Journey of A Lifetime -Day 0 (27 July 2018)

After a painful 17 month saving plan, the time had finally come for another solo trip. This time I’ll be covering land of the Vikings, the Baltic states, Eastern European capital cities and Greece over the next 2 months. In all I will be vis\niting 10 countries. I will share the detail of the trip route as we go along.

Keeping in mind that I’ll be hopping between flights, trains, buses and ferries. in and out of hostels/hotels, another challenge was to pack as light as possible. With a varied climate of the places I intend to visit, it didn’t make the tasks any easier. The checked luggage must not exceed 20kg, the limit of many budget airlines in Europe. That was the plan. It was easier said than done. By the time I had finished packing, I knew I had gone over the limit since I struggled to lift the luggage. Once I had it weighed at the airport, I was almost 12 kg over the 20 kg limit I had set. I took out almost 5 kg and that brought me down to 27kg. No problem with Malaysia Airlines since I have a 30kg baggage allowance, but my onward flight to Norway via SAS only allows me 23kg. That means I have 4kg of access baggage.

In the bag I have basic clothing for 4 days which include a pair of jeans, hiking pants, waterproof pants, 2 T-shirts, 1 long sleeve shirts, 2 pairs of merino thermal inners, 2 pairs of hiking inners, 1 fleece, a pair of short, 1 swim suit, 2 pairs of merino socks, 2 pairs of normal sock, a towel, 4 pairs of underwear, toiletries, packs of wet tissue, a pair of hiking shoes and a hotel slipper, battery chargers, power converter, a walking stick, a tripod, a waterproof daypack, a thermos, a water bottle and a small tupperware. I also packed along some food from rice, instant noodles, canned food, aunchovies’ sambal, fruit cakes, instant coffee, milo, tea bags and a few zipper bags which were the main contributor to the access weight. In another bag, I have a spare change of clothes, a tooth brush, a pack of wet tissue, a laptop, 2 powerbanks, a mobile phone, a headphone, a weatherproof jacket, a winter jacket, 2 cameras, travel documents, a small notebook and some snacks which I carry on board the flight.

Since there is no direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Norway, I had purchased a one-way ticket to London Heathrow using air-miles I accumulated travelling on Malaysia Airlines and the Enrich miles collected from utilizing my credit card over the past 2 years, and connect via Scandinavian Airline (SAS) to Bergen in Norway. The KUL-LHR sector only cost me RM80, so it was a great savings, whilst the LHR-BGO sector cost me €260 (RM1,313). Actually, there is a cheaper flight to Bergen from Gatwick, however I need to overnight in London and plus the transportation cost to Gatwick, the total cost come to almost about the same.