Some of our bookings are in place

I have booked a few of our accommodations for the trip now. We don't want to prearrange the entire trip by any means, but sometimes you come across things that just sound a bit too enticing to pass up. Not that you always make the right choice, but that's part of the Joy Of Travelling 101, First Lesson: Be Flexible And Take It As It Comes.

We also like to make sure that at certain times you just don't have to worry, for example when first arriving in a new country. With that in mind we have looked at Casablanca but not arranged anything yet. We sent out a couple of Couchsurfing feelers but so far not had any luck in either Casa (first night) or Amstersdam (last 2 or 3).

Not a big deal as we still have lots of time. We did however decide to bite the Euro Bullet and book a place in Amsterdam here for our last few nights at the end of June. That city is not cheap with even quite expensive hostels and we wanted to be able to relax and enjoy the city and not the bedbugs. At $95 Euro a night it better not have any.

In Morocco we have been trying to make sure we spend time in at least one Riad. A Riad is a traditional house design similar to a Roman or Spanish Villa, with little in the way of design feature or even windows facing the outside, but the aspect of the rooms mostly facing inward to a central courtyard or garden. It makes for a calming, cooling atmosphere but can often be quite palatial as well.

The original Riads in Morocco were inspired by the ancient Roman city of Volubulis, long in ruins, and just walking distance (3km) from the first such home we will stay at in one of the holiest towns in all of Morocco, Moulay Idriss. In fact Moulay Idriss could kind of be described as the "poor Moroccans Mecca" as it does serve that role for Muslim devotees who would find it hard to travel all the way to Mecca itself.

Our first stop after Casa will be a room here at Dar Zerhoune, which looks absolutely stunning. We came across this through a very interesting site which promotes preservation and restoration of the Riads and the Medinas (the walled and maze-like inner districts of older Arabic cities & towns). We also booked through this site our rooms in Pension Sakaya for our next stop in Fes. Looks pretty good for 300 Moroccan Dirham a night, about $35 Canadian.

In this blog, I don't want to borrow pictures from other sites, but would rather just use my own, buut what the heck...here is one from Pension Sakaya. I'll add my own when I have them!

Still more prep..

We've started to settle in a bit more for itinerary. Now we have bought our air tickets and have revised the plan and route somewhat. Alaska Air to Seattle, KLM to Amsterdam, Royal Air Maroc to Casablanca. With several hours in Amsterdam we might take a quick jaunt into the city, but will eventually get to Casa about 4pm.

From there we have reversed the original direction so will head to Meknes and Fes spending about 5-6 days in that area. A side trip to an ancient Roman city called Volubulis will be likely, just to say we checked out the ancient Romans.

With our rental car from Fes we will take 2 days to get to the KhamliaHouse near the Algerian border just south of Merzouga where we expect to spend 3 nights, at least one after camelling into the desert.

After that it will be on to Ouarzazate, about one day's drive and then to Marrakesh.

Average temperature data for this area for the time we will be there, by the way is about 98 degrees F, 36.7 C...but at least it's not July!



Ouarzazate is kind of the Lone Pine of Morocco. Lone Pone California is a place I have also been through, though long after its heyday of being the site of many, many Hollywood Westerns and other movies. Ouarzazate may be a relative newcomer, but it's hard to argue with an impressive resume of films such as Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Star Wars (1977), The Living Daylights (1987), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), The Mummy (1999), Gladiator (2000) and Martin Scorsese's Kundun (1997) all shot in the Ouarzazate area.

The rental car will get abandoned in Marrakesh, and we will spend several days in the area and day trip at least but more likely overnight out to Esarouira on the coast.

The Morocco side of things will wrap up with an EasyJet flight from what might be one of our least liked towns, Agadir, to Paris. Unfair, when we have not been there yet? Maybe, but Agadir sounds a bit like a package tour hellhole. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 1960, so the city was rebuilt in a modern grid style and is a great pace for beaches and surfing (read bums, both well-off and ...well, bums!), neither of which really intrigue us. From what we know so far it sounds a bit like Waikiki or Cancun. Harsh maybe, but for us it might just be a place to get out of.

Of course that makes me sound a bit cranky and might be perceived as some one who just thinks that we should expect to find the Arabian Nights or some mystical, mythical, noble, nomadic culture. Yeah, so...that would be great...as long as we can still access the Internet, preferably with free Wifi.

So my preconceptions of Morocco are probably way off, but I can still dream a bit can't I?

Anyway we decided to nix the boat and train to Paris and fly partly due to price but also time. EasyJet to Paris takes about 3 hours or so, and cost us about $60 each. The ferry would have been closer to $200 each and added a day for the boat alone, to the south of France, then another day or more to Paris. This way we get to spend more time at the (already paid for anyway) apartment we have waiting for us and will spend more time exploring locally and relaxing and much less time from point to point.

