Leaving Montreal - Soon!

We have spent a wonderfully relaxing two weeks with Tessa's sister Susan and brother in law Paul at their home in Cambridge (rd or rue), Baie D'Urfe just outside Montreal. After the rigors of world travel, trains, buses, taxis, hotel rooms, not speaking the same language as everyone else or indeed not being able to read signs, Montreal and Canada as a whole has been very relaxing. All we have suffered is a few sharp looks from French speaking Quebeckers and a bit of a problem with a video about an interesting artist in the Museum of Arts. The film was all in French too complicated for us to follow and we really would have liked to know more about him if the language police had allowed some sub-titling.

What have we done? Well not a great deal really, learned how to play a domino game called 'Mexican Train', watched the Stanley Cup round of ice hockey matches which currently grip N America, eaten lots of nice food and drunk quite a lot of wine and beer. We have been shopping, visted Duane and Carol in Ontario, been to local sites of interest and had a few shortish walks and cycle rides and been into Montreal three times, twice to museums and once today to the wonderful Botanic Gardens and Insectarium. On the whole the weather has not been kind, though today is lovely, bright sun and a gentle breeze blowing away the rain clouds.

We have visited a few museums including the Musee de Beaux Arts which had a special exhibition 'Imagine' on John Lennon and Yoko Ono - the most famous 'bed-in' having been held in a Montreal hotel. The exhibition had attracted large crowds of course but really suggested to us that here were a pair of rather shallow self-indulgent celebs posturing, but hey that sounds a really up to date thing to do does it not? Much better was a more local exhibition just along the lake shore which included an artist potraying West End Kids (that's the West end of the island) in 360 degree portrait series.

Hard to believe we pack up and catch our final flight tomorrow evening - but we are looking forward to seeing family and friends even if we have to admit that we have never been homesick.

Brian and Tessa

Best and worst of - journeys

The Vypeen Ferry - the women's section in the bow. And some photos from the boat trip to Baku.

So what were the best and worst of our journeys? We both probably vote for one of the worst being the taxi ride up the mountain to Kurseong in West Bengal (and we have told you about that already) although Brian might suggest that discovering just how painful kidney stones are whilst traveling on a rough mountain road in a tuk tuk is also best avoided. Mind you the road journey from Delhi to Agra was in some ways worse, several hours of dust, delay, noise and downright danger and stress. Our advice to any future travellers is do anything and pay anything to avoid travelling this route by road.

For Tessa however the worst might have to be the trip from the centre of Kolkata to the airport. We had had a great day before finally leaving India for Singapore but Tessa had managed to drink something inadvisable. We walked to the underground station and the next hour was absolutely horrible, not only for Tessa but the people traveling in the carriage with us. Fortunately Tessa had a supply of carrier bags with her and after the metro journey, a search for taxis and an uncomfortable ride to the airport she was grateful to reach ladies loos with washing facilities. Tessa had spare clothes of course - just as well as none of those she was wearing could be worn again!. The saddest thing was that for our overnight flight wonderful Singapore Airlines offered the best food we had seen (on a plane) and Tess could have had a free Singapore Sling, all she could manage was water and apple juice!

Better to focus on the best journey. This is harder, journeys were great for all kinds of reasons; comfort (rare), scenery, people etc. A short journey could be great, for example one tuk tuk ride in Udaipur where we got caught up in a noisy wedding procession in a very narrow street was a riot of colour, noise and exhuberance literally right in our faces.

But for Brian - one of the best might be the journey from Fort Kochi in Kerala to Vypeen Island and the bus ride that was part of it. We had decided to spend just a few hours at one of Kerela's beaches and set off first on the short ferry hop across to Vypeen Island itself - in a large open wooden boat with space for men standing in the stern, a middle compartment for the two crew and engine, and a bow section for the women.

We were soon onto one of the many buses that draw up at the ferry terminal. It was crowded but we got seats right at the back for the 20km drive to the other end of the island. The road was village all the way, with endless small shops, temples and churches sitting among the palm trees - typical South Indian and very attractive. But the road was also crowded, so the three man bus crew had to work hard to keep us going at a good speed. The driver worked the horn in usual Indian fashion getting people, carts, bicycles out of the way or swerving around them if they didn't. The conductor at the rear sold the tickets and helped hurry people on and off the bus at the rear exit.

