Loitering in London

March 23 - 25, 2017

A Picture of the Tower Bridge on the way back from
breakfast

The sad fact was that we had to leave the Seychelles - and so we did. Gym wanted to stay there but it wasn't possible. A calculation was made as to how much time the intrepid couple could stay on that beautiful island if they were to liquidate all of Gym's savings, and sadly, it was a shorter period of time then Gym would have liked. Hence, the intrepid couple found themselves winging on up through the Middle East and across Europe on the first part of the homeward journey. The return to YYC would be punctuated by a short stop in London to visit friends and to break up the trip a little bit.

We landed in Heathrow the day after Keith Palmer, 48, a brave London policeman was stabbed by a Islamic terrorist. The brave officer who died in front of the Parliament, was killed after the same terrorist had driven across the Westminster Bridge at high speed and deliberately ploughed through throngs of pedestrians, killing 3 and injuring 40 others. On our way into our hotel at Ten Trinity Square, we passed Trafalgar Square where the police were present in great numbers preparing that very iconic public space for a candlelight vigil that would be held there that night in honour of those poor pedestrians and that brave officer.

We would be staying at the new Four Seasons Hotel in London which was built into part of the former London Port Authority Building. It looks across the Trinity Square Gardens to The Tower of London. The building can be seen in the James Bond movie, Skyfall. In one scene, Daniel Craig is running down the street and he ducks into the hotel lobby. And the hotel must have been built with James Bond in mind because our room was filled with all kinds of modern electronic gadgets, including a remote-controlled TV, in the mirror. It was a very cool hotel room and although they were still working out the kinks when we were there in March, it was still a very impressive accommodation, managed by the very professional Four Seasons staff.

On our arrival, we were allowed to check-in early and the plan was to have a nap and then get out and start exploring. Unfortunately, our nap turned into a longer term project than we had intended and we ended up saving all our energy for our only full day in London, which was the next day.

The next day, we woke up to a cool and overcast London morning and planned to try out a breakfast place that Gym had found on Tripadvisor. The Table Cafe was the target and we set off across The London bridge and into Southwark, where we found the desired venue which was crowded, almost to capacity. They squeezed us in between groups of British businessmen having breakfast meetings. For some reason Gym's breakfast sandwich really hit the spot. It was toasted sourdough bread, laden with guacamole and bacon. It was great! Perhaps it was the combination of our long power-nap and/or the 1.3 mile hike from our hotel but Gym had been happily satiated. Gym's dear wife's oatmeal with fruit, nuts and honey was also highly rated. We would return to the hotel passing through The Borough Market and walking past the very modern London City Hall, then crossing the Thames on the Tower Bridge.

Later that afternoon, we met up with our friends the Anderson's who had come in to Central London to meet us. They had taken the train up from Southend-on-Sea. We first met them in Viet Nam in 2011 and have kept up with them since that time. Over the past 6 years we have arranged to meet 3 times in England, once in Ireland and they have even come over to Calgary to spend time with us at home. This summer, we plan to meet them again at our summer cottage. We would return to Southwark with the Anderson's to have a late lunch at the Founders Arms Pub. The food wasn't that good but the company and the river views were wonderful. After lunch, we walked down the Thames, past the hotel and beyond.

The Anderson's took us on a walking tour of St. Katharine's Docks. This is a very successful urban re-development of an area that originally was the site of a run-down, waterfront-warehouse complex that was badly damaged by bombing in WWII. Today, it is a popular high-end community that includes upscale boutique office space, hotels, restaurants and trendy, high-priced residential units that surround a yachting marina. One of the only buildings to survive from before the recent re-development is The Dickens Inn which in some form existed prior to the turn of the 18th Century. St. Katharine's Docks is where the Queen's royal barge, Gloriana is moored.

After the stroll, we left the Anderson's at the entrance to the Tower Hill Station and they would take the train nonstop, back to their home station of Shoeburyness, about an hour and 20 minutes down the Thames.

