Helsinki - The Nordic Haven

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This Scandinavian capital is one of the most pretty, clean and quiet towns. Did I say capital? and town?? Helsinki is hardly a city and retains the small town characteristics in most parts. The city is rather flat, with the only sky scraper measuring twelve floors - not much, by European standards. This building also houses a coffee place on its top most floor, which offers excellent hot chocolate as well as excellent views of Helsinki by the night, studded with jewels of light.

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Do you find any pollution, grafitti, garbage, traffic jams, beggars here? Fat chance. May be an empty wine bottle or two on a weekend night. The city is extremely clean and rule abiding. At the prime hour, in the city centre, one cannot hear a single car horn nor a police whistle. Ten pedestrians on one side of the road, fifteen on the other, not a single car in sight - still everyone waits for the light to turn green before crossing the road. This doesn't happen in Paris or even Stockholm, and Amsterdam is ofcourse chaos, with trams, buses, cars and pedestrians crisscrossing each other.

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Even the police are hardly seen on the streets. Where is the need, when domestic violence is the most feared crime? Finnish jails are famous for their comforts and opportunities to earn, famous to the point that the Russian immigrants commit petty crimes just to get into them. And don't be surprised if you bump into a convict on a saturday night, for they have vacations in the jails. This now a matter of political debate, along with the major debate on whether the fines for people travelling without tickets are high enough. Quite surprising for people who grew up with the Kashmir issue.

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They have a very efficient public transport system - maps, ticket machines and notices everywhere. A single card enables one to take bus, metro, tram and an occasional ferry to the nearby islands. The night buses ply till 4.30 on weekends and the first metro starts again at 5.30, which means one is never stranded. The malls are all connected to the metro stations, rather built in the same complex so that no one has to step out in the freezing cold. Same with bus stations - they are in the same complex often, on different floors. And a train at 1.51 pm arrives at 1.51, not even at 1.50 or 1.52. This reminds of me the train on a German border town, which was just seven minutes late, but caused all sorts of apology notices go up.

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A city of extremely reserved and private people, it is a bit difficult in the beginning to cope with the silence in public places, but it is addictive over days. People are very helpful and some of the 'unforgettable' incidents include an elderly man accompanying us till our destination, explaining the historic importance of monuments and public sculptures; Another is when the tram driver did not know which stop is the nearest to the street of Indian Embassy and stopped the tram to search the maps, ask the passengers and finally verified it on the wire less. Where else in the world does anyone find a combination such as this?