But the vital member of the crew was the whistle guy at the front entrance. He hurried people on an off that exit and controlled the bus movement, one blast on the whistle for stop and two for go. At the front of the bus was a picture of a god, illuminated by flashing lights. Everyone seemed to know everyone and exchanged greetings, and jokes were played on the conductor with one guy tapping the conductor's 'wrong' shoulder so he kept turning to see who wanted him. The easy going nature of South India was very much on display.

So we bowled along at a good lick with the whistle man blowing his one or two blasts, loud popular Indian music playing and people rushing on and off. We were already smiling at the happy scene but then the music changed to a particularly frantic version of 'Jingle Bells' - this seemed totally incongrous given the location, the humid heat and the date but we sang or hummed along. But then the whistle man also got caught up in the tune and was soon blowing along to Jingle Bells as loud as he could - and we could not stop laughing. A nice start to the day.

But Tessa enjoyed the boat trip out to Baku National Park in Sarawak best. Riding out to the ferry terminal in William and Becky's car, William being greeted like an old friend by all the guys at the terminal, the wobbly feeling of getting into a small boat and squeezing into the life jacket. Speeding through the brown, muddy water as we passed by houses on stilts and creeping mangroves, the possibility that we might see a crocodile and then moving out into more open waters and round the headland to Baku. It was so exiting and the anticipation of a walk in the rain forest and the animals we might see, Tessa really liked that.

Brian and Tessa

If I'd known you were comin.....

A few photos of the people we met - the children in the Al Khaili household, Tessa and Sujata Shah at the Shah's house, and pictures of us and the Singapore 'Good Morning Yesterday' bloggers.

Now that we are nearing the end of our trip we thought we might take the opportunity in the last few blogs to reflect on some aspects of our experience . More than anything it is perhaps the personal contacts we have had in some of the countries we have visited that have made the trip so special for us. Each day may have presented new and sometimes extraordinary and exotic sights and experiences, but it was the chance to meet old and new friends that made our trip so special for us and gave us the richest and most enjoyable insights into life in other places.

Our first family visit was to the Al Khaili family in the United Arab Emirates. Ahmed Al Khaili had lived with us in Cambridge for about 12 weeks during 2008 and had become in that short time a valued friend. When he heard of our travel plans he asked us to visit his family home in Abu Samra near the Oman border. Without our friendship with Ahmed we would never have visited the UAE and experienced the hospitality and home life of an extended Arab family. We would not have been taken to the desert to see family farms, be nuzzled by Ahmed's camels, visit racing camel training and breeding places, take part in a demonstration from one family member in her Beduouin tent of how life was lived 'before the petrol', nor experienced the thrill as Ahmed turned his SUV off the track and across the desert sand dunes. We began to find the desert a rather suprisingly peaceful and attractive place. We will be eternally grateful for the privileged insight we were offered into a very different way of life and will always welcome Ahmed and family members back to his other 'home' in Cambridge.

In India we spent over a week with the Snehal and Sujata Shah in Ahmedabad. The Shahs have been friends of Tessa's cousin Martin and his partner Richard for many, many years, since Snehal Shah was a student at RIBA. In the summer of 2008 their daughter, Sunaina, came to stay with us while she went to a summer school at Cambridge University and though we didn't know Snehal and Sujata very well, they offered us hospitality in India whenever we wanted to come - and graciously dismissed our need to apologise for arriving a week later than expected! Staying with the Shah's was just fantastic, Sujata is the most wonderful cook of vegan food so tasty, varied and utterly delicious. We never sat down to the same dish twice! Our days were filled with trips to fascinating historical sites, shopping trips and family visits. We received essential help with the very complicated booking and purchase of Indian Railway tickets and - the absolute icing on the cake - were invited to two functions that were part of a family wedding including the actual wedding ceremony. An Indian wedding is a feast for all the senses, an opportunity absolutely not to be missed.