It was a full day and we had walked over 9 miles. The activity on that day made up for the lack of activity the day before. In the morning, we would take a taxi (pre-arranged, 50-pound deal) to the airport and finish the last leg of our journey home.

Arriving in Calgary, we were tired and it was time to get home and do the laundry.  However, there was an unplanned hiccup after we picked up our car and started driving home on Deerfoot Trail. We had a flat tire! It was a real letdown. I wasn't about to change it on the freeway so we phoned a tow truck and had the car towed home. The perfect holiday had ended in a fuzzy and not-so-perfect manner. They say bad things happen in threes and they are right because when we finally got home I had a photo radar speeding ticket in the mail on the kitchen counter and after getting the spare on the vehicle and taking it to the shop, I learned I would have to replace all 4 tires. We should have stayed in the Seychelles!

Things have settled down now and we are already planning our next trip. We will be back in Europe in the fall. It should be a very good blogging because both of the Gym children will be accompanying us on part of the trip, as well as our daughter's significant other. Stay tuned!

The is the former London Port Authority Building,
once the tallest building in London.
Now, the first two floors house the Four Seasons Hotel

Now the second Four Season's hotel in London
is located at Ten Trinity Square. Inside the entrance is a plaque
that reveals that the hotel entrance was within longbow range
of the walls of the Tower of London which you face as you come out of the hotel.

The Tower of London, an arrow shot from Ten Triinity

On the way after breakfast we visited The Borough Market

So much colour and variety 

......beautiful display 

and happy merchants.

On the way back to the hotel we walked beside the HMS Belfast, WW2 British
Battleship that has been retired on the Thames and can now be rented for corporate functions.

We met our friends Roland and Brenda for lunch
on the Thames and after we crossed the "Wobbly Bridge" with them
on our way to explore St. Katharine's Docks. This is a cool picture of the
British Duo with St. Paul's Cathedral in the background.

St. Katherine's Docks with the Queen's Barge, Gloriana
parked along the trendy quay.

   

Savouring the Seychelles

March 2017

Today I thought I should close the loop on a few of the sub-plots that have been developing and provide a report on whether we accomplished some of the goals we had set for ourselves.

First Gym would like to dwell on the fauna of the Seychelles and report that both land creatures and sea creatures exceeded our expectations.

Of interest to my readers, two national geographic struggles of species vs. species have been unfolding around Gym since he arrived here in the Seychelles. These epic struggles have both been daily occurrences and Gym has been very fortunate to capture bits of both these struggles pictorially.

1. The Grey Heron vs. Four Seasons and it's Koi Pond dwellers:

Most days we see a beautiful Grey Heron sitting on top of the ZEZ Restaurant which is the main dining room at the resort. He is waiting for a chance to swoop in and grab some of the hotel's expensive koi that they have been stocking in the pond near the entrance way. The staff have been trained to shush him away but he is patient and when the staff aren't looking and there are no kids around, he can be found where he is not supposed to be.

The beautiful Grey Heron

The unfortunate victims

The Heron's perch when pesky Four Season's
staff are around.

He knew Gym and Mrs. Gym wouldn't shush him away because we are kindly humans and we needed a picture. I am sure that Mr. Heron, who is just doing his job, costs the hotel a few rupees.



2. The second grand struggle is also a daily affair. It is between a male Zebra Dove and Mrs. Gym. Every day the dove will visit our sun-deck and loudly insist that the villa is his, not ours. However, when asked to produce a room rental receipt he refuses. Mrs. Gym stands her ground to ensure that the interloper does not enter the villa and mess up the rooms. The following pictures need no explanation:

As is always the case, the dominant species wins out.

