Day 23: Back to civilization Vancouver

An angel at Hope

Grumpy old man at Hope

100 year old Gurudwara ( Sikh Temple)

Outside of Gurudwara ( national heritage now)

Vancouver walk

We made it to civilization , with 560,000 people Vancouver has everything, traffic, freeways, excellent food ,wonderful soft beds and hot bath. We are at down town Hyatt , location and comforts are perfect except that internet is not free. ( this is generally true with four and five star hotels. Best Westerns etc have free internet but these fancy ones do not…why? ) Anyways, star bucks downstairs has the free wi fi ( with a cup of coffee) . We walked along the harbor and decided it is a very pretty city. So far, lots of architect and water fountains in this down town, busy ocean side with float planes, cruise ships, fancy a boats and people biking, roller blading . We have two more days to explore. We had a great Chinese food, thanks to Smita who looked up on Yelp and gave us the directions from San Diego J

We decided we liked Hope a lot and now we are also liking Vancouver. Hope is small and pretty and interesting chain saw sculptures all over the city. On the way to Vancouver , we stopped at Abbadford. This is an agricultural town with lot of Indian ( Sikh specifically) history. They have the oldest Gurudwara outside India , just celebrated the 100^th anniversary of it’s construction. We had free lunch there ( it is really nice to walk in and have fresh Indian food, only requirement is that you do not smoke and cover your head with something) . Little history lesson: Sikhs from Punjab ( india) came here from 1900 to look for jobs. There was lot of discrimination ( one of the telling story is that a Japanese ship full of Indians came here after three months of journey. Even though everyone had British passport and they were legally allowed to come to Canada, the ship was turned back. There was lot of press about that and the government officially apologized later) . The Gurudwara is Canadian National Heritage now.

On the way, we saw lots of small farms with fruits and vegetables. Fist time I saw blueberry bushes and Indian men and women workers hand picking them. ( I have been wondering with no illegal Hispanic people around , who is doing all the work here…now we know) . Blueberries are really cheap and delicious. We have been eating them like candy.

All though our journey we saw mostly Europeans , few “first nation people” and some Indians here and there. But, this part of Vancouver is as mixed as San Francisco. We will explore more tomorrow and report. I need to catchup on sleep tonight. Good night….

Day22 : Hope : the town of Rambo and chain saw

Manual Lathe machine at Ashcroft Museum

Copper Hauler at Askcroft Heritage walk

Hell's gate Gondola

Rambo

Orthello tunnels

We are at Hope, the town of many fames. I will post more pictures tonight. It is a pretty town of 6000 people surrounded by the mountains . The town is center of agricultural and dairy activities so the fruits etc are fresh and really inexpensive. It is home of Rambo , the movie as well as , " shoot ot kill" and several other movies were made here. It also has " ORthello Tunnels' series of 13 tunnels that the engineers of Canada had built across the deep and inaccessible valley for the railway in 1913. It was crazy the way workers hung on ladders to work on this. The railway was built to carry precious copper and other minerals found in the east part. Guess why this inaccessible location was chosen : " they were worried about the aggressive Americans taking their precious cargo, if they built it close ot the border " ( this is a direct quote written there) ,

On the way here , we went through pretty but totally dry hills around the Fraser river valley. It is called Fraser river Valley even though the river going through it is Thompson river:) We asked why the hills are so barren and the reasons given are : 1) Different climate 2) fires 3) Pine Beattle. We think forth reason is logging.

We stopped at Ashcroft. A pretty and small town. Not listed in tour books. It had a museum full of unique things like pddle driven lathe machine, washing machine ( hand crancked) etc.

We passed interesting towns, one of them was Boston Bar. We passed it even without knowing it. But, stopped at the Hell's Gate. It is the narrowest portion of Fraser river acnyon and the river rushes through the deep 500 feet canyon. They have made a pretty tourist trap out of the location and we being the tourist fell into the trap.