After six weeks in India we headed for Singapore, a place with family memories for both of us and made more special when we met up with a new but also 'old friend' made through blogging on the internet - Lam Chun See. Chun See and some of the 'family' of bloggers who contribute to his blog site 'Good moring Yesterday' dropped everything to accompany us to places associated with Brian's youth or Tessa's grandparents. Brian saw the house he had lived in as a teenager and the RAF School he attended. Tessa saw the house her Grandfather lived in (which must simply have the best position on the island overlooking the harbour) and where her father lived as a small boy when Grandpa Williams was involved in the building of the Causeway. We had lunch with some of the bloggers (one of whom 'YG', Chun See himself had only 'met' online before) and visited Chun See's home, met his wife and admired his son's collection of pitcher plants. Amongst the household we were introduced to the oldest rooster on the block - sadly just deceased we read from Good Morning Yesterday. It was a great experience to have such fun with people who have only been names and stories on a screen before. As he bade farewell Chun See said we felt like old friends and we certainly felt the same.

When we reached Kuching in Sarawak we were delighted to meet up with Diana Cook (friend from Cambridge) who was visiting her son William Beavitt and his partner Becky. Becky is teaching at an English mediun school in Kuching and William is studying Proboscis monkeys in the wetlands around Kuching. Though we only knew William slightly before (he is a little older than Sophie and went to a different school so we didn't know him as a teenager) he and Becky advised us on where to stay (the quirky, but fun, 'Fairview') took us to the Baku National Park and were very gracious as we puffed along the mere 800 metres path through the jungle. Full of interesting information and advice on what to see, eat, how to deal with dehydration, who to hire as a taxi driver, William and Becky were spot on with everything including expert advice on seeing lots of wonderful wildlife sights. They helped to make our two weeks in Sarawak a wonderfully interesting and restful interlude - including finding our luxury hideaway 'The Village House' in Santubong.

We flew from Bangkok to Japan where we were able to stay with Junko Koshinaga, her husband Morimichi and daughter Michiru. About ten years ago Junko lived with us for a year while she studied Music Therapy at Anglia Ruskin University. We had kept in touch with Christmas cards and on arrival in Tokyo, Junko and Morimichi put us up for three days, enabling us to get to know the delightful two and a half year old Michiru, do a little sight seeing in Tokyo, meet up with Mr and Mrs Yoshida again (Junko's parents who also visited us in Cambridge), enjoy some lovely Japanese home cooking and the most amazing meal at a resturaunt that we would never have found on our own. Junko advised on taking the trip to Hakone and on the special dish to try when we were in Hiroshima. It was such fun to see Junko again, to see her so happy with her lovely husband and daughter and making headway with music therapy which is relatively unknown in Japan.

And of course we have ended our trip with visits to Canadian relatives we have recently told you about. A great mixture of new places and people and renewing old friendships.

Tessa and Brian

The Land

We have spent the weekend at 'The Land' - a small piece of forest on Charleston Lake in Ontario which Sue and Paul have owned for many years and on which they have erected a small bedroom plus screened 'bug house' for



sitting in. I don't think there are any facilities yet - you do what the bears do. The rigours of winter have also separated the bedroom from the bughouse - somehow ground movement has shifted one about a foot from the other!

We stayed in rather more comfortable surroundings - the log house that is the permanent residence of their neighbours Carol and Duane Dillman who we visited many years ago when the children were small and so was the log house. Their now extended house is built on rock and is rather more stable' has a lovely position among the trees and is surrounded by gambolling charming chipmunks. It was also good to see their son Jeffrey - he stayed a couple of weeks with us in Cambridge some years ago.

By very happy coincidence Saturday was Duane's 72nd birthday and we all went off to celebrate at a restaurant overlooking the St Laurence - this is the 1,000 island area, you can see New York State just across the river which is however full of tiny islands, actually over 2,000 of them. We spent the rest of the time taking a short walk in the adjoining Charleston Lake Provincial Park (sighting of a hairy woodpecker), walking the dogs Winnie and Rufus, and consuming enormous amounts of food at a BBQ attended by their friends Sue and Rick.

By the way we discovered the whereabouts of Leonard -performing at the nearby town of Kingston.

Brian

Not only did we see a Hairy Woodpecker but also a very large, green and brown frog in the Provincial Park. On the way to the restaurant we saw three Turkey vultures, one was ripping something apart on the side of the road and the other two were watching intently from a nearby fence. They are really big and a mixture of black and tan with a red wattle on their heads.

We also stopped on the way to make the acquaintance of a beautiful foal who was only a few days old and while waiting for our dinner to arrive we saw several eagles, one swooping to catch a fish and numbers of herons flapping of to their heron home.