In addition to these one-on-one struggles, The Four Seasons sponsors its very owns coral regeneration initiative. As you may already know, the corals have been dying because the sea water is too warm. The Petit Anse project involves hanging bits of young coral on steel rebar about ten meters out from the granite cliffs that frame the southern part of the bay. If the young coral animals survive a year or two and start to grow then they are moved out further into the bay to form new colonies. An organization called WiseOceans is teamed up with the hotel in this regard. WiseOceans staff are always on hand at the resort to help snorkelers identify fish that they may have seen on their swims and to monitor the coral regeneration program. Gym took the picture below from their website (with permission).

This is coral regeneration in progress at Petit Anse. Gym can also say
that the fish you see are Damselfish.

Gym and Mrs. Gym would also like to report that the beaches here are the finest beaches we have ever walked on. They are coral-sand beaches and sure they get messed up a bit after a storm but those little bits of coral that collect in the bay here are wonderful, bright white and powdery. Yesterday, I learned that some of the "sand" is created by parrotfish that actually devour the coral and poop out the sand fragments. One type of fish in particular, the Bumphead Parrotfish actually bashes coral to smithereens. Unfortunately, Gym did not see any of these in action but the WiseOcean instructor had seen some during our stay. Gym's sightings so far include Parrotfish, Damselfish, Striped Surgeonfish, Cornetfish and many others. I think the variety of fish and the presence of fish like the Parrotfish mean the reef here is relatively healthy (although WiseOcean staff have indicated that the water is a little too warm at present and there has been some bleaching).

Our powdery coral beach at Petit Anse

The weather here is consistently warm and so far there has been very little rain. Most days, like today which is our last in the Seychelles, the ocean is smooth as glass and there is very little cloud cover. White guys have to slather on the sunscreen.

The people here are all very friendly and have no attitude like you get from some of the folks in the Caribbean. This is in spite of the fact that many of the Seychellois have eaten fruit bat. I invite you to google Marie Antoinette's Restaurant in Victoria and pull up the menu which features fruit bat, in season.  Mrs. Gym didn't want to eat there.

By now, the staff all know us by name and it is unfortunately time to leave this island. We will be flying out tonight on Emirates to Dubai and then on to London for a  couple of days to visit some friends. I will send a post from London detailing our time there and wrapping this vacation up.

P.S. I have since learned that La Reduit Restaurant serves an excellent fruit bat curry.

The Pralin and La Digue Landings

A Breadfruit Tree! You have to try breadfruit fries,
they are delicious.

March 2017

On Saturday morning, Gym asked the guide if she had ever eaten a fruit bat. She said no but told us that her mother eats them all the time. She said her mom recommended that when one cooked fruit bats you should purchase two bats per person because one bat didn't have enough meat on it.

In addition to passing on the fruit bat anecdote, our guide provided us with a wonderful tour of the second and third most populated islands in the Seychelles. She was an expert on the traditional methods of manufacturing coconut oil and all of the endemic flora and fauna of these two unique islands. The tour itself however was arduous to say the least, especially in the +30C heat and humidity. We started at 0600 in the morning and didn't get back to our villa until 2100 that evening. We were so tired we skipped dinner and crashed that night.

To start the tour we were to go down to the lobby to pick up a takeout breakfast that the hotel had prepared for us and then jumped in a cart which took us to the main entrance. At the main entrance, we were met by a mini-bus which spirited us up and over Mahe's central ridge and down into the capital where we picked up our tickets for the ferry to Praslin. This was all arranged by the Creole Tours Company. We then zipped across to Praslin in a modern high-speed ferry and made the landing there only to jump on another smaller ferry to cross over to La Digue. When we hit the terminal at La Digue, our heads were spinning a little bit from the multiple precise transitions between various forms of transportation, but we were ready to tour.

La Digue is the smaller of the two islands we visited that day. Our itinerary would have us tour a traditional coconut oil manufacturing plant and then visit the iconic Anse Source d'Argent. The scenes of this beach show up on numerous post cards of the Seychelles Islands because of the unique granite boulders that stick up out of the sand and the surf. Gym went snorkelling here but it was low tide and the pickings were slim. After a couple of hours on Anse Source d'Argent, we then drove through town, which reminded Gym of many places in the Caribbean. Then the tour stopped for lunch at an open-air restaurant where they served a nice, complimentary buffet-style meal. All was well until it was made known to Mrs. Gym that the drinks were extra and she was forced to fork over 210 rupees (about 20 loonies) for two sparkling waters. In hindsight we should have had a beer, like our new American friend Dave had. Dave savoured a Seybrew which is of course the local lager. The consensus seems to be that it stacks up well against most tropical brews.

