Kjosfossen Falls

Myrdal, Norway

Flåm, Norway

Lady I used to date was hyping me up for the things I said I was going to go experience, in Scandinavia, and as soon as I told her I was going, she wanted to go. Y’all get a 1-way ticket to kick it, that’s it, be off to the streets, you’re done with! 🤣 She had been to Norway, to Bergen and she took a magical, special train there and she ran her mouth for almost 1 hour straight about this goddamn train called the Flåmsbana, aka the Flåm. Ok, ok, so I noted that I must get to this magical train or my whole trip would be ruined, according to this lady. 🤡 She sent me a video that someone made, and it was actually pretty cool to see the scenery, but it was scenery that you see from any damn train, not to diminish the great landscape but what she showed me was ‘mid’, it wasn’t something you should plan your whole damn trip around. She, and just about every reference she gave me about this damn train, over hyped the whole damn experience. I started reading about this legendary Flåm train and it has some nice views, don’t get me wrong, but it depends on when you go, but most importantly, it highly depends on how many people are on that Flåm  train with you, and whether or not you can get yourself close enough to the windows to get some pictures or even see the scenery. The other thing she was talking up was that you have to get to the fjords, which of course I already knew I was going to do, but she was going on and on about the boat rides through the fjords. She said to take as many of these boat rides as possible, and I was like, ehhh ok, we’ll see what they hold. I mean I love boat rides, but they better have some entertaining scenery if I’m going to on that many. I had planned to go to the fjord, one of the notable ones too, and as I started to look at the itinerary for my trip, I realized that the Flåm train she was talking about, that’s the train that was on my itinerary to get to the fjord that I wanted to go to! So, she was right about this magical train because my itinerary was talking this damn train up like crazy also. The problem is when you look up the Flåm online, you only get to see content from people who were either experienced in traveling on that Flåm or someone who got lucky on a day when it was not busy. The other thing, 99% of the videos and photos are from a damn DRONE, not from the train, so it’s not your view you will see of the area! It’s high angle drone video of the train going through beautiful scenery, but that’s not the view you’re going to see on the train, obviously. That’s part of the hype to sell the train that is dishonest, that’s what make me write this piece, because the hype in the advertisement is a little bit not right. I thought it was not going to be that busy judging by the lack of crowding, initially, in Voss. I traveled on Norwegian railway company Vy’s lines up to the start of Flåm at the south, which is a series of railroads that gets one all around Norway. When I realized that the train I was getting on connects to the actual Flåm line, I realized that despite how early I came, I was likely going to have to think quick to get a good spot on that train when we finally got to the Flåm line start, because you have to transfer to Flåm, which means CHAOS after a 1 hour train ride. See, you have to get to this town of Myrdal, and that ride from Myrdal to Flåm is only a 1 hour ride, and a LOT of people know about the hype of the Flåm, so I thought I was winning by beating the crowds that one should expect given what I just said, back at Voss. I’ve seen a lot of photos from people who had almost empty cars, and when it looked like it was early morning rides. I was at the train station in Voss at 9:30am in the morning, waiting for the 10am train and initially, the platform was absolutely empty, with exception of my group. 9:52 am, the train platform was overrun with people, when at 9:51 am, its was almost an empty stop. The first thing that came to my mind? New York City Public Transportation rules up in Norway. I knew it was going to be one of those days where I’m going to have to elbow and scheme on people, to get the best position so that my Flåm experience wouldn’t be ruined. Myrdal had a large number of people get on, and I didn’t initially know that was the first stop. The train maps looked like 1 train took one the whole way, but that’s not true, you transfer from the Vy train to Flåm.

