Right since Vinay had decided to come to Canada he was always talking about the 'Canada Rockies'. I had never heard of the existence of 'Canada Rockies' and I suspect few do. But, it was during the spectacular journey from Vancouver to Edmonton via the TransCanada train, that i began to to appreciate what 'Canada Rockies' were and what a wonderful opportunity we had to explore them.
Canada Rockies encompasses about five national parks of which 4 (Banff, Jasper, Kootenay and Yoho) are close together and have been declared a World Heritage site. We had passed through the Jasper national park while coming from Vancouver so we thought that we should see Banff first and then see if we can manage a more leisurely tour of Jasper some other time. We fixed the date of going to Banff as 28th September and booked a room in the Mount Royal Hotel on Banff Avenue. Since we didn't have a car we figured that staying at the center of the Banff town would be a good idea as we would be close to the public transport as well as the restaurants. The next step was booking tickets on the 'Greyhound bus service' to go to Banff. We thought of going on friday afternoon so that when we reached Banff at night we could get our rest for the rigourous hiking activities we had planned.
On 28th September afternoon we went to the Greyhound bus depot in Edmonton. We arrived well before our scheduled time at 2:15 and were in the waiting room when we came to realise that the earlier 1:15 bus had not come yet. I was surprised to note that buses do come late even in Canada. Thankfully our bus was on schedule and we got on the bus. But, since the bus was already full we didn't get seats next to each other. The most impressive thing about this bus service was that there was a toilet on the bus!! Another intersting thing is that here for long distance travel in bus, we have to checkin our luggage similar to what we do for flights. The bus journey to Calgary was delayed because of a traffic jam on the Trans Canada highway. We reached Calgary at about 6:30. Looking out of the window i could see numerous skyscrapers, beautiful sculptures in the center of squares and i felt that Calgary resembled the glamorousVancouver more than Edmonton which has a 'quiet town' feel to it. Unfortunately due to the traffic jam we missed our connecting bus and had to wait for half an hour for the next bus.
Calgary-Banff is only about 1 and half an hour journey but the bus driver decided to break it off at Calmore for a coffee break at Tim Horton's. We were drinking coffee and eating Cheese Bagels when we suddenly realised that nobody from the bus was at the cafe. We went running to the bus to find out that the bus driver was pulling out from the parking and was going off. Thankfully he stopped when we started running after him and when we got on the bus all the passengers were laughing. I almost cringed with embarassment as it was the first time in my life that such a thing had happened. I made a mental note to keep a lookout for the driver at all times in the future.After 20 minutes journey we got down to Banff.
The moment we got down i could feel the cold. It was 9:30 in the night and we started towards our hotel with the aid of 'Google maps'. We could see a faint silhouette of mountains but nothing clear in the dark. Walking down the streets i thought we were taking a wildlife tour, what with the street names being named after the wild animals found around Banff - Lynx Street, Bear Street, Squirrel Street, Wolverine Street and so on. I thought it innovative of these people to name their streets in this fashion. We got to our hotel in a very short time passing through quite crowded streets (which in itself is an anomaly because back in Edmonton ,streets are almost deserted by 9) and open shops(in Edmonton most shops close at by 7). We checked in the hotel, had dinner and called in an early night planning to getup early for hiking.
Canada Rockies encompasses about five national parks of which 4 (Banff, Jasper, Kootenay and Yoho) are close together and have been declared a World Heritage site. We had passed through the Jasper national park while coming from Vancouver so we thought that we should see Banff first and then see if we can manage a more leisurely tour of Jasper some other time. We fixed the date of going to Banff as 28th September and booked a room in the Mount Royal Hotel on Banff Avenue. Since we didn't have a car we figured that staying at the center of the Banff town would be a good idea as we would be close to the public transport as well as the restaurants. The next step was booking tickets on the 'Greyhound bus service' to go to Banff. We thought of going on friday afternoon so that when we reached Banff at night we could get our rest for the rigourous hiking activities we had planned.
On 28th September afternoon we went to the Greyhound bus depot in Edmonton. We arrived well before our scheduled time at 2:15 and were in the waiting room when we came to realise that the earlier 1:15 bus had not come yet. I was surprised to note that buses do come late even in Canada. Thankfully our bus was on schedule and we got on the bus. But, since the bus was already full we didn't get seats next to each other. The most impressive thing about this bus service was that there was a toilet on the bus!! Another intersting thing is that here for long distance travel in bus, we have to checkin our luggage similar to what we do for flights. The bus journey to Calgary was delayed because of a traffic jam on the Trans Canada highway. We reached Calgary at about 6:30. Looking out of the window i could see numerous skyscrapers, beautiful sculptures in the center of squares and i felt that Calgary resembled the glamorousVancouver more than Edmonton which has a 'quiet town' feel to it. Unfortunately due to the traffic jam we missed our connecting bus and had to wait for half an hour for the next bus.
Calgary-Banff is only about 1 and half an hour journey but the bus driver decided to break it off at Calmore for a coffee break at Tim Horton's. We were drinking coffee and eating Cheese Bagels when we suddenly realised that nobody from the bus was at the cafe. We went running to the bus to find out that the bus driver was pulling out from the parking and was going off. Thankfully he stopped when we started running after him and when we got on the bus all the passengers were laughing. I almost cringed with embarassment as it was the first time in my life that such a thing had happened. I made a mental note to keep a lookout for the driver at all times in the future.After 20 minutes journey we got down to Banff.
The moment we got down i could feel the cold. It was 9:30 in the night and we started towards our hotel with the aid of 'Google maps'. We could see a faint silhouette of mountains but nothing clear in the dark. Walking down the streets i thought we were taking a wildlife tour, what with the street names being named after the wild animals found around Banff - Lynx Street, Bear Street, Squirrel Street, Wolverine Street and so on. I thought it innovative of these people to name their streets in this fashion. We got to our hotel in a very short time passing through quite crowded streets (which in itself is an anomaly because back in Edmonton ,streets are almost deserted by 9) and open shops(in Edmonton most shops close at by 7). We checked in the hotel, had dinner and called in an early night planning to getup early for hiking.