After lunch we got back on the inter-island ferry and returned to Praslin. We were processed trough the terminal and jumped on a tour bus with our Creole Tours guide. The next stop was Praslin National Park and the very impressive Vallee de Mai Nature Preserve. This was the climax of the day because we were to tour through a palm forrest where the Coco du Mer and five other endemic palm trees grow naturally. The nature preserve has a very high quality interpretive centre and a series of good quality and well sign-posted hiking trails. Our guide gave us an excellent lecture on the life cycle of the Coco du Mer and the other five native palm trees in that forrest. It turns out that one species of gecko in its travels from the male tree to the female tree is responsible for fertilizing the seed of the Coco du Mer and propagating the species. We also spotted the endemic Black Parrot feeding on one of the other native palms and apparently you have to be lucky to see one of those. There are less than 1000 birds in the whole world and the entire breeding population lives on Praslin.

We had finally found the home of the Coco du Mer but there was one more stop before leaving Praslin. We would speed across the island on our tour bus to spend an hour at another iconic Seychelles beach, this time we were to invade Anse Lazio. As our tour bus driver pretended he was Ricky Bobby and he sped past the doddling ex-pats in there rented KIAs, we had just about reached our limits and were getting tired. It had already been a long day. So, when we finally lurched into the beach we only had time to take a couple of pictures and then tried to rest up a bit for the bone-jarring return trip across the island.

After winning the rally across Praslin we were poured out onto the terminal dock and queued for the ferry. Our friend Dave grabbed another Seybrew and we all sat in air-conditioned comfort during a smooth one-hour crossing back to Mahe. From there we jumped back into a minivan and drove back up and over the spine of Mahe to our home above Petit Anse. We had completed the two-island tour in one very full day and we slept very well that night.

The ferry terminal on Mahe

Sighting a tall ship on the crossing to Praslin

Landing on Praslin

Crossing over to La Digue and just offshore of it you can see
examples of the boulders that are unique to that island.

A European "volunteer" dehusking a coconut

His name is Victor and he walks around in circles powering the grinder
that extracts the oil from the dried coconut meat.

Mrs. Gym emerging from the drying shack

The cool traditionally built house was claimed by the former
President of the Seychelles. It has since been given back to
the people and you can now check out the island construction
techniques that were used in times past.

This is a panorama of La Digue's Anse Source d'Argent

The boulders of Anse Sourc d'Argent. Gym snorkeled here.

looking the other way

The really cool pathway to the beach

This is the view from the restaurant where Mrs. Gym paid $21 for bottled water

This is a live Coco du Mer tree growing in its natural habitat on Praslin

Coco du Mer trees owe so much to these geckos.

This is actually a picture of a black parrot. Sorry it is not clear but
it is  authentic.

Praslin's iconic beach of Anse Lazio

Anse Lazio

Gym took this picture last night on the eve of his mom's birthday.
It is a view looking out towards Africa  from Mahe.
It was as if she painted it herself.

Visiting Victoria

March 2017

We learned today that Danny has eaten fruit bats. "It tastes like chicken with a lot more bones", he told us. It was his opinion that bats are best in stews, served with rice but that fruit bat, as a choice of protein, is not his favourite. He prefers a fresh red snapper caught that morning out of the Indian Ocean by one of his own family. He comes from a family of fishermen. It was our luck to have Danny drive us from our home above Petit Anse to the capital city in Victoria the other day, for a four-hour tour of the capital. And he seemed fine, unaffected by having consumed the fruit bats.