I stared down a couple of overly aggressive people who were not in my group, and I saw them ready to be rude, one lady stepped on my sneakers, crossing the warning line of the train platform to stay back safely from the train, and she stopped and stood RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, and she turned and her bag hit me in the chest, as she turned, so she almost fell off the platform, and would have been run over by the train. I was not on the warning line, I was behind it while talking to my team, and this lady thought to get a place before me, and the funny thing, the rest of the platform was open, she could have stood anywhere, ELSE and she did not! You can even look here, the platform is LONG so she could have gone anywhere. The guy in the other end of the pic is from my group, we tried to space ourselves out because we thought nobody there wouldn’t be so many people there, and wanted to make sure we call got good position for good views. This lady, and many others there, tried to make we did not get those views. I moved before this lady died and someone tried to blame me for her death, for her actions of standing where she was standing like the privileged moron that she was. I anticipated where the door would be, and I repositioned away from her, to see that the door was stopping where I was, and she was incorrectly positioned between cars, she realized, and she gave me such an evil look, as I got on ushering my team in, but LEADING them, so that I got the spot I wanted first. You have to use New York City Transit street rules because these people up there think they’re very important and privileged, but also, we have to be moved because we were not in the proper train but as we moved, I had an interesting interaction with a privileged group. When I got on the train, there were so many people all over the place, and the seats are set in a way where it’s rows facing rows of seats, so parties of people are normally going to pile in and sit together. This Voss spot is not the Flåm spot that you hear about, and I think other people were confused about this, which is why they were bugging out with their antics. By the time we got to the Flåm, that’s when the stupidity of humans came in. People were piling into the trains from all angles, trying to take seats that weren’t theirs, people in the same group, even couples that were together, taking up separate rows of seats, just greedy and stupid. So that took up all the space on the train, and people had to re-organize and give up space, and I was looking at this movement to get myself next to a window, which I got, thankfully, because I faked a family out like I was going to go right, they ran to beat me to the seats I did NOT want but faked them to go, with all the sun in their faces. They took the bait! Lames. NYC Transit tactics, you can’t beat me! 🤡 I got them to take the bad seats and then I went LEFT, got the window, and saved the space for my party. I wanted to be on the LEFT, which I considered the best side of the train, as you go downhill towards the town of Flåm (Northward).

Being on the LEFT side of the Flåm train, as you go north, I think is the best side of the Flåm to be on, the pics and vids included in this blog entry are all from the left. I could feel that hate coming from those people I faked when they realized they made a grave mistake. They kept looking at us with hate because we were taking a lot of pictures and talking, but they were not as active. 🤣 So off we went to the get to the magical Flåm railway, but to get there, you have to go up to the top of a mountain in the skiing town known as Voss, in Norway. We were coming out of Bergen, so we have to navigate around north to get up to Voss, the make the way to Myrdal which officially is the start of the Flåm line to the town Flåm. Everyone said you catch the a train from Voss to experience that then the Flåm line is on the way. Voss is a popular spot in the winter, and my buddies have skied there before, so they also name dropped this town a bit to me. So, I understood why so many people came out of nowhere the, although it was low season there because there was no snow. It’s a popular location. The people who told me about this train stop also said they went on the Flåm railroad and started talking for 1 hour straight about how the damn Flåm railroad was so beautiful and the most amazing train ride a human being could ever ride in their life and a ‘once in a lifetime experience’. First of all, I can come back any time, so it’s not once in a lifetime to get on the Flåm train but ok, enough people knew about this place, and I didn’t, so I realized I needed to step up my game and was very excited to get to this train. Someone said that you can get it from Bergen, and that’s not true, it’s called the “Bergen Line” that the train runs on, but it’s not coming out of Bergen, Norway. People go between Oslo and Bergen and if they use transportation, they eventually make it to the Flåm line, via trains like I took from Voss. I thought that because it was not that packed initially, that the hype was not real about the Flåm, but I learned quick it’s a big deal. If you look up this train, you will see that it’s one of the highlights that many tourists come to Norway to experience, so you should know you will be bombarded by people, most times you use it. We thought that leaving early meant we could get all that space to ourselves, NOPE! So it is imperative that you get yourself to a window seat immediately upon getting on that train, and that might mean you will have to step over some people and be a little rude, because you should know that other riders are also thinking that they want to get to the window too, to get all the views. The advertisement for the Flåm is through the roof, so trust that it’s reached many more people than just yourself.

