Rygsækrejsen 2015-2016

søndag den 24. april 2016

Arriving in Copenhagen - 1 year, 1 month and 1 day on the road (HAN-BKK-DOH-CPH)

Needless to say - a six hour stopover in Doha is not something to look forward to. We had an excellent flight from Bangkok to Doha, but the airport in Doha might be big and impressive and new and expensive but is has got about as much soul and charm as a cold piece of rock and we spent six hours there. There are only limited resting facilities but Malene managed to get a chair and lie down for some hours of sleep.

Our flight for Copenhagen left on time, we had a smooth ride and arrived in Copenhagen a few minutes before schedule to a cold and wet Denmark, the sun making it through the clouds, some really impressive rain showers around Copenhagen and the green colour of the trees looking like spring is just about to happen. Just like we remembered it.

When we left the aircraft Malene got a text from Mathilde that she was also in the airport but due to the new layout of the departure and arrival areas we only managed to do a "touch the window"-hug before we left for our luggage.

Our family and friends were at the airport to greet us. It was so nice to see them again, finally being home and us forgetting everything about jet-lag, having been on a 24 hour flight, or having been away from Denmark at all. It just felt so nice to see them and being able to give them a hug.

We left the airport after a short while and headed home for our apartment being a little excited to see how it was looking having had a number of different people living there while we were gone. It all turned out to be just as when we left it. Feeling at home is the best feeling on a day like this.

Once we managed to find the different things in the boxes we had lunch with our family and friends and when they left in the afternoon Mikkel collapsed on the sofa and Malene started to unpack her stuff. Nice with to sleep in our own bed tonight. It's impossible to understand that we've managed to pull off this trip in the way we did. 22.000 pictures and an endless list of memories to go through. And some dirty laundry.

Cold Doha airport

Our ride home

Slightly morning jetlagged

Bye, bye, Doha

50/50 happy to go home

Still 50/50 happy to go home

On the ground in Copenhagen

So close, yet.....

All stuff here

Family and friends at arrival

Beautiful women re-united

Dads re-united (still solving world matters)

@Home with friends

Somebody's happy

lørdag den 23. april 2016

Going home, last city walk, Ho Chi Mihn mausoleum, B-52 museum - 13 months on the road today

It is absolutely unbelievable but we've been travelling for 13 months straight today. Almost 400 days ago we left Copenhagen going to Istanbul and from there going overland straight to Xian, Beijing, doing the Mongolia loop, then on the Canada, USA, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Nicaragua, Thailand, Myanmar and finally now having spent exactly one month in Vietnam.

And what a month in Vietnam. From South to North, from big cities to small villages, from coast and beach to mountains. Friendly people and great food. We got up early this last time and went for a walk. It's been on Mikkels list to go on a morning walk in Hanoi and just look a bit a people and places - and perhaps pay a visit to Ho Chi Mihn - Uncle Ho. So we left the hotel before 7, and walking the quiet streets for about 45 minutes to the mausoleum area where were guided to the end of an enormous queue. Perhaps 400 metres long inside the actual mausoleum area, and even longer outside the fence, including people of every age group, groups of young school kids and their teachers - on a Saturday morning at 7:45 AM. Probably not something you'd ever experience in Europe.

Looking at the queue we did the only reasonable thing - changed plans and left - and walked a bit further to the B-52 museum - an open air museum exhibiting the remains of a crashed B-52, lots of old anti aircraft missiles and cannons and a rather big exhibition about the bombing campaigns in Hanoi. And we had it all to ourselves this morning. Very patriotic but how many countries on the planet have a B-52 wreck to exhibit!

Then we walked back through Hanoi that had now woken up to its usual noisy mood, we had breakfast at the hotel, packed all our stuff, leaving a lot of things in the room, and then we had just around two hours to do Malene's list which included going for the egg coffee we had last night, shopping for shoes, having a Vietnamese milk coffee, lunch in the food alley where they did the pancakes - and then pick up our stuff and leave for the airport.

We managed to do all this, no luck with finding any nice shoes but at 2:30 PM we had our last coffee in Vietnam this time before getting a taxi to the airport. Our first flight was a short two hour flight to Bangkok. Then a short connection and a 7 hour flight to Doha and a few hours there before finally doing the last leg to Copenhagen.

Everything went according to schedule and we even managed to get a nice shower at the lounge in Bangkok before flying to Doha. And getting some sleep on the flight.