The trip is starting to shape up...Volcano permitting

We have booked the main tickets now, so I'll be a bit more specific than flags and foreign language phrases.

We are heading to Morocco through Amsterdam, then back to Paris, then home from Amsterdam. Travel dates are from May 25 to June 27th.

The only really certain things yet are the air travel and the fact that we know where we will stay in Paris. That last part was actually the only thing certain about 8 or 9 months ago as Linda arranged an apartment in Paris for 10 days from June 15-25. We will stay there less than the entire 10 days but more on that later.

On the way there we will touch down in Amsterdam for a few hours and then travel Royal Air Maroc to Casablanca. We'd probably not go to Casablanca, the most modern and cosmopolitan (read expensive) of Moroccan cities, if there were easy connections to other cities. Most flights go through there anyway so...

One or 2 nights there we will also book from here, but most other things we will find or arrange as we go. When touching down tired and jet lagged in a new country it's always better to know where you are going to sleep for at least one night!

From Casa we probably will head south to Marrakesh and spend a few days there, with a trip out to Essaouira on the coast, before heading inland in (maybe) a rented car. The plan is probably going to include travel through Ouarzazate, and then on to Merzouga and south to a region in Erg Chebbi where we wil hopefully spend a night in the Sahara Desert after getting there by camel.

That is another part we will try to book ahead as camels don't like drop in visitors.

After that, up to Fes and area for a few days, dropping off the rental. Then to Tangiers and possibly a ferry ride to the south of France, arriving in Sète after 36 hours crossing the Mediterranean.

PIGGY BANK BREAKING TIME SOON

Yes the time will soon be upon us to smash the pig!

Some of you may know that I do feed a piggy bank. Now this ain't no kid's collection of pennies and nickels, saving up for a slurpie or a slushie, whatever those are. Nope these are big suckers... and the only coins that go in them are loonies and toonies. That's Canadian one and two dollar coins, if you don't know already.


And the banks I get are as large as I can find. The first one was from a funky tourist trap in Coombs BC and was a cute little sucker. He still sits in the back yard with a big gaping hole in his porky little butt, as I didn't have the heart to smash him to smithereens.



It might be a terrible investment strategy with no interest, but it is painless. Every 1 or 2 I find in my pocket goes in the bank. Purpose? Vacation money!



The first pig met his demise about 10, maybe 12 years ago, and as the $2 coin was not long in circulation at that time, and the pig being the smallest of the ones I've had, I only collected somewhere around (if I remember correctly) about $1100.

Yep. $1100! That went a long way for pocket money on our first trip to China.

Next time the pig was the same design, but bigger. The take was around $1700 I think. That helped on our second China trip and Australia too. His cracked form also decorates the patio.

Porky 3 was not a pig at all, as they are not that easy to find, or at least big ones are scarce. Linda's mom found a big beehive shaped thing in Chinatown. The yield this time was just over $2000. Much of our South East Asia trip was funded with that one. No cute factor on that bank though so the shards are long gone.

The 2010 edition is the ugliest one yet. Made by a potter on drugs, inspired by Salvadore Dali, his face is going in a few directions at the same time. This one came from a friend who knew of my pig stash past. It will be the hardest to break both because it's pretty thick but also because of the incredibly ugly cuteness of it!

However it's soon going to lights out for the porker. Yes, he is full. Maybe he will take another $10 or so, but not much more. And the timing is just about right...with the next big trip around the corner.



I expect around $2000 from the petit cochon this time. I think I might just capture his death on video too! Oh yeah, I'm not telling you where I live in case you had designs on my bacon collection.

Ahlen (Ssalamu 'lekum if you prefer), Bonjour & Goedendag (maybe).

Yes trip time is coming soon upon us and we have a couple of things/places on the agenda. 

More details soon...

 

 

Posted via web from afishneedsablog's posterous

Ahlen (Ssalamu 'lekum if you prefer), Bonjour & Goedendag (maybe).

Yes trip time is coming soon upon us and we have a couple of things/places on the agenda. 

More details soon...

 

Posted via web from afishneedsablog's posterous

NB and NS

Driving from Percé to Cambellton takes a few hours as it is about 250km on what are mostly 80km roads but in a torrential downpour could be a lot longer. That's how it was for at least part of the day, but the good thing was it was not that whole time.

Crossing to New Brunswick over the bridge at Pointe-A-La-Croix to what is virtually downtown Campbellton (it ain't a big town) was quicker tham I thought actually. It also could not have been easier finding our rooms for the night.

It being in a Lighthouse helped.

Hint 1: Lighthouses are usually near water.

Hint 2: They are usually tall.

Hint 3: Hmm... they are usually painted white and/or red?

Hint 4: They have a big light at the top?

