British Columbia Day 2

After poking around Vancouver on Day 2, I found myself at the Flying Beaver.  (Please click images to enlarge)

It is a pub on an arm of the mighty Fraser River, mere metres from its confluence with the Georgia Straight in the Pacific.  It is also a float plane dock.

Ah, the west coast Canadian life-style.  Sun , beer and float planes.  Can’t beat it.

I am about to fly to my island house on a float plane from the arm of the mighty Fraser.

It is indeed a flying Beaver.

Loading.

Underway, the view from the co-pilot’s seat.

And over the beautiful Gulf Islands.  Here is a map; I am flying to Mayne Island.

Some views of the islands from the plane.

This one is Mayne; you can see the BC Ferry in the ferry dock; my house is on the shore just to the left of the ferry.

Float plane landing at Mayne Island. 

Walking up to the historic Springwater Pub, British Columbia’s longest continually operating inn.

If it sounds like all we do in BC in the summer is go from pub to pub, well, unfortunately, that’s just about it.  And then to my house

Relaxing on the deck.  You can see where I was sitting; ever-present Blackberry in front of the chair, along with the ever-present glass of red.

And this is the view from that deck.  It is Pacific Ocean waters, but broken by the Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island.  We look over at Prevost Island and Saltspring Island and up the Trincomali Chanell.

And we sit on the deck and look at that view until the sun sets …

British Columbia – Day 1

Two weeks away from the heat of the Middle East, in the beautiful green, mountainous, Pacific province of BC.  Day 1 actually spanned two days, because I started just after midnight in Dubai, had an eleven hour lay-over in Schiphol, and then an 8 hour, 45 minute flight to Vancouver. (Please click on pictures to enlarge)

In Schiphol, our plane the “Ingrid Bergman”.  I never thought I’d fly on Ingrid Bergman! 

Here is Ingrid having landed in Vancouver.

From a cool rainy day in Amsterdam to a glorious, very warm day in Vancouver.

The international arrivals area in Vancouver International (YVR) is one of the nicest I’ve seen with all the art and a waterfall feature.

Downtown Vancouver has a lovely harbour.  Here are a couple of shots from the conference centre- cruise-ship terminal.

Then on to English Bay.  It was evening by this time.  Some interesting statuary.

and the usual sunset-on-English-Bay pictures from downtown Vancouver.

Being away, I had forgotten how beautiful English Bay can be.  These have an Inukshuk in the lower left corner.  If you recall the logo of the winter Olympics we just had, that is the symbol.  This is a mysterious symbol used throughout the circumpolar world and is a meme in the Canadian psyche.  You can read more here.

And so back to the hotel.  I stayed at the Coast Vancouver Airport hotel because (besides being cheap) it has a White Spot restaurant. This is a British Columbia chain, not expensive, has its own locally-brewed beer, and good food.  I had been thinking about its steak, smothered with mushrooms, with a sturdy red accompaniment.  And so it was!  Hard to beat Canadian beef.  It was every bit as good as I had remembered. (Warning: messy food shot)

A good end to Day 1.

Banks

There are over 50 different banks in the UAE, with nearly 1000 branches.  We love to hate them all.  Service is incredibly bad at all of them, and they offer few services for the service charges deducted.  (RAK Bank seems to get a better rap than most).   So I saw the following on the Internet (http://taitegallery.net/2010/06/banks.html ) and adapted it slightly to fit the locale.

Ten Reasons Why I Love Banks

Nine Reasons Why I Love Banks

Eight Reasons Why I Love Banks

Seven Reasons Why I Love Banks

Six Reasons Why I Love Banks

Five Reasons Why I Love Banks

Four Reasons Why I Love Banks

Three Reasons Why I Love Banks

1. They have great air-conditioning

2. Can read a few free newspapers and magazines while I sit and and wait

3. Did I mention the air conditioning?

Turkey Trip Day 10

Please click on the pictures to see them better.  I stayed in Bandirma, Turkey, the night of Day 9 at a tired ferry landing hotel.  Bandirma is a tired industrial port town.

Rather than eat in a restaurant, I used one of the many kabab stands, this one on the dock by the hotel.

Thıs morning, it was the ferry (feribot, as they call it) lineup.

Here is our feribot!

My bike blocked and ready for the trip

During this ferry trip, I kept thinking of the last important motorcycle ferry trip I made, in March 2007, when I started my journey ınto expat lıfe, from Mayne Island.  I was taking the beautıful BMW K1200GT to Vancouver for ıts onward shipment to Dubai.  It snowed.  ”Leavıng, are you, you ungrateful bastard … take some of that”.  I can’t yet judge all that I have done, and has been done, since March 2007.   More endings … more beginnings! 