Now, the problem with the train is there were too many damn people there, and honestly, there are many things to see on the right and left side of the train, but the sun was in their faces, messing up the pictures and videos, on that right side because it was before 3pm, and the was all in their faces. LOL I saw them getting mad at me for faking them out, and I was chilling with my party, on the left side, and stuck my camera in the window, then continued to have my good old conversation with my peoples. I wasn’t even paying attention to the scene, I just let the action camera record whatever this magical Flåm was going to take us through. I figured I would just watch the stuff back in video later.  Do you know that one of the people I fooled, to the right side of the train, they came to try to look at our view on the left side of the train! So, the guy was standing up over my shoulder, trying to take pictures through the window but I knew he wasn’t getting clear shots because people’s heads and phones were in the way. I was trying to be nice to those people, and since I was getting the video I needed, I didn’t make a big deal, but they clearly didn’t have manners. So, if you bother to get on that Flåm train, you need to make sure you’re on the left side as you go downhill from Voss because I like the mountains on that side, and you can see the interesting houses in valleys and also interesting roads you’re going to see.  The first few minutes of the Flåm train ride, I didn’t see anything that damn fascinating, so I just continued to have my in-depth discussion on reindeer hotdogs and whether it is criminal or not to smother it in onions like those Norwegians were doing everywhere we went- and the argument is NO, it’s not criminal, it’s what you’re supposed to do. I would only look up to think to take pictures when I heard someone make some odd sounds of excitement, then I’d look out the windows to see what was happening. In retrospect, I realize that all the fun we were having, not really paying attention to a great deal of beautiful scenery that were were missing, that was pissing off the hater family to the right. They wanted those seats, and if this were before Civil rights or something, they would have use their power throw my group out of the seats. My group was from all over the world, Canadians, American, Australians, Chinese that finally were not too racist, and we were just engaging in fun talk. That hater family must have bought that line that the train was a once in a lifetime experience, because they were all in our business, looking out the window on out side. The valley seemed to open up a little better on the left side, and there were a bunch of little villages set up down below them. Then, as extra added effect, you’ll see these villages set up where there are waterfalls in their back yards! How NUTS is that to wake up every morning, go to your back patio and just look out on a waterfall any time you desire? I think this is what people find the most magical, if they could imagine themselves as the people who live in these encampments. I noticed that many of the people didn’t spot a lot of the mini waterfalls, so I was on “waterfall watch” because I had the view to see all of the upcoming scenery as I was facing north and was on the left side at the window. I was mainly listening for someone else’s “ooh ahhs” and my queue to start paying attention and taking pics. I stuck a camera with a suction cup to the window, pressed record, and stopped focusing on the scenery, so we could talk and plan for activities later in the day.

On one of those big “oohs and ahhs” I heard from other travelers, we pulled up to a train stop, and it was pure pandemonium! People started grabbing their possessions, crowing up the exits, packing up the aisles, and we hadn’t even come to the stop yet. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing but both ends of my train were packed with people, from my car and the adjacent cars. They were trying to empty that Flåm train as soon as they could, stepping all over each other, jumping off the Flåm train, you would have thought there were giving out free money or something at this stop, the way the people were stepping over each other to get off the train. I couldn’t figure out what they were going crazy over, but even that hater family was one of the first people to get in line to get off. I looked out, and I saw what the hype was about, actually I heard it before I saw it, but it didn’t process in my head because I was deep in conversation. People on the right side saw what the fuss was all about. I checked the map, I saw that this wasn’t the last stop on the train, so I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on, until I saw Google outline that there was a big tourist attraction there. The sound I hear was finally processing, running/falling water, so I realized that there is a stop you should be looking for toward to, when you take the Flåm, it’s a stop that is designed to entertain you, the station named “Kjosfossen stasjon”. When you pull up, you’ll hear Euro dance mix music blasting, and a huge water fall there, the Kjosfossen Falls. I could see the side angle from the waterfall, but it was not facing out to the train, it is slanted northward, so that means if you’re not on a train that is in the first half of the length of the Flåm, you will not get a good view of the waterfall from the train itself, so you have to get out and walk forward to see the waterfall. I couldn’t get off of the Flåm train fast because there were too many people fighting for position to get to photos as soon as they got off the Flåm, so I couldn’t get people out of the way so I could get off. 🤦🏾 All of those people in the back half of the train came running to the front, when they realized they didn’t have any view what so ever of the waterfall. I’ll tell you, if you take that Flåm you better anticipate this stop and beat those people to getting off the train, so the next tip is to get as far forward on the Flåm as possible, when going north, or most of your time will be wasted trying to get off the damn Flåm. I couldn’t move more north in the station to get a better picture of the amazing waterfall, it was just too packed, and then I couldn’t get over the people’s shoulders to get their cameras out of the way to get clear pictures off. There were too many people blocking the path to get forward. I was too far back in the viewing of the waterfall so apparently there is a lady out there dancing sexually, apparently part of the show, but she was only there for less than 1 minute, she disappeared out of nowhere and I didn’t get to see her because I wasn’t able to get further enough in the station to get a straight on view of that waterfall.

