!
Comments
Let's hope the possibility for editing comments will make people comment more as they don't have to be afraid of mistakes anymore :).
Edited by Milton - 11.06.2011 12:25
Edited by Milton - 10.01.2013 21:49