Taipan tour to Canada east.

Experience - Taipan tour to Canada east.

When my friend/colleague told me on "Taipan tours" to Canada East I was little hesitated  that what could be there in this tour? I have made my mind finally to experience the taipan tours to the cities and towns of Canada east, tour is planned from Toronto(Mississauga)-Kingston- Ottawa- Montreal - Quebec-Thousand Islands- Toronto.

I and my friend got ready early in the morning, got an uber (taxi) and went to the destination point (Mississauga) to onboard the bus. We thought we are earlier however we could see many people waiting there for the bus. We could see 3 pair of older Indian couples, apart from the middle aged family and few others. Five minutes before 6:00 A.M the bus has arrived the boarding point. We got into the bus and after got our allotted seat and so as other were seated. The bus started exactly early morning 6:05 A.M from Mississauga and headed towards the other parts of Greater Toronto Region. After on-boarding all the passengers the bus was full and started to head towards Kingston our first tourist destination.

We had a wonderful guide Mr. Guide(as i could not reveal his name), and he is graduated from Toronto i believe, he is like an encyclopedia of almost all the information on the tour, from history of the road to 1976 Montreal Olympic.

The question few he asked were interesting and no one in the bus able to answer

Q:"what is the meaning of Canada?"

A: Route to the village/ come to the village

Reference: http://canada.pch.gc.ca/eng/1443789176782

The name “Canada” likely comes from the Huron-Iroquois word “kanata,” meaning “village” or “settlement.” In 1535, two Aboriginal youths told French explorer Jacques Cartier about the route to kanata; they were actually referring to the village of Stadacona, the site of the present-day City of Québec.

Q:"How the name Quebec arrived?"

A: narrow part of the river.

The name "Québec", which comes from the Algonquin word kébec meaning "where the river narrows", originally referred to the area around Quebec City where the Saint Lawrence River narrows to a cliff-lined gap.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec

Q:"Why Ottawa is exactly same distance from Toronto and Quebec?"

A:Both French and British wants to have the common place as center point to both the province of Quebec and Ontario, that's why Ottawa is exactly in the distance of almost 450/500 KM from both the Toronto and the Quebec.

Our bus driver (Mr. Driver) got into the 401 to Kingston, till now we heard only the 401; however the actual name of the highway is MC highway,

M-MacDonald, C- Cartier

The naming is to honors two of Canada's Fathers of Confederation, Sir John A. Macdonald (First prime minister of Canada) and Sir George E. Cartier (who is chief architect of the road).

We reached Kingston around 10:30 A.M, Mr. Guide explained about Kingston.

Kingston:

First capital of Canada and due to its close geographical location to United States has later need to lose its position as Capital. Kingston has many universities and one of the universities our guide Mr. Guide was mentioning the Queen's University and Royal Military College of Canada.

Most of the population in the town were the students and they have don’t have other options expect the study as they don’t have much entertainment there in the town. Mr. Guide has stopped the bus near the subway and asked us to go to the public washroom available at the main location of Kingston, unfortunately that was locked that and most of our co-passengers queued up in subway.

Later we had a small lunch in the food complex where Mc Donald, sub way and other restaurants where located. There we had some quick snack and fries.

And everybody got into the bus on the advised time and bus has started towards the Ottawa. We had a little nap before reach Ottawa.

Ottawa:

Capital of Canada and exactly 450 KM distance from Quebec and Toronto cities and separated by the Ottawa River. The Ottawa River is flowing exact in the center of the city and splitting the Ottawa into two parts. One part is in Ontario and other part is in Quebec region. Ottawa has the main attraction as parliament hill, war museum and Cumberland Heritage Village Museum.

Parliament Hill is major attraction has many statues of the prime ministers around the parliament hill. There is fountain in the middle of the parliament lawn; the significance of this fountain is it is having the glowing fire and water fountain in that. The significance is both the fire and water are opposite nature and whenever they join they have the point of peace and harmony in it.

We gather again in the bus and bus has reached the Ottawa war museum, the war has four parts in it,

1) Pre-world war or war of aborigines in Canada.