At Duane and Carol's house we saw a Humming bird, no bigger than a big hornet taking sugar water from their Humming bird feeder on several occasions and also watched a Robin feeding it four young in their nest, built in the glass lampshade of one of the lights on the porch. What a weekend for wild life!!

Tess

Where's Leonard?

The weather suddenly got hot yesterday, in the upper 20s, so we took a bus downtown. It takes about an hour from Baie D'Urfe which is near the far western end of the island, beside the lake and full of large houses on extensively wooded plots - you would all love to live here!* Sue and Paul's place is back from the lake but they have a lovely house and garden - the latter full of colourful birds attracted to Paul's many bird feeders; grackles, red cardinals, finches, chickadees and large American robins being among the regular visitors.

Good to be in downtown Montreal, its a fashionable place, the women have a city chic which is unlike Vancouver where practical cold weather gear is the order of the day - that or running/cycling or other activity gear. We took the metro to the Place des Arts to visit the contemporary art museum, paid our senior rate of three dollars for several exhibitions - the first artist was described as 'deliberately insolent' which I thought a good way of covering your own back and true enough he was of least interest - particularly as we were bowled over by much of the rest of what we saw, notably the large paintings and mixed media work of Betty Goodwin, who died last year and was a major figure on the Montreal arts scene and the extraordinary photographs of Robert Polidori from abandoned or ruined places like Beirut, Chernobyl and New Orleans after the floods. Talking of major figures we did not see Leonard walking the streets...

Its only in Montreal that you see virtually no English signage. The language police have done a thorough job since we were last here many years ago in getting rid of all English words. Sue and Paul's road has changed from Cambridge Road, to Upper Cambridge, to Rue Cambridge to settle on just Cambridge. Everywhere else in Canada the two languages get equal billing, here in Quebec Province its French only - with the odd private sign with a word or two in English or on interpretation board at sites but always in much smaller size. This is an odd sensation because one feature around the world is the use (and abuse) of English on advertising and signage everywhere - Cambodia for example was full of English signs on everything. But here you dust off that limited French to read the signs, not a lot of trouble of course.

Brian

* you would all love to live here in the few weeks of the year in the short spring and autumn when the weather is habitable!


We went into 'Baie' ( used to be Hudson's Bay Company) and I got a great bargain, a silk, long sleeved vest (undershirt) for $19.99 reduced from $70.00, even the lady on the till went "hmm" as she rang it in. I know it may seem a little unseasonable but I can tell you I can clearly recall the biting cold of my winter Thursday stints on the Country Markets stall on Cambridge market.

It was quite a funny shopping experience because there were two non french speaking women at one of the two tills doing something that seemed terribly complicated, things were exchanged, receipts examined, changes made and things returned. I don't know what was going on but it took the most incredibly long time and the ever lengthening line wanting to pay for goods was getting extremely restive. Then the lady on the remaining till had a problem with a ticket and her till stopped working, so things got even worse. The consensus was that the reason it was all going wrong was that these two women DID NOT SPEAK FRENCH!. The woman next to me said something to this effect to me, prety pointless as my French is just about non existent (I am good at body language though) I said 'sorry, but I don't speak French' but perhaps I was forgiven because I was a tourist and my shopping was mercifully uncomplicated.

We now know where the francophone cabin attendant from Air Canada go when they are deemed to mature to fly, they get retirement jobs at the 'Baie'. The three ladies I saw in the underwear department were very stately, well made up, beautifully dressed but of a very mature vintage and very disaproving of any one who made mistakes with the very complicated Baie offers, or who could not speak French.

All three photos by me!

Tess

The Canadian family

We probably dashed away east from Vancouver without sufficiently acknowledging or blogging our Vancouver family - indeed an expanding family - first Tessa's neice Rachelle and her new partner Sheldon and his two children, Emma and Bremyn (sorry that's almost certainly misspelt). In Maple Ridge, just outside Vancouver proper, we stayed with Tessa's nephew Andre, wife Nicole and their two children who we met for the first time, two year old Daniel and the very new arrival, two week old Madeleine. Good of them to spare us so much time when they were barely getting any time to sleep!

And we are ending our trip with Tessa's sister Sue and husband Paul here in Baie D'Urfe in Montreal where the weather may be a little cool but the food is great and the hospitality is warm!
Brian

Oh Canada!