Someone showed me a picture of her, but it was a bad one because it was a pic in between two people’s heads and 4 camera, but I saw the fairy lady of the train in someone else’s picture. Man, I got back on Flåm and took my seat, or I ATTEMPTED to take my seat, when I saw that the hater family tried to take our seats we rode in on! I anticipate this already though, and I instructed people to leave their extra bags from things we bought from the stores, in the seats to reserve the places. The Chinese guy said that he didn’t see anyone who looked like they would steal our things, when we left them originally, and I let the fly, without getting clarity, because I’d LOVE to hear who he could easily identify as the kind of people who would steal, and how he knew none of them were on the train. Luckily, I told the people to put their items in the seats to reserve their spots, because people were being ignorant. The Chinese guy disagreed that someone would take our seats because everyone looked respectable. That was the 100th dumb thing he said but I let it slide, to not look like an ethnic stereotype, but his ignorance was getting on my nerves. Everyone else put their bags down in the seats and we tried to prevent people from taking our seats. Remember, it’s a train station, so technically, they may be able to take your seat over. So, as we got back, we are all together and we see one of the men and a woman, of the family, IN OUR SEATS!!! I said “I guess you don’t know people well” to the Chinese guy, and he says to the 2 members of the hater family, in a NASTY WAY “Get out of our seats”. I was shocked that he did that considering how much praise he gave white people prior and with his dumb statements, but I already determined that he was socially inept book studier, so he’s awkward around actual humans. He was too flagrant and now, I knew the family was going to turn up on us. The woman didn’t want to move, she was ignoring him, but I came and POLITELY reminded her that placed the items there to return to our seats and that they were reserved, showing her the ticket I had. She got up and moved, finally, but that guy didn’t need to be that forceful and rude. The way he did it, I knew to watch out for retaliation or resentment. They wanted those seats, clearly. This socially inept dummy didn’t need to speak that way, you can’t express your emotions this way in public, but he likely lives in a protected world in China where someone doesn’t punch him in his face for talking like that. I’d love for him to come to NY and talk like that, regardless of how ignorant that family was being, since he didn’t know what they were doing from start, he was just being rude without that context. His family likely lock in him a room with books to study, and he doesn’t go outside ever, so has no friends, just good grades from memorizing book writings. I talked to the people politely because I know that anger will set in and those people will do something stupid, human nature. I calmed that situation easily, made them less embarrassed, and they moved.