2) First world war

3) Second World war

4) Post second world war

All the parts have detailed message and information in it, the battle tanks, guns , automated guns and other equipment are realistic and giving us a thought of standing in a war field. The uniform of soldiers and the accessories are self-explaining and explain the difficulties and challenges of the soldiers.

After the nostalgic memories about the war we boarded into the bus and bus has started its journey to the Montreal, the major and business city of Quebec.

Before reaching Montreal we were stopped for a buffet in the out skirts of the Montreal. Buffet is in Chinese restaurant, as a south Indian my preference is definitely not pork and beef, and sesame oil is major cooking oil for Chinese not for my style of eating, so I found little difficult in having the buffet. Even my friend had the same difficult. If you are good foodie of Chinese dishes then the food would be awesome I guess.

Montreal:

Montreal is major business city of the Quebec. We were dropped in the four star hotel in the Montreal and asked to stay there in overnight, and was advised to start early in the morning. Montreal has much attraction it seems and night life is also good in the Montreal. However if you know French then it would be a nice city to look around in the night. The hotel was well maintained and had nice facilities, and funny is they don’t have the drinking water there. So we are forced to get the water bottles from the lending machines with dollars.

Next day morning we have visited two churches

1) Notre-Dame Basilica

Very nice architecture and well sculptured statues and very good ambience, very nice church to see and enjoy the artistic work of the craftsmen.

2) Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal

Known for St. Andrew , And saint Andrew heart has been kept in the jar for the visitors view, so that good people heart are kept for the display and people should understand the saint sacrifices and his preaching. Very large Roman Catholic Church I have ever seen. Mr. Guide was explaining patiently about the church and importance of the church and explained about one of the big churches of North America.

After the church visit had little snack and sandwich as breakfast in the church cafeteria and started to the Olympic stadium.

1976 Summer Olympics is big financial burden to Montreal it seems. Now also they are trying to clear the debt due to the Olympic with the increased tax. However the Olympic stadium is now hosting the Bio dome, the greatest tourist attraction. Bio dome has different animals, birds and other endangered animals and birds. The Bio Dome is good for adults and definitely a worth place for the kids to visit.

After the Bio dome we have started for our journey to the Quebec City. In between the bus has stopped for the lunch in the regular hotel aligned with the tour operators. I and my friend want to try the small café at a walkable distance from the lunch buffet. We got into small restaurant which is managed by French ladies, and ladies there have managed with little English and finally we got our own dishes and had it there in the restaurant. While coming back we got drinking water from the nearest gas station. By that time other passengers got out of the buffet, gathered and boarded in the bus.

Quebec:

Next bus started and headed towards the Quebec city, again we had little nap and reached the city of Quebec.

Mr. Guide was explaining us about the Quebec few things are,

1) Place were French always dominated English people in the war

2) 400 years old city

3) City surrounded by walls in North America, other city is New Mexico City

4) No Exterior change only interior changes for the 400 years to preserve the city authenticity.

5) UNESCO Heritage center and many significance places.

After reaching there we were stunned with the architecture and nature of construction, the coastal old town, the harbor, old town gathering place and other things were good in Quebec City. Mr. Guide asked some of us to join a buffet, however I and my friend waited for the Indian restaurant and we were roaming in the Atlantic farms and seen the beauty on the city by walking around the coastal path way to Atlantic farms.

That night we have stayed in the renowned 4 star hotel after having biryani the favorite Indian dish from an Indian restaurant.

The next day morning we have left the beautiful Quebec town and headed to thousand islands. Again the brunch buffet in Chinese hotel this time myself and my friend had a brunch there in the hotel. Few of my co-passengers had the subway snacks and burgers.

Thousand islands:

After the Brunch everybody boarded the bus and the journey started to the thousand islands. After having a sleep for 1 hour Mr. Guide waked up with a good morning message (to wake up all the passengers he used to say the good morning message).Thousand island is archipelago of 1,864 islands on the St. Lawrence River bank between the US and Canada in the Ontario lake. Mr. Guide started to explain on the thousand islands, he told some minimum requirements to consider a land mass as island, like one tree, 10sq feet of land, something like that I forgot the exact standards. Once we reached thousand islands port/dock Mr. Guide rushed to the ticket counter to get the tickets and he advised us stand in the queue to get the small cruise ship for a one hour travel to the thousand islands archipelago .