Well here I am in the comfort of my sisters home in Baie D' Urfe, Montreal, where women cook and men watch sport on TV and I have time to think about our short interlude in the Rockies.

We travelled by Greyhound bus, how iconic is that? They are very comfortable and have really big windows, stop every 2 hours or so and sweep quietly along the excellent Canadian highways. The views from the bus were interesting from the start (7 am Tuesday 12th May) so we were both gazing out of the window the whole time and I dind'nt doze at all, even though it had been an early start.

The Rockies are so craggy and there are so many fir trees on them and great deep ravines with rushing water, waterfalls tumble down mountain sides and so much snow and icy fingers of small glaciers creeping down towards the ribbon of road. Sometimes a valley floor will open out and there is either wonderful alpine meadow type terrain or boggy wetland stuff, sometimes there are broad river beds covered in rocks, fallen trees and gravel beds with a small rushing stream meandering around. It is obvious that come snow melt that little stream becomes a rushing mighty torrent hurling rocks, debris and whole huge trees before its foaming waters. There are also huge lakes of a curious icy blue and the endless trees, taller and closer together than anything you would ever see in Britain.

Because of being on the highway we didn't really pass through towns, but stopped on the outskirts to drop and pick up passengers, we had a nice soup and sandwich in one place and were able to earwig on a Pinteresque, one sided conversation where an older man was loudly alternately harranging or plaintively asking a younger woman why she was going away, she didn't answer and just got up to go and board her bus so I guess she had her reasons!

Our trip lasted from Tuesday to Friday, stopping one night in the tiny and workaday Revelstoke and two nights in the more resort-like Banff. Both towns are laid out on a grid system with huge wide roads and low, mainly two storey buildings. Some of the buildings date from the 1880's and some are more modern. Revelstoke was a goldrush town and they both grew up about the time the railroad was built across Canada. Revelstoke boasts four museums and loads of eating places as well as hardware shops, shops selling snowmobiles and chainsaws and a very small mall. It also has a main street that looks like something out of a wild west film, even more so at the moment because they are digging it up to pedestrianise and so the road is just mud. It was cold on the evening of the 12th and we were glad of our borrowed gloves and I of my thrift store hat and jumper.

We woke up to a sunny morning and were actually quite hot as we waited on the steps of the "Same Sun Backpackers Hostel" for the taxi to take us to the bus stop. Imagine the deep quiet of a small town in the rockies, very few people about and a car passes you about every 5 minutes (cars stop at cross roads for pedestrians to cross, even when the pedestrians are quite a long way from reaching the corner), the view of snow covered mountains all around you and the crisp, clean air faintly scented with pine.

On to Banff, a funny journey, we crossed a time zone line and the driver didn't notice so there was a good deal of confusion about the lenght of time at a stop, he thought we had an hour and some of us knew that we did'nt. At the front of the bus is a notice that instructs not to talk to the driver when the bus is in motion. The very front seat was taken by a very senior lady who was a bit blind, this meant that she couldn't read the notice and she talked to the driver all the way from Revelstoke to Banff, about 4 plus hours, we knew all about her whole history by the time we reached our destination.

The journey took us through more breathtaking scenery, snow storms, clouds, past notices that said "Avelanche Area, no stopping", through tunels and over high bridges . We arrived in Banff on a lovely sunny, but cold afternoon and walked to the YWCA, where we had a very comfortable room and a great place to eat.

Banff is smarter looking than Revelstone and has developed as a resort almost since its foundation. It has lots of mountain equipment stores, jewelry stores, smart boutiques and very expensive places to eat (hence the Y cafeteria being our resturant of choice). It had a powerful advocate in a man called Luxton who moved to Banff in the 1900's to recover from an ill advised 2 man canoe trip across the Pacific. He recovered and never left and became a 'Booster' for the town, married a local and ended up with all sorts of bussiness enterprises and has a whole museum dedicated to him.

We walked about the town, had short walks along trails, went to the museums, ate and drank and had a fantastic ride up to the top of Sulphur Mountain on a cable car. The weather was horrible on Thursday, snow and the mountainds hidden by cloud that played a sort of hide and reveal game with us, one minute you would get a glimpse of a snowy slope or peak and the next it would be obscured and another peak or rocky outcrop would slip into view. It was a bit grey too so though wonderful the veiws did'nt sparkle in the way they do on post cards.