Ok, so our destination did not have the big light turned on, but since it was not dark and we could see it from a few km away as we started across the bridge from Quebec, we could not easily miss it.

We had called ahead from Percé to reserve a bed or 2 at the Hostel in Cambellton, not expecting a big place. It turned out to be no problem. The only accomodation style there was dormitory, but Linda ended up with a semi-private room and I had an 8 or 10 bed room to myself! That's right, aside from one staff person and one other woman there was nobody else staying there, and she might as well not have been there at all, as Linda barely saw her lift her head from her laptop computer using the free wifi.

The place was exceptionally clean, had a good kitchen we could use, as mentioned was super easy to find, and was just a block or 2 from the Tim Horton's equipped town center. What more could you ask for?

A nearby bar I suppose. I expect there was one, but since we had brought a bottle of wine with us from Quebec that hardly mattered either, and it went down well with our meal we prepared there.

Lighthouses are not always white and red. Sometimes some Blue is thrown in and maybe some other colours like yellow or gold. In fact further dowen the Acadian coast of NB, we found the one below:



I really like the Acadian flag, and so do les Acadiens. They fly it everywhere and when they do, they fly many of them not just one. Flag painted lawn ornaments, chairs, flag painted houses even.

Schmud and Guano

Travelling on to Percé the next day was about a 350km day, maybe more with some side excursions in and around Parc Forillon. Actualy before the park we took a side jaunt down a dirt road and found a beautiful site with lighthouse that was once a Marconi radio station for some of the first trans-Atlantic radio communication, established in 1904. Called Pointe-à-la-Renommée, it is well worth the several km detour.

The Park Forillon is on the most northeastern corner of the peninsula and has some dramatic cliffs and escarpments. We had considered camping here but had instead reserved a real bed in Perce, which probably turned out to be a good choice as we would find out he next morning.

The southern section of Forillon around Cap-Aux-Os had southerly views across Gaspe Bay. Again I saw whales here but quite distant and fleetingly. Actually I did not "see" whales, but saw some spouting. This would indicate a different species than at Ste Anne Des Monts, possibly Grey whales not Minke. We later passed through the town of Gaspe itself, stopping off for some fried chicken at lunch.

Past Gaspe and in the neighbourhood of Barachois we passed high hills and long inlets, very fjord-like topography. I expect the hiking would have been outstanding, not to mention the hang-gliding.

We eventually descended from the inland side high above into Perce. It turns out that the town is quite touristy, more so than any other place we had seen in the last few days. In fact it reminded me of many areas like Shediac and Lunenburg. Quaint but over-run by tourists and businesses catering to them.




The main attractions here are of course whale-watching, the Rocher-Percé and L'île Bonaventure. It being late afternoon when we arrived, other than wandering around town and finding our B&B and a local style meal we left these things until morning.

The morning however started out nasty with hours of heavy rain and lightning. Thankfully as alluded to above we did not have to deal with camping in this mess, and were almost to be disappointed in our tourist activities too. The skies started to brighten by about 9am though so we went to check out the tour options a few blocks from the house where we had spent the night.

This being a touristy town and obviously catering to English speakers a lot, I decided to test the fellow at the most convenient tour vendor. He explained that since the weather was improving the tours were starting to run out to the Rocher-Percé and Bonaventure (we did not want to go whale watching).

The only problem he said was that because of the "Schmud" there was only one trail open on Bonaventure.

Schmud?? At this point I switched to French to make it easier for him, and figured out that he actually meant MUD!



Tickets bought we headed out at 10am or so to on the tour boat, one that could hold about 40 people but this trip maybe had 15 on it. Despite the still misty coolish weather it was well worth the trip.



After touring around the Rocher-Percé for a bit we crossed the 2 or 3 km open water to reach Bonaventure, circumnavigated it and landed on the inland side.



One of the main attractions on this island is the huge colony of Northern Gannets, though there are many other seabirds here. The Gannet colony is estimated to be in the neighbourhood of 120,000 pairs! That's a lot of guano, as we could smell even before we landed on the island.







The cliffs were covered in the birds, and after we landed we headed up the only trail that was open due to the schmud. This lead across the island to the nesting place of the bulk of the bird colony. Schmud there was in quantity, but it was not that abnd took about 45 minutes to cross the island.



These birds are about seagull size, but a bit more attractive with very intense eyes, and some blue yellow and black colouration. They have quite a few interesting beak-stroking and head-shaking movements, and while they seem to co-exist well in the crowd it sometimes get territorial. In the fog we probably saw only small fractions of the entire crowd, but it was pretty impressive.

Gaspé Peninsula

I have lived in Quebec, specifically Montreal for a year and Val D'Or a few months, and travelled through it several times including by bike. I had not been to the Gaspé peninsula other than to cross it from New Brunswick. So, it was with some anticipation that we headed that way from Quebec city.

