Tadoussac

the town of tadoussac...

our quaint little hostel tucked away in a quaint little town...
bonjour everybody!

today is our second day in Tadoussac, the whale town of canada. so this morning we set out to see whales! it cost us 60 bucks each man! so we had better see some whales!

after breakfast, we set off at 9.30 am for the bay. there were 2 choices, 1 was to sit in a speedboat and the other one was to take a comfortable cruise. our guide recommended the speedboat one as it would be more fun. so we were dressed like spacemen with our big waterproof jackets and pants that they provided. and we drove off in the boat with 6 passengers and a driver.

introducing... team Ba Zang!

it was super cold! and the wind was brutal...kept blowing at us til we got headache. shan almost got seasick (at the end part) and my fingers almost frostbite! after the jerky bumpy ride out to the middle of the st. lawrence river we waited patiently for whales....soon the guide suddenly honked his horn and pointed out in the distance, saying there was a whale...there before our eyes was a huge finback! soon after we saw a few minke whales...

we ended the ride after 3 hours. unfortunately we did not see blue whale ciz they haven;t arrived back north from mexico now yet. later in the afternoon we went on a hike round the coast of the town. when i stopped to pee in the bushes( there was no nearby loo), shan shouted that she saw a beluga! it is a special whale here coz it`s not supposed to be in canada but in the arctic! when i finished peeing the whaled already disappeared..sigh. but shan got some pictures to show u all

then we went to grocery shop to buy dinner. din want to eat out coz too ex and we`re running low on cash. we bought 2 thick slices of salmon, asparagus and instant rice! (something like maggi mee, but this is maggi fan!) in total the meal only caused us 10 bucks! it turned out edible too! althought the maggi rice alittle weird tasting but overall our meal was delicious!

shan adds:
the whales were really awesome! aristotle said that whales have more in common with humans than fish... haha, not that we felt any kind of affinity with THEM... but it was amazing, seeing such huge mammals that live in such unreachable environments so close to us! just imagine, the finback is 20 m long, (the 2nd largest after the blue whale), and it was barely 100m from our really puny boat! and you guys can`t imagine how frozen we were out there in the water... my shoe had a whole and it got flooded, so my toes were like wet and numb.. totally gross...

tadoussac is a really small town, in fact there are only 500 perm residents here. its located towards the end of the st lawrence river as it wodens and enters the atlantic ocean... its also the oldest township in old canada... the people speak french (its part of quebec) but they`re kind to pp who are un-french... and the weather is coooolllldddd..... esp when the wind blows... well, one last thing before we sign off.... we folded bed sheets in exchange for free laundry today... haha... real backpacking eh... no lah, we`re not really that broke... just looking for the right atm machine... haha...


minke whale


the beluga whale


the finback...