The next day was different, sun out, snow overnight and the sparkle was there, on trees covered with snow and the peaks glistened and all the rocky ourcrops had their strata picked out in gleaming white. It was so bright and the trip up the mountain was breath taking with views that went on for ever.

We went up in the gondolas with crowds of other people, some really dressed up, some in suits, a Mounty in full dress uniform, all sorts of people with Canadian flags, while waiting in line for our gondola we were all serenaded by the high school jazz band. We asked the very statuesque blond dressed in National Parks uniform, whose name was Larie Schwartz, who shared our gondola what was going on and she told us it was a citizenship ceremony for 51 new Canadians, she also told us she was the anthem singer of 'O Canada'. At the top we goggled at the fantasic views, had a coffee and goggled some more and then joined in at the back of the ceremony. It was really quite wonderful, we were'nt there for the whole of it, but we listened to the heartfelt oration of the Judge who had taken the oath from all of the new citizens and then some speaches from local politicians and then Lorrie Schwatz sang the anthem, acappello - well it brought a tear to my eye, all these people from about 30 or so countries all starting new lives. It was a real priveledge to be present.

We went back down the mountain after an hour or two on the top and Brian went for a dip in the acclaimed Banff hot springs bath, I watched because I have a horrible cold (no colds for 2 years at home and this is my 3rd in 4.5 months). He was in the water or lounging on the edge of the pool for about an hour with the occasional snow flurry drifting around him and the other bathers. We spent the rest of the afternoon on a walk by the river to the museum that is on the sight of the origional hot springs pool 'The Cave and Basin Museum'. It is the place where some prospecters found a hole in the ground with steam coming out of it. The water is very sulphurus and the cave really pongs. You can't bathe there any more because it is the home of the tiny and endangered Banff Hot Spring Snail (about the size of a grain of rice). There is a good exhibition of old photos and the story of the development of the national parks, Banff was the first one in 1880 something.

Some funny things happened on our trip, we flooded our room at the YWCA, well it wasn't really our fault. The loo started making funny noises and wouldn't flush properly. We reported it as we went off to breakfast and came back about half an hour later to find them vac sucking about 2 inches of water out of the whole carpeted room. It had also ruined the ceiling of the room below. Two rooms ruined! Goodness knows what had happened but the water must have started flowing again after we had left the room. We had to gather up all our stuff and were moved to a different room. I saw the janitor the next morning and he said 'no leaks today eh?'.

Also I nearly broke the ticket machine on a local bus by feeding my $2.00 piece into the slot made for smartcards, the bus driver was very nice about it, but it was a bit embarrasing as we all sat and waited while he fished it out - all the other passengers looking at me!

Off now to take another decongestant and watch the last of an ice hockey match on the high definition T.V.
Tess

Kamloops - Revelstoke - Banff

Its snowing outside so hard we can't get out for the fudge ice-cream we had promised ourselves. We are back on the road by Greyhound bus. First to Kamloops then a change for Revelstoke where we stayed the night and then yesterday another bus through the most spectacular mountain scenery to here in Banff. We are staying in hostels, the Samesun Backpackers Hostel in Revelstoke and the Y Mountain Ridge here in Banff (actually the YWCA in disguise). Mind you this might mark the end of our hostel stays - our room flooded this morning and ruined the room underneath as well. We had reported a problem with the toilet which suddenly turned into a very serious problem as we had breakfast. Fortunately the hostel handyman was on the case immediately.

Revelstoke and Banff are both mountain places, a small grid of streets by a river but there the similarity ends. Revelstoke looked like one of those places you see in cowboy films and was full of really useful hardware, working clothes, marine and other shops. Banff is one of those resort places full of high priced knick knacks and clothing - for those with loose minds and wallets.

And the weather? Well I had thought that mid May might constitute Spring in these parts but here in Banff which is at about 1350 metres the temperature is not much above freezing and its snowing hard at the moment. Just as well we borrowed those hats, gloves and extra fleeces from Andre and Nicole back in Maple Ridge - they are getting well used. Mind you our treking sandles which have got us around the world and are our only footwear may not be entirely appropriate!