The content shared on this page about this Flåm ride is all from the left side of the train, thus I’m making the claim that my choice is the best, but the family trying to take our seats, that cemented my decision. As I started to pay more attention to the country side, I saw some really cool countryside looks on that left side of the Flåm especially after that waterfall stop. I can confirm that because I then saw more people from the right side of the train getting up and intruding on the views of the people who chose to sit on the left side of the Flåm train, and that old man who tried to take my seat was right back next to me, taking pictures over my shoulder. Then the woman and their kid got up and they were taking pics over us, from our window. The man put his phone right above my action camera that I had fastened to the window, and we let him get his thing off but cut it brief. He chose wrong, and that also confirmed it for me, sit on the LEFT SIDE as you go north, or the RIGHT SIDE if you’re going south on that Flåm. I started to see a lot more the waterfalls that seemingly came out of nowhere, saw some streams of water running parallel to the train stop but that was all on my side on the left. What you want to look for is valleys. When you anticipate the valley coming, because you see the mountains looking like they are separate, keep your eyes open because a valley is coming up and the valleys look really pretty. You have to keep your eye out for these things because they pass quickly. As I was looking out the window, I saw a car flying down a mountain, making a bunch of zig zags. I saw it only out of the side of my eye at first, because it was off in the distance, and I had to take a look closer because it looked like it was doing that as if falling down the mountain. It was a really weird winding road coming down the mountain side! Winding roads is another thing that Norway is known for, but that was something we had on the agenda to do, so I’ll get into that in a different piece when we get to that part of the trip. This looked really cool, I grabbed the phone really quick and started snapping pictures. What an amazing modern marvel. I checked the GPS and marked the location of it in case you take the Flåm and want to know where it is. it’s called “Myrdalsvingane”, which is a popular spot to hit. Oh, and that wasn’t a CAR that I saw going down it, it was someone in some kind of buggy or go-car kind of 4-wheel vehicle that was racing down that area. It is a road, technically, so you can take a car on that road, but you better know how to drive wall because those turns are a little tight. It looks like it was something built for walking up the mountain or biking up the mountain, and the winding is a gradual way to get up the hill without realizing the stress, because it’s a winding road cool looking structure through the mountains, but also has a waterfall right next to it. If you’re heading to Flåm, it’s going to be on your LEFT, at these GPS coordinates.

Ok, the Flåm train to the town Flåm was amazing, and I’m saying this because I looked back over content created and others that were shared with me, minus the crowding of annoying people who got on the train in the stop between mine and the town Flåm. I can for sure say that this is definitely one of the highlights of Norway, and you should not miss it, so book a trip to the West of Norway, or you’re seriously missing out on breathtaking things. The next time I am out there though, I will not be taking the Flåm, I will be in motor vehicle, quite a few of the places we passed are areas that people can stay at and enjoy good hikes, visit some farms, and get up close and personal with the scenery. The train is special because the highway does not run parallel to the train in most of the trip, so the train is weaving around and THROUGH the mountains. So the cars won’t be able to go where the train goes, to get so close to the scenery, but there is too much that is missed by being on the Flåm. For example, that Myrdalsvingane, I’d like to go on that road, and do some biking in the area. The train experience is contingent upon you getting a good seat though, just keep THAT at the front of your brain. The Flåm train is mostly overhyped on sites, and by my friends, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a really good experience to go see for yourself, provided you purposely make it an experience and get active by knocking people out of the way to get to the seats and off the train, at that waterfall, FIRST. Scheme, plan, plot whatever it takes, or you’re missing the entire experience people are hyping. Maybe, probe the schedule for Flåm and go during a low peak hour and period, which I did do technically, but somehow halfway failed with, although it did get me a good seat. And I couldn’t open the window of the Flåm train because it was too cold outside, and the people were complaining to close a window on the other side of the Flåm aisle, so I couldn’t open mine to stick the camera out – no need to be that knowingly rude to people. Plus, I wasn’t paying attention most of the time, so I didn’t want to bother with all that mess, I just threw the suction cup on the window with the action cam and YA! What you do after the Flåm, that’s a question you should solve, because that train is not that long of a ride from where I took it from, so you can’t want to leave your couch in Arkansas, USA to get on a short train ride. I had many extra activities, I’ll throw something up about those later, but the train instead of motor vehicle was a great thing to throw in the mix, on the route to the valley of Flåm, which you can easily reach by car too, although you’d miss that up close view of those villages and going through those mountains, literally. The entire Flåm ride is only 20.2 Km (12.6 mi), so it’s not the long of a ride. I like taking trains to trains or other public transportation as locals do. Now, when you reach the town of Flåm, you are likely going to be heading to a boat to take you to your next destination, as was I. I looked around and I noticed that the reason we had so many people there is because the ocean cruises they include tickets to ride the Flåm, as part of their deal, and THAT is where all of those people were coming from, or going to, the ocean liners. There aren’t many ways to continue to go north without getting on a ferry or a boat, so when you get to the town of Flåm, that’s where people from the huge lines are, and it’s even more overcrowded there. You’ll be waiting forever on lines, at Flåm. Here is what I recommend though, and alternative to that mess. Instead of the overcrowded Flåm town connection to the boats, we did a detour to the lesser-known area that you can catch a boat from, to get to your destination, which is to head a little further northwest to Gudvangen, Norway, where there are smaller boats and you can have a more intimate ride with your small group, and less wait time more importantly. That direction is known by people know about the fjord that is over there, but most people only see that point from the boats that are touring that fjord. When you go to destinations that are on the western part of Norway, you almost can’t get around not taking a ferry to get there, and likely, at some point, you want to see some fjords if you went that far northwest anyway. Well, there is where you catch the regular* ferry, to get to your destination, and you don’t need a fancy cruise liner or special tour to see that fjord in this way.