We waited for a while and everybody on boarded the cruise of capacity around 250 plus passengers. The cruise is three storey and we got into the top storey. Many young ladies and girls are with makeups and proper attire, got ready for the photos to be shooting in the thousand islands.

Cruise slowly started and took and U-turn and started to sailing in the waters. The water is cold and wind started to flow around the entire boat, everybody started to shoot the photos all around the cruise. That is the wonderful river with lot of small islands around the way. There was a connecting bridge on top of the river connecting US and Canada by road. I have never seen anything like that natural islands in my life and each island had small home in it and I believe during summer they will enjoy the home in the island. The entire home in the islands have a separate dock to anchorage the boat to go their house.

The BOLDT CASTLE is the major attraction of all the islands, the cruise headed towards the BOLDT castle island. The cloud surrounded and it started raining while we were travelling in the cruise. The rain, cruise on the river, with wet hair and comfortable weather of around 10-15 C was a good experience to everybody in the boat. I and my friend enjoyed a tea in the cafeteria in the cruise and we came to the side of the cruise to enjoy the drizzle, coffee and of course the selfie of our self. The Cruise made a round trip around the BOLDT castle and it was and awesome castle to see and I thought I need to come back again to have a visit to the boltd castle. The cruise made a U-turn around the castle and travelled to the starting dock were we boarded. Now everybody tired with the photo-shoot and start to thinking of when we can reach the Toronto. Once cruise reached the dock, everybody got out of the cruise and boarded the bus. I had an satisfaction within me that I have spent a long weekend properly with that tour. Once we boarded into the bus we headed to the Toronto and Mr. Guide thanked the whole passengers and asked to forgive him, if he spoke something wrong on other.

Mr. Guide is encyclopedia of each places and definitely he done his job perfectly. We all thanked him with warm claps in the bus. We had a stop near Kingston for tea and snack called Big Apple. And we reached Toronto on time around evening 7.

Finally I am going to summarize what are the mistakes we have done so that others who are looking for the tour can get some hints on this. I have disclosed that in the form tips are below,

Tips:

· Get a good carryon bag.

· Buy set of bottles, say 12-24 bottles and have it stuffed in the carryon bag.

· Have cash around 200 per head, so that we may need to give to Mr. Guide

· Have fruits and biscuits in the bag.

· Good camera.

· Have mobile charges with you and you can charge in the bus and Wi-Fi will be enabled throughout the travel.

· Wifi will be available in the hotel as well

· Have good pair of shoes as we may need to walk and stand more.

· Tooth brush and paste are essential

· If you want carry the shampoo and conditioner with you if not we can get shampoo from hotels.

· Have plastic bags with you to put wastage in the plastic bags.

· If you don’t like the buffet have some subway and pizza whenever the bus get stopped, try to buy one or two sand witches and have it while feel hungry.

· If you are music lovers, download good music and videos. And watch it in the bus, whenever feel bored.

· Read articles about the cities in the Wikipedia to get more interest on these places, if not check in the mobile using the Wi-Fi and just know little more on these places so that the tour would be interesting.

· Use the washrooms in the stop places and Mr. Guide always insisted that, and everybody got that practiced and whenever bus stopped our steps will walk towards washrooms involuntarily.

Food:

· Take snack bars.

· Have some cakes.

· For Indians especially vegetarians, if you don’t want to taste the buffet. Get chapattis and other food items for the first day and if possible for second day.

· Two places we have stayed one night in Montreal and other is Quebec.

· In Both the places we have the Indian restaurants we can search in the internet by early evening and plan accordingly.

· If possible call and check with the hotel on the availability of food.

· Get some takeaway for next day breakfast if possible.

· Mostly we have started early in the morning from hotels we would not be able to have the complimentary breakfast there in the hotel. Complimentary breakfast was chargeable in the hotel, however that is nominal I guess.

· Food is our own expense so if spend with cognizance we can save a lot and have good food around the tour.

Overall it is a value for money tour, and if we are planning the food properly it would be a nice and good sightseeing and will be good experience.

The total cost per head is around 200-250+100(entrances fees gratitude) +food expenses. For me the expense reached to 400CAD, and I am think it is worth as staying in the hotel for night itself will cost you around 200CAD.