Arctic region the North Pole of the Earth has always been a dream destination for the avid travellers especially adventure travellers. Like travelling to other destinations of the world it is not an easy task to travel to this region. With an invitation from Ocean Wide Expedition, one of the three polar expedition cruise company, Mr. Ravisankar K.V. Editor and Publisher, Tourism India Magazine along with Mr. Chandrahasan. K.C, Chairman, Interserve Travels Ltd and crew made an expedition to Arctic region. In this article Mr Ravisankar narrates his amazing experience about his voyage to the Arctic region.
                                    

Mr. Ravisankar K.V. Editor and Publisher, Tourism India Magazine

On the fine morning of June 10th, I got a call from Mr. Chandrahasan.K.C, Chairman, Interserve Travels Ltd., India’s biggest travel agents & Tour operators consortium and one of the fastest grow­ing tourism brand in India, to experience a dream, which always carried with me through my life, a journey to Arctic within two days! He informed me about the invitation from Ocean Wide Expedition, one of the three polar expedition cruise company and its future plans to explore the potential Indian market. Without any hesitation, I accepted the invitation and packed my baggage for a journey, which I dreamt once.
As a photojournalist, I was fortunate enough to travel throughout India in my early ages and thereby exploring the world. But Amazon forest, Great Barrier Reef, Galapagos Islands, Antarctic and Arctic are my dreams, the places to be vis­ited in my life. An unexpected travel from Kerala- God’s own country’s monsoon showers to North Pole, where ice and cold is part and parcel of the life is a realisation of the many facets of the life. A journey to Arctic is once in a life time experience to any traveller, especially a nature lover.
From Trivandrum, along with Chan­dru, I boarded to Stockholm, via Doha in a brand new flight of Qatar Airways on early morning 4 o’clock on 13th June. Qatar Airways, a five star rated airline is always my first choice to fly any European destinations since 1998, with very easy connection from Doha. From Trivandrum to Doha, Qatar normally flies Airbus A 320 with standard service quality. Doha to Stockholm flight is very comfortable and the facility in its business class is astonish­ing. The flying time is almost 6 hours. The overnight stay at Stockholm at Quality Airport hotel in Arlanda is very comfort­able to acclimatize with the cold.

The Captain, Joop van de Kop greeted us all and then Christopher Gilbert, our Expedition Leader (EL) introduced all the staff. Na­tascha, MV Plancius’ Hotel Manager, followed and ex­plained all the need-to-know housekeeping details. The staff team were composed of:

Most of us visited the won­derful souvenir shop where there was the opportunity to buy postcards and stamps with conveniently placed tables to hastily write our missives from the most northerly post office in the world. Our journey continued to the Amund­sen memorial and Piero led us towards the anchor pylon used for the airship Norge in which Roald Amundsen and Umberto Nobile set off for the North Pole. Their stories were admirably brought to life by Piero.
Nobile’s 1928 expedi­tion in his airship Italia ended in disaster while Amundsen met his end searching for Nobile in his plane.
Rinie van Meurs, the photographer and natu­ralist in our team showed me the Kings bay glacier and explained the global warming effect on this gigantic glacier, which lost its charm by the way of melting around 2km stretch within 10 years time.

We left Ny Alesund thinking of the community’s isolation yet also marvelling at its doubtless intense comradeship. A lasting image is the massive tree trunk in the porch of the Mellageret Bar or Kafé (open two nights weekly). The trunk is reassuring in its solidity situated as it is in the midst of a treeless landscape, as is the well-preserved train, hunched on tracks going nowhere! If the train on Blomstrandhalvoya is the most northerly in the world that at Ny Alesund is surely the best preserved most northerly train on the planet.
Back aboard our intrepid ­ex­pedition leader, Chris, outlined the programme for the upcoming week. Mick then presented on Arctic birdlife while Elke spoke briefly about reindeer, focus­ing in on their antlers. As we headed towards dinner, expertly prepared by Chef Ralf and his ac­complished team, the ship sailed past the magnificent glaciers of Kongsfjorden.

to be contd.