Brian

I am wearing my sandals with my DVT socks, plus another pair of socks, so my feet will stay warm as long as I dont go wading in snow and get wet.
In 1972 I came over to Canada for an extended stay with my sister, Rachelle and Andre were very small and it was lovely just outside Montreal in May. I traveled across to Vancouver by train, three days there and three days back and longed to get off at intervals, particularly in the majestic rockies. Now a chance to see a bit more of these odd, modern yet far from anywhere towns is really great though I wasnt expecting snowfall and mountain views hidden behind cloud again (a bit of a theme in our travels).
Tess

ps hope to add some photos later

5406 Ross Street

5406 Ross Street is the place in Vancouver where my mother Emily Garner and her younger sister Betty were born and raised. My maternal grandparents had got married in Liverpool in 1918 and shipped for Canada, ending up in Vancouver where my grandfather worked for the logging industry as an engineer.

I would guess that the houses in Ross Street were newly built in the 1920s when my grandparents moved in. Betty (always known to us as Aunt Betts) returned some years ago to revisit her childhood home and reported it much changed - they all have new windows among other changes. What has not changed is the magnificent view down the road to downtown Vancouver and best of all those mountains that ring the north side of the city - a little snow capped at this time of year.

The 1929 economic collapse also brought the logging industry to a virtual halt and my grandfather found himself without work. What must have been a terribly difficult decision led to the entire family returning to England, first to stay with my grandmother's family in Manchester and then to Glasgow where my grandfather got work with John Brown's shipyard on the Clyde.

When I visited Vancouver is 2003 for the first time and saw how beautiful it is and also visited Ross Street I asked Betty how it had been for her as a teenager to be wrenched out of her home, taken across Canada and then the Atlantic to end up in 1930s Glasgow, 'I just cried and cried' was her response.

Betty was later offered the opportunity to be demobbed to Canada after service in the WRENS during the war but my mother and father were returning from Alexandria to be married in the UK so she chose to return to the UK and then to the family home in Cambuslang, Glasgow. She remained in Glasgow for the rest of her life and it was many decades before she got the opportunity to revisit her childhood home and city.

Betts was a great traveller, she visited us in Cambridge every year and took cruises and other trips with her old friend Kath Scott right up to her death just over two years ago. She left us a little money - just enough, once it had been in the bank a little while, to cover the cost of our two round the world tickets we are currently using so we sometimes reflect that our trip is partly in memory of Betts. We also have taken the opportunity to scatter some of her ashes at Ross Street - a place she loved so much.

Brian

You are my sunshine

We set off on Wednesday with our lovely niece Rachelle driving, for a little trip to the famous 'Sunshine Coast' an area that though part of the Canadian mainland is reached by ferry across Howes Sound.

The ferry ride was only about 50 minutes, but the wait at the terminal in Horeshoe Bay was quite long as the first ferry of the day had in some way broken down, no one told us how, in fact no one told us it had broken down until it was quite late arriving. Still we got on to the replacement ferry and had not had to wait as long as the man at the front of the queue who had been there for the first ferry sailing at 6.30 am (we were there for the 11.20)

On arrival at Gibsons landing we had a lovely lunch at the famous Mollys Reach, not many of you will know this, but it featured in a 1970s and 1980's Canadian tv series called "The Beachcombers". Anyway we were served cheerfully, promptly and the sandwiches were reasonably priced and absolutely delicious. After lunch we visited the tourist information office and the cheerful and efficient ladies there found us a lovely bed and breakfast in Sechelt, the Seschelt Inlet B & B on Snookumchuk Road.

We pottered of towards Sechelt, it was a bit rainy, but we saw fantastic sceenery. B C is so beautiful and you don't get all those big, green trees (often covered in hanging moss) without a bit of rain. The B & B was wonderful, it had a hot tub a view of a fantastic body of water and mountains and our breakfast the following morning was substantial and really tasty. That was just as well, as our stop for lunch in Pender Harbour was distinctly disappointing, for $9.25 Brian got the saddest bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon you have ever seen, no salad with it, nothing but a very small and poorly filled bagel.

After the sad bagel we went off to our next accommodation (found for us by Jean our landlady of the previous night) and checked in. 'The Lodge at Gunboat Bay', run by Laura and Yvonne is also wonderful, fantastically comfortable beds, lovely bathroom, friendly welcome, 3 well behaved dogs and one quiet cat, several Yurts one of which was a studio where wonderful yarn was spun and made into woven and knitted things. The peace and quiet was fantastic and the view so lovely.