The most convenient route is by the south shore of the St Lawrence, though you can travel the north side, but eventually need to cross the river or Gulf if you get that far, by ferry. Time would not allow that option really though I am sure it would be highly enjoyable that way.



On the way to our day's destination we passed by Cap Chat (Cape Cat?) where there is one of tbe largest wind powered generation sites in North America, and the highest vertical axis wind turbine anywhere. Very cool, but we could not stay long enough for the complete tour.



We traveled as far as Saint Anne Des Monts (about 500km), about half way along the north side of the peninsula to http://www.aubergefestive.com/ a hostel right on the water, where we camped on the beach for 2 nights. This was more or less the way our trip went, a day of significant travel of 300-400 km or more follwed by 2 days in roughly the same spot.

2 days was enough for us at this Hostel. Nice spot, shame about the slackers! Not that there was anything worng really but it was very much a beach hangout pad for many folks there, and mostly oriented around the party scene. In fact the first night the music at the outside cabana style bar went pretty late, and the next night they had a band that was not all that good.

We were probably actually lucky that we did bring our tent and placed it on the beach where we did, as we were a bit away from the general noise and behind the direction the PA system was directed. High tide about 2 in the morning meant that the drunks walking on the beach did not have lots of room between the water and us in our almost camouflage-colour tent against the rocks, so we think they almost stumbled on us a few times.

It actually really was not that bad and we did mostly enjoy it there. The hostel was definitely rustic with varying accomodation options, such as a lodge, a Yurt and a Tipi, and our beach camping which was the lowest price option and likely the most private.




The setting was very nice with a 180 degree or better view of the Gulf of St lawrence, and spectacular sunsets, whales languishing by, a very laidback feel during the day. It was a few km past the town of Ste Anne des Monts but convenient to get to the Chic Chocs, the highest mountains in Southern Quebec. We managed to hit both of those on the full day we had there, for 2 neat experiences.

In the morning of our full day there we headed up the road into the Chic-Chocs in Parc de la Gaspesie for a moderate 5 km hike at Mount Ernest Laforce and side trip to a nice waterfall. Not far from us we could still see some snow in the surrounding peaks, but the weather could not have been nicer and the mountain scenery, even to a BC transplant, was pretty outstanding.



After coming back down from the hills, we headed off to get a feel for the town, which turned out to be a good choice for the apres-midi. Gravitating toward the Quay in the middle of town (just look for the biggest church, it won't be far from there in any town in Quebec), we found what was probably where half the small community spent the weekend. The popular sport there...Mackarel fishing!



People of all ages and sizes (bellies) lined the concrete dock, and just hauled them in, with perfect casting technique and coloured unbaited lures. Some of them had a strike every couple of minutes, and many of them just gave them away. A couple of guys just yelled "Madame!" every time they landed one and a "madame" appeared and grabbed the still gasping foot long fish and threw it in a bag in their car.

Quite entertaining...and Linda befriended one fellow who had retired here from Montreal (and spoke passable English, good for Linda), and was gracious enough to give 2 of his catch as they came off the hook. That was our cue to leave, as we preferred to cook our fish on the barbeque back at the hostel on the beach and not in a plastic bag in the back of the car.



The Swiss Army knife came out back at the campsite, and we soon had the fish cleaned and prepped for the barbie with some veggies and a bouteille de vin for dinner. We had enough fish to give some away to a fellow camper, but could easily have eaten it all it was so good!

A Katimavik group from Rimouski showed up at the hostel as well, and while we were cooking our dinner we ended up helping one of them to cook the meal for their entire group. Basically he had trouble boiling water...

They turned out to be quite easy to make friends with and of course I did the Katimavik project back in the 3rd year of the program (1979-80), so had some empathy for them. One of the shyest-seeming of the group asked me in broken English, if I did not mind taking them to the nearest store (never that far in Quebec, but still several km away) where they could buy some beer. Again empathy helped so of course I said yes, and was told I would make a good group leader because of it!




Our trip had to continue though and the next day we had to get on the road to the town of Percé... and a quiet B&B awaiting us there, but not before some of the spectacular scenery of Parc Forillon.

The Image Mill - Robert Lepage

While in Quebec we were treated to something so impressive in the way of a multimedia presentation that I feel it deserves it's own post.

Robert Lepage, the highly renowned artist, director and visual media artist created a massive show describing the history of Quebec from before the original European settlers right up to the present day. This is showing between late June and late August, every night for free, on what becomes the world's largest screen, a 600 meter long set of grain elevators in the port of Quebec.

We tried to watch the show from the road surrounding the upper city on our first night there, but the lightning storm that night prevented this as the show had to be cancelled, I presume due to potential danger from lightning strikes. Our seats were on a cannon in a tiny park amidst a group of other tourists, where we considered sitting UNDER the cannon as it spat with rain.



