Travels with Orange: the honeymoon.

[moilami]

(The story will begin quite suddenly like in a tv-serie after an advertisement break, sorry of that.)

It puzzled me how a mechanic who could had charged good money for adjusting the valves did not want to adjust them. I developed different conspiracy theories and other explanations but in the end trashed them as nonsense. Have to trust the mechanic, he aint no fool nor bad person.

So after gathering some tools and other equipment I was ready to begin to pack my bike. I tried to travel light but as always it surprises me how much worthless stuff I manage to take with me. I don’t have neat pictures of what I took with me because I had no interest or time to spread everything neatly somewhere for a picture or inventory. I had that picture in my mind and packed stuff regarding it.

When everything was well packed and I tried to mount on my bike I noticed the backback I had with me was bad because it forced me to sit too far in the front. Fuck. Okay no problems lets go visit the nearby motorcycle shop since there are very good looking soft side bags. So it was, the bags were just fine and I could begin to use them without any modifications on the bike so I became one side bags richer and the merchant one side bags poorer. After chatting a little with the merchant and one other customer and after being ignored as a fool me thinks by the other customer I was almost ready to go! Just some repacking and feeding Orange with oil.

After changing the oils and talking with my aunt and a nice Yamaha XT owner, who was impressed of my trip, I started driving to a nearby lake where my Aunt’s husband was in a summer cottage. It was the time to observe is the bike well packed and spread the map on the table to think which route to take. Also I needed a knife with me because I could not find one from my home in a hurry I were at home. Always carry a knife with you says Jape, and I agree. Oh almost forgot to mention I had to turn once back before the summer cottage because I noticed I forgot the map to home and rain gear at home. So I went to get the map but forgot to take rain gear. When I noticed that later it was “too late” to turn back – it was anyway just a short trip to Norway, nothing a Finlander could not do without rain gear.

The shadows begun be deeper when I found the first gravel road and got a chance to enjoy pure Finnish countryside. So far so good! It didn’t last long and soon I had to spread the map open again and study which direction to take. I bought fuel and studied the map. It begun to feel like I would actually be on the way to Norway at last. I saw some motorcyclists getting fuel and went to talk with this one below as part of my plan to document motorcyclists during the trip.



After letting Orange to drink some fuel I hit the road and arrived to Pieksamäki. There was this beautiful high school. It made me think should I document something from every village or city. The idea felt good, but turned out to be bad.



The next picture is from Suonenjoki, which is famous of strawberries.



It was beginning to be late and I was disappointed on how little progress distance wise I had done. The thought about driving all night long excited me a lot.



Before Karttula there was a nice small beach with fireplace and good lakeside view. It looked clear it was such a place for camping there is no need to search for better. I found also ready made firewood and good paper thingy for firestarter. I could not believe it, but then had to accept the reality as an example how Finland can be. We have the rights to camp freely outside cities and out of yards of houses, yet it was great to find such a place with everything needed. The only issue was mosquitos, there were many and they definetly helped me to set up the tent in record time!

I like quality and I was very happy of my tent, but the first night was kinda restless for me. It took quite some time, maybe even two hours, before I managed to get sleep. All kind of thoughs were amusing my mind. When I finally got sleep I awoke several times during the night as some trucks passed me on the very nearby road. The road was small and I expected there to be not much traffic in the night, well there were not much, but some trucks and bikes kept good noise at times. Once I woke up to enormous “splash” sound and though has someone gone swimming. I was too sleepy to observe is there an elk or human.



The morning came and within more sunshine. The lakeside views like the one below are common in Finland but I enjoyed it nonetheless and questioned for the first time my sanity. Does it make sense to drive to Northern Norway when there would be so much to see in the country I am native to? Being uncertain on what I am doing I slowly made breakfast while watching Swans and other big birds on the lake near me and realized the *splash* sound was made by some bigger bird as it descended on the water. Motorcyclists drove every now and then on the road nearby and waved at me. Life was very good.