Istanbul!  Here you see the arrival through the ferry’s big rear loading door.

And unpacking the bike from the trip and giving it back to the shop.

Lunch in Istanbul.  It was raining so the staff tried to get me to eat inside.  After being on the road in the wind for 10 days, I couldn’t face being inside yet.  I had them set up a little table on the narrow sidewalk for me.

The ferry, the ride throughout Istanbul to the BMW shop on the outskirts, the bike hand-over, all went seamlessly.  The return of the bike was well timed, as by the time I got back to my hotel, it really started to rain.  Back to the European side of Turkey, and back to European weather!

After about a couple of thousand kilometres of Turkey, the motorcycle part of the trip is over.  But every ending is a beginning.  I learned a lot, met some good people and Inshallah can look forward to many more trips and to my own bike in the fall. 

There is so much yet to see …

Turkey Trip Day 9

Click on the pics to see them better.  You may recall I mentioned we stayed in the treehouse area.  That is in a park called Olympos near Kemer by Antalya.  It is a throw-back to hıppıe-dom.

Treehouse accommodation

Our accommodation

Gentle people there

 Even our supper was vegetarian

Bikers enjoying their tofu steak

We saw plenty of castles and historical sites

We went on to Kaş, a lovely Mediterranean sea coast vacation town.  Here we are at a local restaurant that Koray (the Turkish one, glasses on the left) knows

He also got us a deal at this hotel

Kaş sea

The group and I parted at Kaş; I went on to Marmarıs.  The road was lovely, twisting along the coast

Marmarıs is another really beautiful Mediterranean vacation town

 

 

 

 

 

But the road out of Marmaris was straight up a mountain.  Here you can see the switch-backs

The mountains that you enter here are made up of large boulders, set in treed countryside

I spent the night in Selçuk, known for 3 things: a castle, storks and çop şiş, grilled meat

Castle at Selçuk

Storks at Selçuk

Meat grill - often have the hammered bronze nameplate

The countryside is rolling farmland, quite like Tuscany

This morning’s big excitement was that I got stopped for speeding.  I took a quick snap showing the police taking info from us miscreants that they stopped

The officer to the left has a machine gun, but the guy in the white shirt obscured it.  Given that, I didn’t want to be seen taking too many pictures.  Once I showed them my UAE licence, they just waived me off.  It wasn’t serious enough to hold me, and I guess they figured the chance of a foreign tourist paying a speeding fine was pretty slim!

Now spending the night in Bandirma, a coastal town on a different coast, the sea of Marmara. 

 Tomorrow, ferry (”feribot”) to İstanbul.

Turkey Trip- Day 8

I started in Kas, the southernmost part of the journey. It is a beautiful Mediterranean sea coast vacation town, with beach clubs, bars and according to the youths in our group, a lame night-life. I left the group today. They are now backtracking to Syria and Jordan. I am proceeding onwards to Istanbul- yea! Next major stop after Kas was Marmaris. An even more beautiful Mediterranean sea coast vacation town, with beach clubs, bars, yachts and hi-end jewellery and gold shops- and I’ll bet a fabulous night-life. The road out of Marmaris is crazy- one of those you climb n-thousand feet in nanoseconds. When I get to a computer I will show you pics. (I am n Selcuk tonight and did not see an I-cafe). Two different sets of mountains; lots of fabulous riding. I am in Selcuk tonight, known for a castle, antiquities (it is near Ephesus) and storks. Pics of all that coming. Also good cop sis here (pronounced chop shish). Meat on skewers. Inshallah I will find a computer tomorrow and upload some pics! Until then, keep smilin’. It will fool people into thinking you’re up to something! .

Turkey Trip Day 7

It seems Turkish men have it good  I went to the restaurant in my hotel and the music started to play.  The women are caught by the rhythm They dance for their husbands, while the guy claps lightly!  Very cool!  here sis a pic of one gal so dancing.  It is blurred because it was night with low light.  I was just hoping their husband wouldn’t fall asleep!

Next day off into the beautiful Turkish Mediterranean coast.

Castle in the sea

Old ruins

New ruins

AS you can see from the above, their many ruins, old and new.  This sad hotel sits on a commanding spot on the coast but perhaps ran out of money or perhaps was the result of some shady dealings.

I met up with a group of 8 BMW riders from Dubai.  I am travelling with them for 3 days.  We split up tomorrow, as they go back to Jordan (where they shipped there bikes) and I proceed on to Istanbul.

The riding on the narrow road, mountains on one side, cliff to the sea on the other, was sometimes tricky.  Here we hit several kms. of construction and it is good we had on-road, off-road BMW GS bikes.

Not all riding!  Here we stopped for a salty dip!

More to come …