Tromso & Narvik, The Quest to Seek the Northern Lights

The Aurora Borealis, or better known as the Northern Lights, is a fascinating phenomena. It is named after the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora, and the Greekname for the north wind, Boreas. It is caused by the collision of charged particles found in the magnetosphere, with atoms of the Earth's upper atmosphere, and thus can only be seen during a clear and dark night.

For this purpose, we set forth on a journey to Tromso, high up in the Arctic Circle in the hope of getting a glimpse of this magical lights. Unfortunately, it rained that night, and rain means water coming down from clouds, and clouds mean no clear sky... What a shame!

Some people stay here for a week and never get to see the Lights, and so experts say that your efforts are never guaranteed a reward in this case. We took a risk and only stayed one night... So maybe we didnt get it right???

Anyway, we had to take a bus the following day to Narvik in order to catch a train to Luleå and hence after that to Stockholm. It was a divine interception as I see it as there were no connectign trains in Narvik until the following morning, and so another night had to be spent here under the Arctic Circle, meaning we had a second chance to wait throughout the night for the chance of our lifetime to see our dream come true.

Our reprive seemed to be short-lived for a moment as the clouds gathered above us as we arrived in Narvik, but both Aurora and Boreas seemed to take pity on us, 3 young and desperate Malaysians and took kindly to our plight. At about 10 pm, the first signs formed, and a sliver of green light was emitted in the sky. We rubbed our eyes in disbelief, were we imagining things? After all, cogito ergo sum, and we tried hard enough to think we saw something, I'm sure we would have believed that we saw soemthing.

It was not till about 15 minutes later that the splendour of what draws millions of visitors so far up north each year was showered upon us, green lines and red clouds started to form, moving swiftly as though magic dust was being sprinkled above our heads, it was something liek what you see in Disneyland advertisements, the sky illuminated in colour. It was mersmerizing, and though skeptical as I was compared with the other two, I was simply taken aback by awe of this natural wonder, I could only hang my mouth and look up into the sky, dazzled...

We sat out in the cold, yes the cold, for we were in the Arctic Circle mind you, and even at this time of year, it is freezing, with snow capped mountains and iced ponds... We sat there, the three of us, reduced to being mere children starring up at the sky for the rest of the night.

Now for the last leg of our journey, a 25 hour train ride from up here to Stockholm...