Pay it forward: Norway

3. In 2010 I was an exchange student in Kaiserslautern, Germany. This of course meant a great deal of travelling, and zero studying, took place.

One of the countries a fellow Singaporean and I ended up visiting was Norway, because we wanted to try biking across the mountain ranges, winter notwithstanding. The Scandinavian region is an immensely beautiful place and I suppose we felt that an adventure like that would allow us to soak up the vistas all the better. And it certainly did - but more than that, it showed us how the people there are some of the best I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.

The bike trail we chose entailed 80km, a distance spanning two train stations. The terrain at that time of year was wet and stacked with snow in places, and the ground didn't so much undulate as come in unceasing waves that caused endless agony to the thighs and calves.

We were also laden down with 25kg worth of luggage - tins of canned tuna and days-old bread, a diet we had become used to as poor students in an expensive country. Wearily, after every few hours of pedalling, we would pull over to the edge of the creek that followed us and tuck into our sandwiches, which gave us a sudden spurt of energy for the next few minutes. 

Towards evening the temperature began to drop drastically. We were still a good distance away from our stipulated ending point, where a heated hostel room was waiting in vain. Instead, we found ourselves contemplating a night in the wild. I began to seriously survey every bit of land for somewhere vaguely suitable for spending the night - a large rock to block the wind, perhaps, and a bit of dry ground to lie on. We had windbreakers and surely huddling together would keep us warm overnight.

Thankfully, before I had fully convinced my companion to settle down for the night somewhere, a train station came into view. It was desolated, given that the last train had gone by ages ago, so we parked our bicycles on the platform and set up camp in the waiting room where there was some reprieve from the cutting wind, though none from the bone-chilling Artic cold. 

The two of us took turns sleeping in hour-long shifts. Drowsy from cold and hunger, we decided on the fourth shift to ask at a hotel 400m away if we could sit in their lobby for the next 3 hours, before starting on the next leg of our journey. We explained our predicament, that we couldn't afford a room at this 5-star establishment, but if we could please stay somewhere warm for a while it would be really amazing, god bless you and your entire ancestral lineage and descendants to come.

Amazingly, the manager himself came down and ordered his staff to clear out a beautifully furnished side room for us. Two soft couches and a fireplace and a deep carpet and floor to ceiling windows that overlooked a glacier... never mind that we were sweaty and grimy and stunk, the staff were kind enough to let us stay till it became warmer outside.

The ridiculous thing is, the very next night we missed the last train after a mistimed hiking adventure and ended up at the same hotel again, where they once again were exceedingly kind to us. As you can imagine, we were quite shamefaced the second time around though.