After a great morning the incoming day was so so. It was midsummer in Finland and it means the cities will be empty as all who can travel to summer cottages in the woods to celebrate the day of the year when the sun spends more time over Finland than in any other day. It meant almost everything would be closed and there would be very few people around. Darn I hated it! I photographed empty villages and observed from the map how slowly I am moving up north. I had to begin to think what I am doing wrong and should I just turn back and go home since it was all too sick to photograph places which looked like humans would had been all wiped away suddenly. No documenting of empty villages anymore.

The velocity meter in my bike broke and I though alright this is it, this China bike is going to gradually fall into pieces like the car in one Blues Brothers movie. I stopped on the road to inspect can I repair the meter but the answer was no. A photo I could take.



The darn meter made me to want even more to turn back, but I could not do it since I had motivated myself in advance by saying to people I will drive to Nordkapp. There was no turning back.

I saw a sign to Äyskoski, a famous sport fishing river, and begin to be again quite settled with Orange. I thought she broke the meter to help me to forget kilometers and speeds and drive by listening her instead and watching nature around us.



The weather was good and I got a chance to enjoy driving in a pack with cruisers. Have to say they looked very cool from my mirror as they cornered feets first. Unfortunately I saw something I could not pass, a sign mentioning the birth house of Urho Kekkonen, a long time president of Finland, and hilariously the same man whose portrait I use in one China moto forum. I am not sure is the house on the picture the right one though, the road signs were subject to misinterpretion of the route. Or better said lack of them.



I had plans to do cooking at the terrace of the old home of Urho Kekkonen but I had no water. What a shame! There was a lake nearby but I was not “ready” to use water in it. There was also a well but it spitted only brown water, which probably was only because of lack of use but made me to continue driving nonetheless.



It was the time to coffee and something else to drink, and got them from very nice women in a cafeteria made into rural very old buildings. In there I made also a very big mistake I regretted the whole day. The women had made a museum into one building, but there was a 5 € entry fee and I chose it is not worth it and I am in a hurry. They gladly recharged the battery in my mobile phone and filled my water bottles so they would surely deserved to get additional 5 € and one should not feel so much hurry to not have time to spend 15 minutes checking out interesting stuff. It is just that when one begins to stop to photograph interesting stuff every now and then and explore side roads all those 15 minutes delays begins to add up and suddenly one can only look at the map in horror and think will I ever arrive to the destination. In other words, destinations can be bad for travels yet we need goals to go for. Ah.. what a dilemma.

No matter, to be honest there were other issues too. The woman who went to take care of the museum had the smile I can say, among other things, I can tell. Nothing bad in that, in my opinion she shined in making me want to study the museum. I would not however been able to not try to get her as a guide, and after the tour in the museum I bet it would had taken hours for me to cool down and be able to enjoy my lone wolf travelling. So in practise I had to flee from there. And quicly!



The best part in travelling is to meet interesting people. This road warrior with a shovelhead Harley Davidson, it looks, I met while I was photographing landscapes. I heard him from far away and prepared to take a picture. He however stopped by me and asked do I need help. I said I am fine no problems. We chatted and after he begun to continue his journey a huge *BLATAM* went into air of his bike and the engine stopped. I smiled and thought nice, now it is my turn to ask does he need help. He did not need however, just muttered something about the spark plugs and started the engine. A great man he was as was his bike, the bike being like a Newfoundlander dog: big, black, strong, and sturdy though relaxedly cool beast.



A night was coming and hunger within. To counter the latter a decision to travel to Oulu was made. As a bigger city in Finland it must have restaurants open even in midsummer.



After driving around Oulu and almost becoming mad of the insanity of keeping traffic lights enabled when there is no traffic to speak of and so forcing drivers and pedestrians to stand still in crossroads waiting for the stupid red light to go away, I knew I will definetly have to get out of this mad city as soon as possible. Quicly some food now where is McDonald’s! I did not find a McDonald’s, luckily, I found a pizzeria where I ate maybe the best pizza ever it felt. In there I also charged battery of my camera.