After checking in we went off to Egmont to walk along a forest path to see the sea bore, if you look on a map you will see that the sea comes into this very long inlet and the retreating tide meets the incoming tide and a natural phenomenon occurs. After the walk we drove into Egmont (a very small place) stopping at Egmont Wilderness Lodge hoping to get our evening meal there but they had been varnishing their floor and the restaurant was closed, our second eating failure, the Ruby Lake resort was also closed and that meant no chance of seeing the paintings of one Joni Mitchell, their 'neighbour' that are sometimes in their gallery. Leaning over the balcony of the Egmont Wilderness lodge and looking at the fantastic view I asked the owner where he went for holiday and he just looked at the view and sort of shrugged in a 'who needs to go anywhere else' sort of way. We ended up having our supper at the Back Eddy Pub, lovely, good beer and good quality good value food (making the sad bagel seem even sadder)

Our rest was very restful and after another wonderful breakfast (and awarding best bed for 5 months award) we set off to meander our way back to the ferry. We had a nice walk at Smugglers cove (very amusing meeting with some Beavers, 'Chuck, where have you put your woggle' 'Dont climb that tree, I SAID DONT Climb) and another meal at Mollys Reach, we reached the ferry and set off home to Vancouver and Rachelle and Sheldon's house, tired but happy.

Tessa

Vancouver B.C.

BC is of course British Columbia, but for us the BC stands for 'Becoming Cloudy' as Vancouver lost its nice spring weather the day we arrived. We have spent a few lazy days with nephew Andre and wife Nicole, their two year old Daniel and two week old Madeleine and of course with neice Rachelle and partner Sheldon.

We have only made one foray downtown. We spent a good time exploring Vancouver last time we were here in 2003 - when the August weather was a good deal more inviting. This time we just made a short shopping trip - Tess needed some socks and leggings against the cold - and also visited the art gallery where we saw two exhibitions, one on abstraction (left us Barely Concious) and another much better one of four landscape painters (Bloody 'Complished). Mind you for the 12 dollar entry fee each we felt that here BC stood for a Bit Conned as only half the galleries were open.

We had our first encounter with a Canadian eccentric in a shopping mall (drinking Black Coffee) when a character came in with his hat and jacket covered in home made large wooden badges - each poker worked with a different political or health issue slogan and then varnished. This BC (Badge Covered) resident than of course made a bee-line for us and we actually had a good chat with him. He was from Port Alberni in the middle of Vancouver Island, a place we have spent a few hours in, and told us how his family had emigrated from Scotland just before the war, having visited Germany and become convinced of the inevitability of war. It is our experience from our last visit that there is no-one on the islands without a long and interesting back story.

We are off shortly to the Sunshine Coast BC for a couple of nights - standing here for Better Climate as it gets its name from its rain shadow location just a ferry ride away to the north of Vancouver. But judging from the weather forecast for us it will stand for Bloody Chilly and Better Cancel. We will let you know how we get on!

Brian

Tokyo to Vancouver

a few final pics from Japan - Hiroshima and Miyajima. That deer ate our map guide and Tess got the shot of the monkeys up the montain.

We did Saturday May 2nd twice. The first one in Japan, travelling from Hiroshima via Tokyo and onto Narita airport for our 7pm flight. The second began as we arrived at 12 noon at Vancouver - but it was also Saturday May 2nd so we spent the second one with Rachelle and partner Sheldon and his two children, had a couple of hours sleep and went out to a Greek restaurant in the evening. Such is the effect of crossing the international date line.

Thank heavens I don't have a day date calendar watch - I think I would still be adjusting it!

Two words of praise for Air Canada. First for their excellent entertainment system, essential for those like me who never can sleep on aircraft. Apart from that wonderful gps system so you can follow the flight path it included a wide range of films on demand including foreign, arthouse, classic and of course hollywood categories and we watched the excellent Terence Davies film on Liverpool (I also passed part of the nine hour flight watching the Tom Cruise film Valkyrie which at least passed the time!). And a second word of praise for Air Canada for clearly welcoming the more mature flight attendant, mind you some of them get a bit sassy with the advancing years!

Brian