Scandinavia-the round up

So Wednesday morning, we woke up to an empty driveway.

The 6-week-old car vanished overnight. And the gate was closed. As if it had just popped down to the shops.

After we managed to close our mouths, I got my first entry into a Malaysian police station. My parents were at the counter with a lady living in the next street who was also reporting a stolen C-RV. Another 3 had gone from another suburb. Clearly it was a syndicate, filling an order.

The possibilities began to click through in my mind about how it happened: they'd definitely hacked our gate's remote control lock, because there was no damage...we were lucky they didn't come in..how did they find us?..maybe they paid off someone at the dealership?..maybe the salesman is part of the syndicate?...crooked police? Basically anything that might be a plot twist in airport fiction, is a plausible possibility in Malaysia.

And it's here I begin to be wistful for Scandinavia; that rare combination of being a place you would want to go and a place that's safe to be.



View Larger Map
The route: Anti-clockwise on the Blue line for 2 weeks with the tour. Then Pink line on my ownsome.

With the exception of Oslo which has seen better days, from the beginning in Stockholm, right around the landmass, and over to Denmark, I was only ever in danger of offending locals by misusing the words "Scandinavia" and "Nordic" (oh yes, there's a difference)

Rudolf's posse spotted scoping a joint

All the time I gawped at new bicycles left unsecured on the street, potted plant arrangements left unvandalised, and struggled to spot so much as peeling paint, let alone graffiti. There's a level of civic consciousness that's astounding. It's like Japan; safe, expensive and culturally homogenous but with more trees, less people, slightly less fish and a lot more reindeer.

Sure, as a tourist it's unlikely "historic crackwhore den" would be included on the Copenhagen city tour, but as a comparison, in San Francisco you can't go the two blocks from your overpriced tram ride in Market St to the statue in Union Square without passing at least 4 homeless people panhandling, 3 of them with AIDS, 2 junkies cursing...

"And ooonnne crazypersonmuttering toooo themmmm...sellllllves".

It was just really relaxing to not-worry about maintaining a vice-like grip on my bag, to not-worry about security in the hotel rooms, to not-worry about drivers going through zebra crossings, to not-worry that my bag would be stolen when I went to the toilet.

Maybe it's just because I was there with Malaysians, so given our exchange rate, no one would want to steal from us anyway! But for a place that often looks the stuff of fairytale, my favourite part couldn't be photographed.

I'll be doing a run-through of the different stops on the route in the following days. It won't be blow-by-blow, I promise. I know you can't be arsed to read that, but more importantly, I can't be arsed to write it.

:)