When I came out of the pizzeria several drunken young boys (not those in the picture, they kept me company in Pizzeria and were not drunḱen) and one girl came to ask tobacco from me. I usually never give tobacco to teenagers but instead make a speech how bad shit tobacco is and how only morons smoke it and how much win it is to not smoke tobacco. It works always. But for some reason I was feeling soft and gave tobacco to the teenagers in Oulu. Still wondering why I did so, should had given a speech instead.



The sun was setting as I arrived to Tornio, a city partly in Sweden with a new name Haparanda. The river Tornionjoki is in the next obligatory sunset picture. Tornionjoki is significant because it makes a natural border between Sweden and Finland. I was very happy to travel in Finland and had made a decision to not travel in Sweden, even though I like Sweden a lot. Of course I was not able to not go “just to take a look at Sweden”, and soon after in Sweden my plans “surprisingly” changed and the new route went in Sweden.



I begun to look for a good camping place and thought I might find one on the shore of Tornionjoki. I turned into a sideroad where there was a sign “maze” something. Instead of maze I found a commercial camping area. I saw a few people having fun in there, three of them waving at me a lot as I drove two times past the area puzzled on what to do. Well, in the end decision was very simple though I hesitated to do it since I had plans to do only stealth camping. But if three women waves eagerly at you, what can you do? Especially if you know you could get a warm shower in the morning.



It turned out that the older couple were Finlanders living in Sweden and the three women were Finlanders too as well as university students. We were not many, there was no wild party, but I finally found real Finnish people to talk with! We played one Swedish game and at least I had very good and relaxed time with great people. They demoralized me a little regarding my objective to travel to Nordkapp by telling me there are road tolls and other mandatory payments and that it is just a tourist place. One of the women said to me why to go there? Just so you could say you were there. I smiled a little because she read me so well and said yes.

Later when I went to set up my tent and had troubles with it because mosquitos were not boosting me that badly, the man came to help me being very drunken. Very typical to Finlanders, it made me to smile without showing it even though I was worried he will break my tent accidentally and therefore I wanted to say to him get lost, I can set it up myself. That would had been extremely rude to say to him so I did my best to explain how the tent must be set up, which was good because I had to rethink how to do it. Finnish people are stubborn however and at times very eager to help so it took quite some time to set up the tent, and made me embarassed as I thought the young women might be laughing at me because it took so long to set up the tent. Originally I had plans to show them and set up the tent in a minute! Anyway, I got a moral boost.

- So, where are you going again.
- Nordkapp.
- Nordkapp?
- Yes.
- Haha, what you are going to do there?
- I just go there and buy a sticker badge for my bike and drive away.
- Really?
- Yes.
- Haha, that is crazy.
- It is.

After that he slammed me on my shoulder approvingly. We finished with the tent, which did not break, and he went away. I fell asleep quicly and slept well. I was now dedicated to travel to Nordkapp whatever it takes, but part of me already missed greatly Finland and Finnish people. I thought that someday I will have to travel randomly around Finland and camp in commercial camping areas in order to meet Finnish people, even though not long ago when I was worried of my tent I laughed in my mind and almost made jokingly a decision to never do camping in commercial areas. But it was all good classical Finland – in Sweden.

To be continued in part two: the road to Nordkapp.

[euphonius]

Moilami! Nice start!

So you are saying your avatar is Urho Kekkonen? It's a great image but only lends to the great mystery about your true identity. I get the feeling we are being educated about your true identity, your Finnish identity, as we read of your travel.

Two images stand out from your many fine pictures, though not so much for their artistry as for their, shall we say, anthropological value.

Don't you just love it when someone like your panhead guy rolls into your life, at just the right moment? Thanks for sharing him and his beast with us.

Is that a chrome-plated cowbell slung between his cylinders?