The campground id prettiest so far. Tall trees, quite, river and at the same time wi fi and flush toilets. We found this by asking at the visitor center. I think that works much better than the AAA book or anything else.

Time for breakfast, so i have to stop this. HAve a wonderful day.

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Day 21 Kamloops

Road to Kamloops

Warming up at the campsite

Kamloops river park

Canadian market at Kamloops

Coffee decorating

We continue to head south and the rain continue to disappear and we are hoping tonight there will be no rain at all. We are entering the wine making area of Canada ( like Napa Valley) and all of a sudden there is an abundance of fruits ( cherries, plums , nectarines etc all grown locally and cheap).

The history in brief is : There was a group of 173 men and one pregnant woman who came this way looking for gold ( what else?) in 1896. These people came over the Rockies and hence are called overlanders. Others came by sea taking a much longer route around the south america. These people named pretty much everything around here.

Kamloops is big ( 85,000 people) and is nice but nothing very special. They have a coffee decorating contest, I am sending pictures of the fourth place person ( in the contest around BC). Also, they have a bridge which they encourage you to walk on for exercise up and down the steps. It is situated on a river bank and has a nice long park where kids were playing. We just hung out in the downtown and are planning to head south early in the morning. We are camping tonight and it is nice and relatively warm.

My black berry has reception most of the times so i am a happy camper ( literally) Writing this blog from the campsite sitting by the fire.

Good night and will be in touch tomorrow.

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Day 20 Canadian Rockies : Mount Robson

Train Station at Mcbride, on the way to Rockies

Salmon's Destination 800 miles upstream

Mount Robson, Highest peak in Canadian Rockies

Glacier fed Creek

Lake Kelly at Mount Robson

We are zigzagging south on our return journey. We decided to check out Mount Robson Provincial Park that has the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies. ANd here is something to think about: There is a waterfall 800 miles upstream from the Pacific Ocean and Salmons come all the way to it and not only that but have strength to jump up the fall. Why AND HOW???

Anyways, Rockies are pretty too but the difference between here and Hyder is : IN hyder you see people with HUGE cameras , tripods and the rest or real rough and tough looking people but in Rockies you see backpackers, and people with little to medium cameras...also, you have to look for water falls and wild life, in Hyder they are all over.

We did a good 10 mile hike and my knees are doing fine. The hike was along the creek and to the lake ( it is not as pretty as the Rancho creek...ha ha) . We staying at the Valemount Cmapground. The best so far. Very clean and well maintained. They even had a ping pong table and badminton court.

Good night and hope all is well with everyone and people in India and east coast are drying up

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Day 19 Back to civilization: Prince George

One and only local market in Stewart,

Salmon Glacier

Bears waste so much fresh Salmon

More views

Our home away from home

We started bright and early and were greeted by a mama bear with two cute cubs in her tow. She came by to check us out in the car, i wanted to roll the window down and greet her but JAgdish started to panic so i just took a picture ( which is not very clear)

We drove back to Prince George today. All of 500 miles. Two weeks ago, when we took the same road to Prince Rupert, the towns like Smithers, Hazeltons etc were really quaint, scenic and interesting but just in two weeks they grew to be just ,"normal" towns with Starbucks, Walmart and Safeway. How could that be????

The remote areas , Hydar and Stewart are filled with Bears, Bald Eagles, Salmons , Glaciers, lush green high mountains and waterfalls too big and too numerous to count , not be mention the unpaved streets and no traffic lights or signs and chickens roaming on the streets that any thing else just does not look pretty enough. It changes your perspective for ever.

I am not sure if the pictures do any justice to the place but my eyes are spoiled now and will have to look really hard to find the beauty in other natural places.

We are back to Prince George now and resting. I hope everyone in Indore as well as here in New York area is safe and day. Good night..

View To the top of the world in search of Bears and her wild llifeother things...Sarah ... in a larger map