I’ve been on a bus more often this past month or so than I have for the past decade. Whilst naturally traumatic for the petrol head, I’ve collected together some tips of how to make use of shared automotive transport less terrible.

(The photo below was taken from a bus, because who wants to see a picture of one?!)

 

• There are other people on a bus, you have not been hijacked. This is normal on public transport; and takes some getting used to.

 

 

• Hydrate. Constantly. You don’t want to get to your destination and feel like a sloth on a lazy day. If you need to problem solve on arrival, you can’t let your brain become a raisin en route. This applies especially to those who aren’t morning people, and always arrive at the bus last minute in a pool of sweat.

 

 

• Remember what your mother told you at the services: “Go now, even if you think that you don’t need to.”. You always need to (if you followed the last step properly), you’ll be glad you did when the loo is broken on the bus…

 

 

• Take healthy snacks. This seems like a given, but being so used to just traveling with a credit card (and claiming back expenses where possible), I only realised how expensive service stop food is when I was on a budget. They’re also infrequent, which leads to unhealthy choices; if you’re starving at a 15 minute rest stop, you’re getting the first take-away you see.

 

 

• Take a coat or fleece onboard. “But it’s air conditioned!” I hear you cry. It’s not for that; when you want to nap (and on an 8hr+ journey, you will nap) the rapid percussion of skull on plate glass is a recipe for a nice cranial bruise. Your coat is your cushion. In addition, at layovers on the Greyhound you have to be off the bus, and sometimes the waiting areas at remote terminals aren’t that cozy. That and in Canada, you might be boarding in sunshine, and alighting in snow.

 

 

• Sit glass-side. For the napping. Some buses don’t have armrests on both sides, so if you nap aisle-side, you’ll wake up as you fall out of your seat on a tight bend. I’m not saying this has ever happened to me…

 

 

• Research your route, if you like a view. This is straying into the “planning not traveling” domain a little, but if you’ve got a few spare minutes at the bus depot, use it to check for potential prettiness on the way, then sit on the side of the bus that will get the best views.

 

 

• Sit mid-glass. This is for two reasons: you’ll get a better view of what ever is out there to the side, and you’ll have somewhere to rest your head that doesn’t have a sharp edge on it, as the pillars often do.

 

 

• Get over your fear of bus toilets. If there is one and it’s working, use it. I’ve sat with people that have refrained form conversation for hours waiting for a rest stop, trying to focus their mind through the internal damage happening to them. I find this hilarious, as fortunately I can go anywhere (#TMI..). If you are sat next to one of those people, try to make them laugh.

 

 

• [Bonus tip] If you’re prone to travel sickness, sit on the rear axle. Whilst this will be noisier as you’re nearer the engine, you won’t get flung around as much on twisty mountain roads as you’re at the pivot when the bus steers. You also get a wider field of vision out of the front and sides peripherally as you look toward the front of the bus, which I’ve also heard helps. (This one’s a bonus as I can’t confirm; I don’t do travel sickness.)

 

 

• [Canada-specific tip] Pre-connect your phone/tablet to fast food restaurants and cafés. If you’re on a mainland route, you might have WiFi and and a power socket. Cool! You’re sorted! If not, look out for A&W burger restaurants, Starbucks, Tim Horton’s and to a lesser extent, KFC whenever the bus stops – Greyhound depots tend to be near retail parks that have these. Some depots have free WiFi too, so that’s another option. They usually have free WiFi that spills out into the surrounding area, so if your phone already recognises the names of the hotspots you can save precious seconds syncing before the bus drives out of range again.

 

 

• [Blogging-specific tip] Use the right mobile apps to remain productive whilst you’re offline. I use Pocket to buffer articles to read later (stripped out articles sync automatically for offline reading), Falcon Pro and Evernote for writing things like this blog post when there’s no signal. Instagram let’s you take photos whilst you’re offline, so if you see something cool, take a photo and just hit the spinny refresh thing later on when you’re back on the grid. If you’re a traveling smartphone addict, be sure to check out the post on my essential travel apps.

