Friends Travelling Around The World

Smiling Flyer

DREAM IT - PLAN IT - FLY IT.

One day a group of entrepreneurs living in Mallorca fronted by Morten Sondergaard, decided to take a single engine Pilatus PC-12 and travel around the world. We started the planning and “The Smiling Flyer” was born.

This trip is about men, who has build their professional lives taken risk and are seeing the risk on this trip as a natural way of having fun. People have asked us why we are doing the “SmilingFlyer” - the simple answer is: “Because it can be done”. (The plan was: “there is no plan - just get the plane around the earth”)

We took off from Mallorca, Spain on November 3rd 2007 and visiting the following places: Greece, Egypt, Dubai, Mumbai India, Maldives, Madras India, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Caledonia,Tonga, Fiji, Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Easter Island, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Cape Verde, Morocco, Spain.

We arrived back in Mallorca, Spain 17th of Februay 2008 having completed more than 60.000 km through some of the most remote areas of the world, all done with a big smile!

Click Here To View Our Route Map

Take off!

3-11-2007
Weather was perfect, a warm sunny day. As we had to wait at the airport for one of our travellers, we had plenty of time to fun around, taking some pictures and so on. We left Palma at 13:30 direction Crete, Greece. Heading for Cairo, a stop was necessary as the way was too long to do it in one. Flying with a Pilatus is really fun, it is a comfortable plane with quiet enough space for eight passengers - actually we are six, and everybody feels comfortable. Noise within the plane is low, so you can chat easy, and we discussed what to do, as our route is not completely clear for the next days.
19:48 local time (GMT+1) we hit the ground on Crete, refueled and went off to our hotel, five-star-greece-standard, which was recommended and booked friendly by our handling agent GOLDAIR. Wheater in Crete was good, humid, around 22 °C.

Of course we went out to have a good dinner downtown greek-style with fresh vegetable and the famous mixed grill barbecue which was fantastic.

09:20 next morning we headed to the airport again, where we were checked in. Something really cool was, that Jorn, our pilot, wearing his uniform, managed us to be checked through the security in front of a long waiting queue of regular flight passengers. Smart move!
Take-off was easy, 10:00, very punctual, and we are in the air again heading for Cairo where we are suppose to see the pyramides.

Cairo & Co

Flight to Cairo was short, only two and a half hours, although the plane is very comfortable, we don’t want to think about the flight to the Maledives where we will fly much much longer.

Fliying over Cairo is an experience - the pattern of the architecture is amazing. And then, at the border of the city, so close, you see the pyramides, still looking great for how old they are! At the airport we showed passports etc. and got into a bus that drove us to the hotel. And the ride took us a while… so much traffic! But fun, we took some nice pics out of the car. The buildings seem dirty, maybe its from the desert sand, we don’t know. But traffic runs smooth, everybody gets along without traffic lights, just by honking around and avoiding crashes!
From the hotel we drove to the pyramides where luckily they closed the street for the cars to get there. So we took a camel ride! Ouch! Legs are still aching, its not easy to keep yourself 60 min up there when your vehicle is always going up-n-down. But you get used to it.

After our historical excursion we had a very good dinner in a restaurant nearby, although food was not typical egyptcian, but very tasty!

CAIRO-DUBAI

Dubai for sure is bigger than the pyramides!
Jorn took us on a spectactular flight over the desert safe to dubai, where we were finally received with honors! For sure the days here will be a lot of fun and you can expect great pictures and stunning views!

Sightseeing in Dubai

Well, you all know that Dubai is a city built up right from the scratch in the last 10 years. It is a typical boom town, and everything here is reflecting the standard of the western world - just better. Skyscrapers, six-line highways, luxury wherever you look: cars, shopping malls, buildings, homes… all the finest around. My oh my, you really think that this is the perfect city, with warm climate, next to the sea and so much nice people. We enyoyed a day doing some sight seeing, went to see Burj el Arab, the 7 star hotel (only from outside, of course) and the shopping mall where SKI DUBAI is located. Crazy. But in a way, very cool ;.)

The day ended with a very nice dinner at the famous Buddha Bar, spectecular food!!!

8 hours flight to Maldives

Time in Dubai was great, we had so much fun and were treated very well by friends. I updated the Dubai photo album, you will find some nice night-shots in there.

From Dubai we headed for the Maldives, which was a flight in two parts, over the Indian Ocean. Weh had to stop and refuel in Mumbai, aprox. 45 min and we started again. All over all it took us more than eight hours, and it was a perfect flight, as Jorn, our pilot said. Over south India we had to fly around a thunderstorm what you can see on the picture. Looks weired!

What to do while flying? Well, as we had a heavy time in Dubai, we slept a lot, along with iPod, good sound system, backgammon and our notebooks.

Kuda Huraa - that’s the way we like it.

Woo hooh! The long trip was worth it! Look at this fantastic resort we are staying in.

Have a look around the resort.

… want some more of Kuda Huraa?

Then these pictures will show you what to do on an island like this, 800 m long and 200m wide. We were so relaxed like the pictures show it. Really, go here to disconnect from nearly everything. Of course, do not forget your laptop and blackberry, like mostly all of us. Without these tools the stay might be a horror for some of us, I admit it.

Longest flying day until now.

We left paradise early in the morning. A speedboat brought us to Male airport around 7:15 and we arrived there 6:45; you wonder why we went back in time? We just crossed the time-zone border. Resort time was an hour ahead. Crazy shit!

The 12th was our longest flying day until now. Nearly 12 hours we spent in the plane, but music, fantastic take-away food from the resort, ipod, sleep, stories and backgammon were always with us. We really get used to fly long trips. Jorn, our pilot, made good work bringing us in three legs to our next destination. We left Male, landed in Mumbai, then in Chiang Mai to do immigration and refueling, and finally landed in Udon Thani, a little city more east.

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