Post card from Finland 2003

Wooden hut in the forest near Joensuu

Another trip to meet up with 5W member this time in Finland, why Finland?  5W club membership gave me an opportunity to see a bit of Finnish life in their homes, so much better then a stay in hotel and less expensive.

My trip was a short one but getting there from Coventry was a long journey. I had to get to Manchester for the flight to Helsinki and change at Amsterdam. The flight from Manchester meant an over night hotel stay in Manchester; hours of delay at the Amsterdam airport meant that I was very late to meet with my host at Helsinki airport. Fortunately for me my host waited for my arrival and took me straight to their most popular leisure time activity (exported to the rest of the world), sauna bath centre. This was no ordinary sauna bath! It was original old Finnish style sauna bath built in wooden house near the sea to accommodate lots of people. Once I had my good soak of hot steamy bath with my host and lots of other women all naked, I followed my host to the jetty leading to sea for a dip in the cold water. I was not afraid of the cold dip in the sea but rather shy of many fishermen out in the sea looking at my brown naked body! Getting old may be? It was a unique experience and it did me good as I slept well for my next train journey to a small town called Joeusuu.

 The train was clean, on time and I could sit in non mobile phone compartment but sadly the people looked unhappy or perhaps were not sure of what to make of me, some one with a darker skin? In Joeusuu I stayed with another 5W member who loved anything to do with India and welcomed me to her home and even let me cook some curry which she enjoyed eating. We spent all our spare time out in the nearby forest which is another of Finnish leisure activities. Our time in the forest was spent walking, cooking and eating sausages on the open fire and collecting twigs from birch trees for me to bring them home! I knew it was illegal and lucky me I got through the custom without any problem, yes I admit I returned home with a suitcase full of twigs used to built a sculpture in my garden. While I am in the mood, I might as well confess other things I have stolen from nature; I always brought back handful of sand, shells and stones from all the shores of the world I had ever visited since 1980 and will continue to do so, red clay used for dyeing fabric from rain forest in Oz, and most bizarre item I ever stolen from nature was decayed fish bones from Lake Turkana, Kenya!!  

Life seemed good no surface but sadly Finland is considered as a country of hardy drinkers, causing ill health and early death for most.