 

I had high hopes on the way into the Okanagan Valley, having taken the Greyhound from Pacific Central in Vancouver there were some great views on the way up, so couple that with the fact that if you put Kelowna into Google Images you see nothing but beautiful shots of a lake and the beaches that surround it, I was sure that I was onto a good thing. My mistake was assuming that the town was sunkissed all year round; all of the photos were taken in the summer, obviously.

Slight gloom aside, Kelowna is a nice little town. Okanagan Lake that separates the east and west portions of the town is a pleasant, scenic stroll.

I headed to the town centre, to get a local perspective, and was greeted by a local chap with a shopping trolley full of what I assume to be his life.

“You’re not gonna get hit eh?”

“I’m sorry?”

I cautiously responded.

“Your fluorescents, no driver’s gonna miss those on the crosswalk!”

I was suddenly aware that I was dressed like a city muppet; my bright yellow-laced trainers (quite the thing in Van), and lack of trucker cap outlining me as “not from round ‘ere”.I jovially agreed.

“Safety first, right?”

“Best way for it. God bless ya!”

He carried on pushing his trolley, leaving me amused that such a conversation just happened, and that he wish me well! In England, I’d have expected just:

“Oi! Twat-trainers! **** off back to the city.”

So even if it’s just the tourist angle I’m getting, people are generally as nice in Canada as their reputation lead me to think before I arrived, and it’s pleasant. We could all do with more of that.

The town centre was in the midst of reconstruction work, with what looks like a pedestrianised area being constructed between the two main coffee shop-lined streets. I chatted to some of the locals, some students from the UBC campus up town, and a couple of bar regulars. All expressed the same view – “this place is dead out of season. Noted, and observed.

So it was a good opportunity to catch up on some reading, sleep and healthy eating (Ok, that last bit’s a lie, I went to Smoke’s one night…). The hostel was good, another of the Samesun chain that I stayed at in Vancouver, and there were some nice people there to chill with.

For future reference, visit Kelowna in the summer. It’s when all of that “awesomeness” that you hear so much about, happens. Alternatively, go in the winter if you’re into skiing; I’ve heard good things about Big White.

Having arrived here on Thursday, I thought I’d post a few topics that I have found to be notable from the past few days. These aren’t necessarily highlights, nor is it an exhaustive account, but instead some general first impressions of the place from someone who has never been here before. Here goes:

Stanley Park

It is safe to say that this place is no secret as every tourist brochure virtually screams about its loveliness, but that fact does nothing to dilute the beauty of this little oasis of nature nestled alongside the downtown part of the city. The first full day that I was in the city was spent wandering the seawall from Canada Place to the Lionsgate Bridge, where I cut in past Beaver Lake and walked uphill toward Prospect Point Café; a cozy spot with a great view and a log burning fire. I still find it surreal to have this type of setup in the midst of a city; you really couldn’t ask for much more if you’re after an outdoorsy lifestyle with the comforts and luxuries of modern life.

How are you today?

I am loathed to use stereotypical comments about nationalities in general (indeed the mere thought of it causes me pause and the need to obsessively adjust my monocle between sips of Earl Grey), but to not say that the Canadians are a broadly polite bunch would be to omit one of the most unmistakably pleasant aspects of the Vancouverite that I have witnessed so far. I had breakfast this morning with a new group; one German, one Czech and one Japanese, and we were unanimous in our recognition and admiration of the way that everyone in this city genuinely seems interested in how you are today. I am not talking about that forced, scripted fixed smile that you get in certain parts of the USA, but a sense of genuine interest. It is completely at odds with what I am used to in the UK, where eye contact is generally frowned upon, and people look at you at best quizzically when you say good morning, and at worst think you are about to mug them (though maybe that’s just my face…).

Homeless People

This is so noticeable that I would be neglectful to not mention it: there are homeless people everywhere in downtown Vancouver. Having discussed it with some people in the city, including one helpful homeless bloke called Patrick (who I mention below), it seems to be the climate that brings those without fixed abode to lie on the streets of this picturesque coastal city. It doesn’t take much figuring out, as at the time of writing Vancouver is one of only a handful of places in Canada where the temperature is currently above freezing, and the causes of them getting there in the first place are the usual combination of rising house prices and lack of unskilled job availability. Hopefully the plans that the city have for the area will improve that in coming years.