We were disappointed that first evening, but our host Gilbert insisted it was well worth another attempt the next, our final night in the city. He had already seen the show 4 times and said he would take us to where he felt we would get the best combination of views and sound. This proved to be right on the shores of Bassin Louise, and again the weather threatened but the show did take place on schedule and was completely enjoyable.



As large as the show's images were, it was dark and we were far away, so my pictures may not be as sharp as I would like, but I hope you get some sort of idea of how impressive it was. (Please click on any of them to see them in a larger size.) I of course had to use a slow shutter speed and a very high ISO setting but the images were also changing frequently, often "morphing" from one to another or rapidly moving across the concrete "screens" so were difficult to capture. The image below was about 30 meters high; the below pictures of cigarettes (the tobacco industry has been a big thing in Quebec) and the piano keyboard (Jazz also important here) are at least a couple of hundred meters wide!



Everything from whales and sailing ships to the historical figures and important industrial achievements, medical advancments and cultural diversity of Quebec was featured. It reinforced and reminded me of many of the history lessons I had mostly moved to the back of my memory.

Of course it was not all pretty images. From wars to bridge collapses to revolutions, Quiet and not so quiet, it was here in the 45 minute show.





Even without words or prior knowledge anyone could have learned a good deal of the history of Quebec from this show. I thought one part seemed to be just slightly commercial, and that was a fairly significant homage to the paint company SICO (from Longueuil, south of Montreal) and..who knows?...maybe they sponsored the show? It seemed to be the only obvious commercial influence except I suppose the tobacco companies, but even then there was not an obvious name like Imperial superimposed on the images, nor did they last as long.




No worries. Someone has to pay for this, and other than taxes which I don't pay in Quebec, a bit of subtle advertising might have helped and did not hurt the show. And heck, I am more picky than some on this topic. In any case, well done and Bravo Robert!

Montreal Poutine and Quebec Tajine

Our trip went off without a hitch from Vancouver.

We began with our flight to Montreal, picking up our rental car in Dorval, and immediately into the thick of traffic on routes 20 and 15 (Decarie Blvd). Linda and I headed off to the Atwater Market for breakfast and then our acommodations, dropping our stuff at the Hostelling International location near the core of the downtown a few blocks off Ste. Catherine. This was near my old stomping grounds, and though that does go back a lot of years it was still familiar.

I love the architecture in Montreal. Surprises turn up everywhere, as can be seen in these canine gargoyles:




Our 2 day Montreal excursion included the requisite stops in Old Montreal, Dunns for Cheesecake, St Viateur for bagels and Schwartz's for smoked meat. We also managed to fit in some Poutine at La Banquise , a bit of shopping in the underground downtown core, for some culture a pipe organ concert at St James United Church on Ste. Catherine, Chinatown, some of the Juste Pour Rire (Just For Laughs) festival on St Denis... and a bunch of other stuff!







We found out the Montreal Police are using a new Segway-like-but-3-wheeled-scooter to get around some of the pedestrian friendly areas like Rue Prince Arthur. I asked the guy where he kept the shotgun but he did not have the gunrack mounted yet. We also heard a funny interchange between the cop and a woman on a bike who insisted she only rode her bike here because she could not read the French signs.



We travelled to Quebec City on Highway 40 on the north shore of the St Lawrence after picking up some fuel for our Primus stove at the MEC store in Montreal. I can see why people complain about the store location, as it is in a very un-bike-friendly area of big box stores on the wrong side of an intersection of 2 major highways. A beautifully well done store but a bit hellish to get to.

Quebec was busy with tourists, more noticeably than Montreal, as they tend to congregate in the old city and this being the 400th anniversary of Quebecitation there were many visitors. Despite the numbers it did not seem as busy as I thought it could get, and fewer of them seemed to be Anglophones than I expected. For example we dined at a Moroccan restaurant called Casablanca (what else?), that deserved to be busier than it was. It was down a narrow alley and we tend to like those "down a narrow alley" kind of places and maybe others don't. I'm kind of glad they don't as we like restaurants that are unique but not crowded and serve good food that is not of the standard burgers and fries mentality that accidental tourists seem to prefer. Why go away, if what you want is the same old same old?

The weather turned a bit while we were there and produced some of those thunderstorms I really like, and that we seldom get on the west coast. In fact as we were walking along the boardwalk between the Chateau and the Citadel the hair on my arms and head stood up a fraction of a second before the first lightning bolt we saw. It was followed very few seconds later by loud thunder and was obviously very close. The storm thankfully did not produce much rain but went on for hours! It also produced some spectacular lighting like that in the image below:

As the trip gets closer we are firming up some details. The airline tickets are booked to Montreal, we have also Hostel memberships and will stay at this location in Montreal. It's right downtown and will be close to some of the "must see" places for us (Dunn's, Old Montreal, Atwater Market, and not far from Schwartz's! and the Montreal Bagel factory!

