Surrey, BC Part 3: Moving On

Friday the 3rd of August

We are up early again, and after breakfast and the last bit of work on the PC we have to get Charlie's little Mitsubishi digger/dozer ready for a friend who's borrowing it. Charlie cranks her up and takes her for a wheel across the top of the garden, wasteground overgrown with weeds. He rolls up and down for several happy minutes tearing up bushes and leaving a great swathe of bare earth with the blade, gets briefly stuck, pushes himself out with the blade and pronounces her ready to go.

I spend most of the day car-cleaning again - this time the grey Chevy. In the evening I squeeze in another couple of hours working on the blog and uploading photographs. Charlie joins me and I bring up a map of Vancouver and the island, and he takes me through the major locations and places to go - in his time he's been all over Vancouver Island working and holidaying. I decide to land on the east coast (in the town of Nanaimo), go north then cross the island to get to Torfino on the west coast, which sounds like a really beautiful beach town, and roam around there a bit.

However, I have also had an email from Yohtsuke who I met in Niagara Falls. He has returned to Vancouver and won't allow me to pass through the area without stopping in the city. In particular the following night will be the 4th and final night of the huge firework display in English Bay. He invites me to come up and meet him, and go on to Vancouver Island on the following day. I gladly accept, once again getting that feeling that unseen forces are guiding me towards every possible worthwhile experience on this trip.

Saturday the 4th of August

In the morning, after finishing off the detailing on the silver Chevy, Charlie uses it to drop me to the Skytrain station. It's the first time I've ridden in it, and partway there he finds an empty stretch of road and demonstrates the serious power under the shiny bonnet by putting his food down and going from 0-100kph in about 5 seconds.

With his usual gruff grandfatherly concern my host makes sure I'm on the right line, shows me how to get my ticket, warns me to look out for crackheads then sees me off with a hearty "Now get the fuck out, we don't want you here any more!". Then I'm on the Skytrain heading west, behind me more people I'm going to really miss. Charlie and Mary haven't just provided for me, given me a bed and good food, but they've been like family for a little while. And of course I'll miss Chico attacking my legs on the way upstairs to breakfast in the morning.

The view is immediately magnificent as the train rises out of Surrey and over the water, but it's a packed train and I feel uncomfortable snapping away too much as I stand there with my huge rucksack - I feel like I'm labelled as a tourist too much already. I don't want to be a tourist, I want to be Michael Palin or John Simpson, a world traveller, blending into the crowd but observing everything.

Jim back in Winnipeg took me by a flag store before I left and I bought two little Union Jacks to put on my pack for hitch-hiking - he reckoned I'd get more rides. I'm sure he was right, but I used them once then buried them in my shoulder bag. I kind of felt like I was putting myself out as an exhibit. I suppose we all want to be the observer but unobserved really. I have a friend back in Bedford who says he wants to go through life wearing a t-shirt that reads "I Am Not a Tourist." I understand what he means now.

I take the Skytrain all the way to Burrard where I plan to meet Yo later, thinking such thoughts and feeling a bit threatened by the dense crowd in the carriage. As usual the city crowd seems a bit hostile and closed-off, then all of a sudden the two girls in the seat in front of me turn around and start talking to me - having seen the rucksack they want to know where I'm going and where I'm from. I feel considerably more optimistic as I climb the steps at Burrard and get my first glimpse of the Vancouver skyline.

Mark Hewitt is an English foodie, cook, philosopher, geek, shaman and writer. At the start of 2007 he sold or gave away almost all his possessions and left on a backpacking journey round the world, the purpose being (at least in part) to figure out why he would want to do such a thing. You can follow his journey and find other articles at: Seeking An Extraordinary Life.