That pizza brings back amazing associations for me. First, it indeed looks like one of the best pizzas on earth. But for me, it takes me back some 35 years, to my teenage years in northern Bayern -- Drosendorf, Kreis Bamberg, Oberfranken, to be exact. Now Germany in those years was no beacon of gastronomie, with the obvious exceptions of bread, cheese and beer (and I even carried in my pocket a list of all the vegetables I loved in California which seemed yet to have been discovered in Germany). Then I made an amazing discovery, in a strange kegelbahn in Memmelsdorf where the bowling balls were the size of grapefruits and the bahn was a raised bed maybe knee high. In fact, the bowling was uninteresting, but the pizza was divine! It was made not by itinerant Italians, but by Turkish "Gastarbeiter" who far from being guestworkers were already third-generation Germans. My, my, could they make pizza. (The exquisite lager was supplied by Brauerei Drei Kronen.)

Amazing how a picture of cheese on leavened bread can transport you to another place and time.

More!

[jape]

The Kalevala of Mikko! Onnittelut, you are singing your soul very well my friend as you journey to the Pohjolan emäntä. So far in the journey the balance is in place, but when you get there, will she take you through the place between? Will you drink mushroom or eat more cheese? I cannot wait to find out.

[ChinaV]

Awesome , true happiness in this picture.



Cheers!
ChinaV

[moilami]

Moilami! Nice start!

So you are saying your avatar is Urho Kekkonen? It's a great image but only lends to the great mystery about your true identity. I get the feeling we are being educated about your true identity, your Finnish identity, as we read of your travel.

Yeah, it is Urho Kekkonen. He is novadays often used in different absurd jokes in Finland. During elections they read aloud in radio about 150 times in a row "Kekkonen, Kekkonen, Kekkonen, Kekkonen [...]" in a very monotone voice.

Don't you just love it when someone like your panhead guy rolls into your life, at just the right moment? Thanks for sharing him and his beast with us.

I did indeed, I wanted to meet cool people and not only people with a "city face". More about that later.

Is that a chrome-plated cowbell slung between his cylinders?

Oh you have those in America too xD I thought cowbells are some kind of Finnish thing. I think the thing in the picture is air filter cover. Or something. And the engine appears to be shovelhead to me. I am not expert though but panhead looks different?

It was made not by itinerant Italians, but by Turkish "Gastarbeiter" who far from being guestworkers were already third-generation Germans. My, my, could they make pizza. (The exquisite lager was supplied by Brauerei Drei Kronen.)

That pizza was also made by Turkish I think. They often run pizzeria/kebab restaurants in Finland, and have done good to the Finnish restaurants by putting prices lower and quality higher. Some are not so good of course but this one was excellent even though "travelling hunger" contributed some to the experience.

[moilami]

The Kalevala of Mikko! Onnittelut, you are singing your soul very well my friend as you journey to the Pohjolan emäntä. So far in the journey the balance is in place, but when you get there, will she take you through the place between? Will you drink mushroom or eat more cheese? I cannot wait to find out.

I did find one indeed xD She was just Estonian but would had done a great Pohjolan emäntä nonetheless :)

And haha, cheese I ate a lot more. Good stuff. Did not find proper shamans thought to guide me in more, hmm, spiritual ways xD

[moilami]

Awesome , true happiness in this picture.



Cheers!
ChinaV

Thanks, I can say it is very hard to do these raports after your epic report. It feels so worthless to write and put pics since yours are in so different league.

[milton]

After driving around Oulu and almost becoming mad of the insanity of keeping traffic lights enabled when there is no traffic to speak of and so forcing drivers and pedestrians to stand still in crossroads waiting for the stupid red light to go away, I knew I will definetly have to get out of this mad city as soon as possible.

Yes, this is insanity indeed. Here in China it is much more civilized. All traffic lights are for reference only. Only mad Chinese would stand still in crossroads waiting for the light to turn green. To me, I just treat them all like "Yield" signs, regardless of their color: green, yellow, red or whatever.

[moilami]

I think I want to experience more free and chaotic city traffic.

[makindue]

Hi fellas, nice video of that Wittgeinsten! :D Goodluck in your honey moon. :D I hope you can also drive safely. :D