I remember going there at 3AM, back about 1981 or 82, and getting hot bagels seconds out of the oven while being taught a free history lesson on bagels from the cook: "the Kings and Queens used to dunk'em in their coffee" "what? the Kings and Queeens of England!?" "nope, the Russians! The Tsars!"

After that, with our rental car, we head to Quebec. Accommodations there will be tight, this being the 4ooth anniverary of settlement there with a host of event of things planned for this summer. A place to stay will may be tough most places we go, actually...

We actually are not typically high-season travellers. Preferring places away from the madding crowds, like Asia for example (What? No crowds in Asia? Are you kidding? I mean no crowds of tourists, but then again that is hardly true of Asia these days either), and not taking summer time vacations usually helps. Maybe high fuel prices will help keep some folks at home and it won't be a zoo most places we go. Fingers crossed...

Anyway, in Quebec City we will be Couch Surfing , a step beyond Hostels in shared living. We found someone who is willing to put us up right smackdab in the middle of where we would like to be in Quebec, just below the citadel area and only minutes away on foot from the site of much of the festivities celebrating Quebec's history. And these folks know how to celebrate.

Our host there has a small place apparently but has some floor for us. I am sure a fine bottle of wine will be in his kitchen when we leave.

2 days there, than we drive off to the Gaspe Peninsula. This will be my first time there, aside from driving across from Rimouski to New Brunswick or vice versa a couple of times. I just got off the phone, practising my franglais, with the Hostel in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts where I booked un terain de camping (a campsite I think). I also have inquiries out to another hostel or 2 near the eastern end, in Parc Forillion and close to the village of Gaspe.

Where To Now?

I have been wondering how to take this blog in a direction that is not just a personal travelogue but instead somewhere that has a bit more value, lasting or intrinsic, and does some good other than purely a journal.

I don't really lead that exotic or exciting a life. My day to day life is mostly just about work, food, some play, and sleep. Occasionally I get to travel and that is what inspired some writing, and people tell me I do a fairly good job at it. If Paul Theroux or even Anthony Bourdain want an understudy, they can give me a call...but I won't lose sleep waiting for the phone to ring.

Anyway, it gets tedious to tell every friend who might show interest "how did your trip go?" in any degree of detail, so a blog is a fine way of sharing it. Pictures are easy to add for interest or context (worth a thousand words and all that), and writing while on the road is easy to do with a PDA or laptop or even sending messages to myself through email. There are often downtimes jet-lagged or otherwise when writing is easier than sleeping.

Heck I sometimes even can take notes with a pen and paper, but thankfully for you by the time you read this I have had to type it out so my sanskrit henscratch is decipherable. Ok, part of that illegiblity I will still blame on buses and airplane turbulence or even bad lighting in a tent, so I might not even transcribe it properly. Spell checkers can also only do so much. For example consider the potential ramifications of the spellchecker not replacing the perfectly acceptable word "fist" with the word it should have been "first",. also a perfectly good word but with a completely different meaning. Wired has a nice short article on the topic.

So essentially my blog is no big deal, just one of many ramblings on the web. Not that frequent (fortunately for you), not that inspiring, but hopefully providing the odd tidbit not easily found elsewhere or at leat propogating the ideas & perspectives I either have myself or have found and can appreciate. Now here is a big one for the day.

Please, please have a look at this site, TED.com subtitled Ideas Worth Spreading, I really hope you enjoy it and get some inspiration and maybe even enlightenment from it:

http://www.ted.com/

Another Trip Coming Up

As you might guess from the map below, there is another trip on the horizon. Not exactly exotic this time, but still out of the way, and a fairly long way away from Vancouver. At least I hope it is somewhat out of the way, as it will be high season, from the middle of July to early August.

The map shows, more or less, where we plan to go. The only certainties so far are that we have bought airfare from Vancouver to Montreal from July 13th to August 3rd, and that we plan to go to Halifax to visit the brothers and families, and must be in Moncton for the night of August 1st.

Moncton is what started this trip plan. Specifically Moncton High School.

I received an email from the class president of my graduation year, Norval, a few months ago. The topic was a potential reunion of the Grad class from that year (I won't give away the year just yet). I am quite interested in going but not without some trepidation I must admit.

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So I think I will leave you on the topic of our trip to Vietnam and elsewhere with this little video of Hanoi traffic:




I actually took about 3 minutes of video (laughing at the absurdity of it the whole time) from the 3rd floor bar overlooking the 5 or 6 way intersection at the Northwest corner of Hoan Kiem Lake. I minute after this clip a full size tourbus appeared and made a U-turn in the middle of the intersection!