Some surprising facts were revealed to us today. One of the things that sticks in my mind is how much foreign aid the Seychelles has received from the UAE and specifically from Sheikh Khalifa himself. Sheikh Khalifa is the President of the UAE and the Emir of Abu Dhabi. There have been at least two injections of capital from the UAE which have provided an upgrade for the hospital in Victoria (that now bears the sheikh's name) and an upgrade to the Seychelles's naval patrol boats which protect all us tourists.

At first, you might think that this foreign aid is a very generous gesture on behalf of the UAE but there were some strings attached. Sheikh Khalifa got to buy up several plots of prime real estate in the Seychelles to build luxury hotels, including the Four Seasons Hotel where Gym and Mrs. Gym have been nesting for several days now. Four Seasons, that great Canadian company that does such a great job managing this hotel, does it for Sheikh Khalifa and a Saudi prince who is his partner. They  own the land and buildings.

The Sheikh also got to build himself a pretty big shack up on the top of the mountain overlooking Victoria for injecting all of that cash into the Seychelles and some of the locals were not happy about this especially when he flooded the neighbourhood below the palace with sewage from the work-camp where his imported Southeast Asian workers lived while the palace was under construction. The Sheikh offered a settlement of 8,000 dollars per affected household. Today only his palace skirts the law that restricts the height of any development in the Seychelles to the height of a coconut tree. So obviously the Sheikh has some connections on the islands.

Having just sort of slammed Mr. Khalifa in the preceding paragraphs, you have to admit that his investments here have made the country more attractive and safer. And lets face it, the Seychellois needed the investment. Let's just hope that future investments by foreigners don't take anything away from the unique Seychelles experience that future visitor's will expect after reading Gym's blog.

There is other recent development in Victoria. Much of it is on land reclaimed from the sea. We went over to Eden Island to check some of that out. Eden Island is an upscale, mixed use development that is built on an artificial island. It is quite posh and although we didn't get to see the residential areas which are gated, we strolled through the village mall and stopped for some ice cream overlooking the grand yachts moored in the harbour.

The highlight for Gym the foodie, was a visit to the  main market in Victoria, a must see attraction. The sights, the sounds and the aromas are unforgettable. It is also a good place to watch the locals interacting in their native Creole. Mrs. Gym skipped a close inspection of the fish tables which were loaded with a wide assortment of fresh tuna, red snapper, grouper and kingfish. Both Gym and Mrs. Gym enjoyed inspecting colourful spice, vegetable and fruit tables at the market. After buying some spices, our heros walked across the street to visit the Cathedral and since it was Lent and St. Patrick's Day to boot, Gym nipped in to offer some Hail Mary's for everybody important to Gym except Donald Trump.

It is consistently warm, calm and although it is humid, it has not rained except for a brief period on our second day here.

My next blog will detail our trip to the iconic islands of Praslin and La Digue.

Mrs. Gym at the lookout from the highway above Victoria.
You can just see the airport in the middle background.

Sheihk Khalifa's crib on the mountain overlooking the
capital. 

Looking down on Eden Island from the lookout. A giant yacht
takes up more than one parking spot.

We had some ice cream overlooking the yachts
when we were at Eden Island.

The promenade at Eden Island has a sort of Dubai feel.

Nice looking red snappers at the market.

This one speaks for itself

Here is an example of a spice display table. We spent some rupees
at this table.  The saffron was a steal of a deal.

Now check this out! It may not look like it but this is an avocado
grown in the Seychelles. 

This is a Hindu temple in Victoria. Many merchants are Hindu.

The inside of Victoria's Catholic Cathedral, Our Lady of Immaculate
Conception.

We hiked around the Botanical Garden in Victoria and Mrs. Gym took
this nice shot at the Thai Garden. It is a shot through the gate of a goat statue.
Generally speaking we have seen better botanical gardens and my
criticism would be that this one needs some work. The jungle is winning the battle and
someone needs to get the Sheikh to drop some rupees on this attraction.