Gastown

If they don’t call this the Shoreditch of BC they should, albeit a cleaner less “tagged” version (it seems that Vancouverites aren’t big on graffiti). Bearded hipsters: check, ‘custom’ fixie bikes: check, ironically-named coffee bar called Coffeebar: check, MacBooks and chai lattés everywhere: double check. It doesn’t quite have the edginess that London’s version of a faux-rough neighbourhood has though, and as the oldest part of Vancouver has touristy relevance that I can only imagine irritates the digital natives that dwell there. The barista in Coffeebar wasn’t even able to maintain her fixed expression and deeply trendy nonchalance throughout the entirety of our commercial interation, delivering my drink and snack with a sudden smile. No, no, no, that’s all wrong. You just wouldn’t stand for that sort of politeness in Shoreditch. I didn’t dwell in the coffee shops there for long, and dodged through a flashmob practicing on the pavement outside (yes really, I hadn’t ever though that they did those, isn’t it cheating?), and headed east further into Gastown.

Note
After a few comments saying “dude, why do you hate Gastown?” I thought I should add: I don’t! In fact I really like it! To me it’s like a cleaner, nice version of a part of London that I also like! No hate, just a healthy dollop of sarcasm.

Except it wasn’t Gastown that I was looking at, it was Downtown Eastside.

DTES

I can’t claim to have been completely unaware of Vancouver downtown’s notorious rough district, but I wasn’t sure exactly where it was or whether it was as bad as the locals made it out to be. I headed south west, and met a homeless chap called Patrick walking the other way. We had a good chat, he immediately clocked my accent as English and guessed that everyone will assume that I am Australian (eerily accurate, as I’d been asked what part of Australia I was from in the FatBurger in the Harbour Centre earlier that day).

We had a good chat, he told me his mother was a war bride of a RCAF ground crewman based in Winchelsea, East Sussex; his patter was good, and the details were accurate enough to not just be bullshit, and it beats the usual begging with a cup approach, so I gave him a few dollars for some soup and socks at the nearby community centre. I am not naive enough to assume that is definitely where the money went, but the way I see it he earnt it by giving an Englishman some good Gastown tips (he pointed out a few English-owned pubs in the area that will give you a free pint if you show UK ID!), and his warning to definitely not to go the other side of Cambie Street, and if I was curious to see what it’s like, not to go alone. Ideally drive through it. I thanked him and walked on.

I went right through an alleyway between two trendy shops and was immediately faced with a scene so completely at odds with where I just was moments before. You literally go through a doorway at the end of an alley and go from trendy coffee shops to two people smoking crack whilst leaning on a shopping trolley, in broad bloody daylight! Prime location for some edgy street photography, but Patrick’s warning, my conspicuously bright orange Rab jacket and the fact that I was carrying some expensive kit meant that I didn’t think it was the best time to rock out the Nikon 55-300mm and poke it in some junkie faces. Mark one eyeball then was my camera.

I zigzagged southeast, past a few seriously sketchy looking “hotels”, lots of boarded up windows and a few people thinking that shirt buttons were optional whilst walking down East Cordova Street. It is definitely less plush than Gastown, but it wasn’t exactly on par with a scene from The Wire. Rough, it seems, is relative, and I got out alive without any bother. It just goes to show that you shouldn’t always take doom and gloom warnings at face value, and if I hadn’t gone I wouldn’t have seen how stark the change is when you cross the road back out of the district; it is as if there’s an invisible forcefield surrounding DTES, as the opposite side of the road is completely different at the boundary.

Granville Island

I discovered this place by accident after walking a loop of False Creek, and I am so glad that I did. It has an upmarket seaside vibe, with seafood restaurants and little boutiques. Crucially for me it has an outdoor shop, so I was able to buy some Nikwax for my walking boots – so far the only thing that I have found that I need and have forgotten, and if that really is all I omitted I consider myself lucky!