The original video looks much better, but Blogger modifies the image quality to reduce the file size.

It has been over a week since we came back from Cambodia and we are slipping back into normal Vancouver winter mode. I don’t know about “normal winter” though, as they say it’s going to be a cold one and we have already had a good snowfall in town. It has gone back up to warm & wet though and as I write this about 7pm it is at least 10 degrees outside.

Arriving back here last Saturday was a bit of a shock, as my jacket and long sleeve shirts were buried deep in my pack and we ended up outside longer than expected as Linda’s car battery was dead and required a boost out at the airport before we could get home. No big deal though.

Our trip was really great despite the problems we had. Linda and I really do like to travel and do it well together, except when she tries to navigate. Since we have known each other we have been in various parts of Canada, the US, Europe, Australia, and a few times to Asia. Separately we have also traveled extensively and, until this trip, have never had any serious complications. This complication was obviously serious.

With respect to our stolen air tickets, we have been in communication with Vietnam Airlines with whom we had tickets from Siem Reap to Saigon and they have said that a refund is possible if after a year the tickets have not been used. Not the best result, but acceptable and much better than Hong Kong Airlines. This is officially a pan of Hong Kong Airlines in that they say there is nothing they can do for us to help us with the stolen tickets we had from Saigon to Hong Kong. In the case of both of these sets of tickets there was absolutely no way we could either use them or purchase replacements with the same airline (as HK Air wanted us to do), as we could neither leave Cambodia, nor enter Vietnam because of the lost Visa’s that were in the passports. Hong Kong Airlines will never get business from us, nor should it from you; thank you very much for your support, or lack of.

We have not calculated exactly what it has cost us to have pack stolen as it is quite involved, but it is in the thousands of dollars. Actual cash, Linda’s daypack and MP3 player, non-replaceable air tickets (more on that soon), fees for replacement documents, graft to the “police” in Cambodia, other miscellaneous expenses, plus costs for new documents for both of us here at home. Please add to that the stress involved, especially for Linda, which can not be quantified or as MasterCard might say, is “priceless”.

I also say for Linda deliberately. Yes it hurt me, but it was more visceral and real for her as she was the one holding the pack and the one almost assaulted in the ripping of the pack from her arms. As mentioned earlier she was nearly pulled onto the street when the bag was grabbed and could have been seriously hurt. She also felt much more violated than I did, and blamed herself somewhat for the loss. That was not something I can find fault with her over, nor should anyone else. As I have mentioned before, there was a series of circumstances that led us to have all this stuff stolen, some of which could have been prevented but on that particular day in that particular place, were not. Enough said…

I am getting back into wearing shoes again after probably the longest stretch of sandal wearing I have ever had, and I may still have some of the Chaco Tan (http://backcountryblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/chaco-summertime-z-photo-contest.html) left by next summer. Personally I think it is unfair that the contest at the above link ended on Oct 22nd as our trip began Oct 25th when my Chaco Tan began!




Some of the recap things from our trip that we will miss are the friendly people, the dramatic scenery from Halong Bay to the Mekong Delta and Angkor Wat, simple but incredibly good food, shopping and paying less than half the asking prices, opportunities to eat bugs, a new beer or snack food that goes with beer in every town, geckos, boat rides and on and on.

Things we won't miss so much are the constant horn-blowing and traffic snarls, persistent souvenir sellers, shower heads that can't aim above my chest, oily spring rolls, bureaucracy, butt-numbing bus rides, and of course thieves!

Weird & unusual tidbits from the tip:

-People in the Hong Kong restaurant (a very clean one) washing the dishes at their table before they would use them to eat

-A marching band on the street outside our hotel in Saigon...at 4:30 in the morning!

-The 20 foot tall chicken sculpture in the village near Dalat

-5 cel phone stores in the block across from the hotel in Pingxhiang, with a dwarfish guy singing (pretty well actually) with a PA system on the street in front of one of them.



-The old guy on the outskirts of Pingxiang who insisted I was a "Rrrruskie!"

-the phallic cave feature in Halong which had our guide Hien so fascinated



Of course there were lots of other things we will miss or not about the trip. We';; just have to go another trip soon to remind ourselves of what they are!

Made It!

Home now, and catching up on sleep and posts here and picture editing. I have almost 8 gigabytes of photos, and will be tweaking them and uploading some of them to Flickr and/or Picasa. I will also be adding to earlier posts and rearranging things here so please watch for updates over the next few days. Scrolling back through the older posts you will already find changes and additions.

Please check back again...

Way Home

Now in Taipei, with an 8 hour layover. I may just have to drink my way through all the duty free shops...whaddya mean? I CAN'T drink it here? Crap!

