There is something rotten in the town of Helsingborg

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In Denmark we have the expression 'to keep Elsinore Castle at port side'. As you're sailing north through Oresund, this means, you're bound for the Seven Seas.

The other day Rita and I took the ferry to Sweden and sailed just past Elsinore castle.

This was our first trip in a long time as Rita had been ill for more than a year. Now she is well and we  celebrated the start of our brand new travelling season of 2020 by taking a small warm-up trip to the Swedish seaport of Helsingborg.

We thought the world was soon to be our oyster, but just a few days later the corona virus closed down everything!


Now, living in seclusion and lockdown like almost everybody else, we can't even reminisce about the fantastic sightseeings we had while in Helsingborg.



There was none! In hindsight, we actually should have thought a second time before deciding to use a bitterly cold Sunday to visit a small provincial town, where almost all shops and restaurants were closed out of season.

We felt we had the entire city for ourselves. Just the cold wind and a few screaming sea gulls - and out of boredom, we looked for whatever adventure we could find in the one open supermarket.

  
The Swedes, although only separated from Denmark by a narrow stretch of water, have customs, which we Danes find extremely peculiar.

One is a delicacy called 'Surströmming' which is 'rotten herring' You buy it in a can, and you're told you must never ever open the can indoors, as the smell is supposed to be one of the most putrid in the entire world (actually the can is under so much inner pressure it can explode and some airlines forbid customers to carry it onboard!)

What to do to liven up a dull Sunday evening?

Yep! We bought a can!


And now we know:  Having smelled the pungent smell of surströmming is an experience you'll never forget (while the taste is actually surprisingly bland! Just salty and a bit crunchy)

　
After finally having dumped the can far from the hotel (although, I must admit, within the city limits!), I came to think of a travel adventure Rita and I - almost - had way back in our youth, when we both studied Anthropology.

We were in a group, planning a field trip to the Melanesian island of Malekula. Deep inside its mountainous interior lived the Grand Nambas tribe and we were told, when the Nambas spotted visitors (the climb up could take several days) they prepared a welcome drink by snotting into a bowl and letting the mucus ferment.

Back then, we never found finace to travel to the other end of the world and live among the Nambas.

Now, forty years later and just 40 miles from home - we finally found out how the Namban welcome drink might have smelled.

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