A majority of the people who get off of the Flåm train went to pile upon long lines in the town of Flåm, especially cruise liner people. Everyone eats there in town and then rushes to the scheduled boat, so instead we ate and did the alternative path outlined. There was no way to avoid taking a boat, in my case, the hotel was on the other side of the fjord, but we were also pressed for time. The way you solve that is you go do what we did, go to that alternative route and then you’re getting a tour of the famous Nærøyfjord, which is a UNESCO recognized fjord! So, you kill two birds with one stone in this technique, just take the highway E16 west to Gudvangen, can’t miss it, and that will put you into the mouth of the start to Nærøyfjord. This technique also gets you to go further past the standard tour of fjords that will bring you back to the point, because your destination is on the other side of the fjord! From Gudvangen, you take one of the newer electric ferry boats! So, that lets you try something else that you’ve likely not been on before, an e-boat. You ever see that before, and e-boat? Well they have them there, if you look for a sign for the company “Norway’s Best”. I’ll tell you next, if these fjords tours are worth it or not, because I also think most of those are overhyped too. But Flåm, it’s worth the experience, but you’re going to have to work for it if you go in the Summer and peak times, because the people are just way too unpredictable and the space on the train is unpredictable. If you have an organized group where tickets are purchased for such a group or tour company, you stand a better chance of getting good spots because they can buy out a section of the train and then it’s just you and your group, or mostly your group. My train car, there were just too many people to have such a protection, so, I knew to do the juke and jive to fake out I did to that family of annoying people, had to be done. This is from YEARS of being on the New York Subway system, so you’re going to need skills like this to get the seat you want and to exist quickly for the brief hop-on/ hop-off at the waterfall that the whole train empties to see, before getting back on. People are rude, as their nature, and they want what YOU have or want what you want if they also want it. Those people saw me looking at the bad seats, and thought to take what I had my eyes on, creating greater value in the bad seats. I did a fake effort to move fast towards them when I locked eyes with them, so they sped up and the one mother threw her back over the back of the seat of that bad seats to mark her territory as THEIRS, and as soon as I saw their commitment to the bad seats, although I was technically in that area and could have claimed it before them, I let them do that and took the best seats for me and my party! 🤣 See, I already asked the conductor what direction the train was going, and I already knew that the best things to see were on the left side of the train as you go north, so I explained this to my team and showed them on Google Maps, all the things that we were going to see, on our side. They were so amazed and said that we were “LUCKY” to get those seats, but no, it was PLANNED. I was talking up our great seats because I wanted that rude family to know how I played their dumb asses, and I could see them getting mad as I was showing my team how many things we would see and that I would call them out to be ready. I knew that family to the right would get pissed and of course they got up and started trying to film and take pictures over our shoulders, because we had the best side. They thought they were privileged, they thought they were entitled, so I use that against them. You too should do this, because if you don’t, you’re going to have an overhyped experience and will say that Flåm is garbage. No, it is a very beautiful ride you must do at some point of your life!

As always, the finished products can be found on the main site of www.drunkphotography.com.