I will be filling in lots of blanks later, but in case anyone was checking up on us at least you know things are coming to a close on this trip! Catsitters, we'll will be there in about 20 hours or so...

Meanwhile, with all this spare time and about 20 places in the secure area of this airport where I can use a computer I can get some writing done.

3 ROADBLOCKS

Driving back to Phnom Penh was arranged once again by the hotel and we hopped into a tuktuk for the 2 or 3 km to the Bus depot, basically a dirt lot, down a dirt road with numerous buses parked there & guys at portable tables checking tickets. We had purchased with the same company as on the way to Siem Reap as they had such a nice & uncrowded bus on the way there. This was not the case coming back though, and we had to endure a more cramped dingier experience this time. It still made pretty good time for the bulk of the trip, that is until we got to the outskirts of PP.

At our late morning lunch break I resisted once again the urge to eat bugs. At a roadside stand there were some rather yummy looking grasshoppers and 4 inch long beetles, or where they cockroaches? I'll not likely find out now.



We virtually stopped at about noon, by my estimate less than an hour from the scheduled end of the trip. For a while we crawled along through thick traffic, becoming less comfortable as we went due to the air-conditioning having broken down not long before.

Soon we came to a complete stop, and the sight of many vans and other vehicles parked in the fields beside the road and lots of folks walking did not bode well. The bus then turned off the road itself, police directing it to do so, into a large dirt lot full of buses and other large transport. With very little explanation we soon had to disembark as it was obvious we were not going to be allowed to travel any further into the city that way.

The bus driver and attendants provided nothing in the way of explanation and I got a little pushy in demanding what was going on, at least for the benefit of other English speakers on the bus a for myself. The Tuktuk drivers were the only help, explaing that with the Water Festival going on the bus would not be allowed in.

A driver, whose English was very good, said he wanted $5 each for 4 of us to go the last 15 or 20 km to the riverfront where we were going (back to Indochine). We had befriended a French couple on the bus & they did not yet have place to stay. We wanted them to come with us as we knew about the secret petite rooms at Indochine, and how hard it was going to be to get a room otherwise. We also moved quickly to get a driver and agreed to his asking price despite my earlier advice to the other couple that you could often get close to half the asking price for rides. The barrel we were over at this point was fairly significant.

Roadblock #2 came pretty quickly as the driver and another one with 3 tourists negotiated through the rough back end of the big dirt field. Several more police watched that side, and after some back & forth chatter we were through, and managed to make another several minutes on what were practically ox cart tracks along the river, before another uniform stopped us. This time our driver told us he was lying to the cop, saying that all of us were on our way to the airport and had to get through.

He must have been convincing as once again we were soon going again, and even more remarkably, with no money changing hands. The dirt path also turned into pavement again so we picked up speed and only stopped again once in sight of the hotel.

I think in this case the driver probably earned his dough as the quick thinking on his part about the airport may have saved us either a long walk or a healthy bribe or 3 to get into the city.

The couple from France were also quite appreciative of the help. They spoke some English but were new to the city and would likely have had a very difficult time finding a room. The petite room I mentioned was almost perfect for them and was only $12, but perhaps I should explain the petite part of it.

We had seen these small doorways above the ground floor of the hotel, and had been amused and puzzled by them. I could not come near to walking through them upright, though Linda could just barely. We asked about them and took a look inside a couple of them one day. They were about 6'5" at the ceiling and correspondingly smaller in other respects. They were held in reserve by the hotel staff as a last resort and even though I said I would take one if they had nothing else they were pretty horrified that I would try. The couple from France, being about 5'4" and 5'8" I would guess, were almost perfect for them. Almost is the right choice of words, as Michel told us he DID hit his head at least once!





I talked about the Water Festival a few times already, and I mentioned that the city was busy as a result. That's an understatement.

The 1,000,000 strong city of Phnom Penh basically doubles in size during the 3 day event that marks the full moon in November, and most of those people congregate a stone's throw from our hotel location. The events primarily consist of races of boats similar to Dragon boats rowed by as many as 50 to 60 men and women. They take place in heats on the Tonle Sap River near where it meets the Mekong and apparently the winning team gets all of $100!

The sky also lit up with fireworks and the river later had a parade of sorts of elaborate light displays on boats or barges slowly moving upstream. Or was it downstream? Apparently at this end of the rainy season the Mekong has such an excess of water that the Tonle Sap changes direction and flows backward into the Tonle Sap Lake, doubling its size.

We hung out at the river for a while cheering our favourite team (always the one in the rear) and later got out of the madness to our favourite restaurant and then a Lao beer at Broken Bricks with a couple from L.A. (soon Montreal) while Ruby the cat sat in my lap and then finally some CNN at the hotel. Our last night in Cambodia ended on a calm note, though we did get a bit concerned about the guy in the army uniform gesticulating with his handgun before we re-entered the hotel.