This is the second post in the multi-part series of the trip to Canada.
- The Back Story
- East Canada - Toronto ← This post
- Niagara and 1000 Islands
- Rest of East Canada
- Family Reunion and West Canada
Arrival at Toronto Airport
Upon arriving at Toronto airport, the first thing I did was get a local SIM card. I needed it for navigation since I would be driving everywhere that too on the right side of the road for the first time. To ensure Google Maps worked flawlessly, having a local SIM with enough data was crucial.
The Airport Drama
I got the SIM from a kiosk, and the lady assured me it would activate after restarting the phone in 15 minutes. Next, we went to the car rental desk in the airport parking lot to get our prebooked car. The attendant asked for my credit card to complete the payment. Although I had entered my card details online, he needed a physical credit card in my name.
I handed him my ICICI Bank Forex PrePaid card, but the system didn’t accept it. He explained they couldn’t accept prepaid cards. I then gave him my Standard Chartered credit card, but that didn't work. SCB blocked the transaction for security reasons. Frustrated, I tried another ICICI Bank credit card, but that also failed.
Situation wasn't cool: we were stuck at the airport after a long flight and my Dad was a bit impatient and concerned at the same time. To add to the pain, it had been 45 minutes since I got the SIM card, I had already restarted the phone 10 times but it still had no signal.
The attendant warned me that if the next attempt failed, I’d lose the booking. He wouldn’t accept cash or someone else’s card either. I was running out of options, without the SIM, I couldn’t call the bank to resolve the transaction issues.
The Hopeless IVR
Luckily, I had enabled international roaming before I left India, so I called Standard Chartered’s customer care. The call connected to an IVR menu, which informed me about my outstanding balance and last five transactions—none of which I cared about at that moment. Finally, the IVR informed me that their call centers operate from 9 AM to 9 PM India time. It was 4 AM in India. I cursed SCB a little, they not only wasted my time but also weren't being any helpful. The idea of cutting cost by not operating bank call centers 24/7 is such a bad idea!
Change in Fortunes
Finally we decided to divide and conquer, my wife went back to the airport to get the SIM card operational while I tried calling ICICI Bank. To my relief, ICICI Bank connected me directly to an agent who whitelisted the car rental company and requested I try the transaction in 30 minutes. I was slightly relieved and went to join my wife at the SIM kiosk.
The lady there informed me their server was down and they were activating SIMs manually. Activating our SIM will take another 30 min. I explained her our situation and told her, it was really important for me to get the SIM activated and I am not going anywhere without getting it done. This changed her attitude and she decided to prioritise our activation and finally it was done!
We returned to the car rental place and I asked the attended to try the card again since it has already been 30 min past my call with the bank. After an anxious few minutes, the ICICI Bank transaction went through. We finally got the car and were ready to leave the airport. We spent about 1.5 hrs at the airport juggling these things, but all's well that ends well!
Driving on the right side or the road wasn’t as difficult as I expected, especially with cars in front to follow. We reached our homestay, but I realised I forgot to ask what kind of fuel the car needed. This is going to come and haunt me later.
Day 2 - A Road Ticket for Nothing
We slept well and woke up early at 5 AM all fresh and full of energy. I was thinking to myself that we had beaten jet lag — soon enough, we will see how I was horribly wrong!
I saw several missed calls and an SMS from the bank about a $500 (Canadian Dollar) transaction labeled "Roadways." Shocked, I thought I had gotten a ticket for something while driving, this is an expensive country, $500 for one driving ticket, in India I could have settled it in Rs 500 or less! I couldn't pinpoint any violation. After cursing myself a little, I decided to leave it behind me and be more careful from now on. Obviously I didn’t say anything about this to my family. I didn’t want to ruin the trip before it started!.
We got ready and left to meet a longtime friend for breakfast. It was great catching up.
After breakfast, we visited ROM (Royal Ontario Museum), CN Tower, Ripley's Aquarium, and Nathan Phillips Square.
ROM
ROM is a massive museum with artefacts from various civilizations, including Egyptian, Chinese, Korean, and Indian. The biggest attraction was the fossilized dinosaur bones. It was awe-inspiring to see how huge they were compared to us.
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CN Tower and Ripley's Aquarium
Both are next to each other. CN Tower is a huge radio tower and observatory. Ripley's Aquarium has a vast collection of exotic sea creatures, including colorful starfish, beautiful jelly fish, giant sharks, sea turtles, and ray fish. We even got to touch the ray fish, which felt very gooey!
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| CN Tower |
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| Jelly Fish |
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| Spool of fish |
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| Ray Fish |
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| Can you spot a see turtle? |
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| Star Fish |
Nathan Phillips Square
This square features the famous Toronto sign in the middle of an artificial pond, surrounded by ancient churches. On the way randomly you will see a patch of freshly bloomed tulips - it looks very pretty!
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| Nathan Phillips Square |
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| Tulips! |
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| Old Church On the way |
All these places are in downtown Toronto, where parking is expensive, on an average, in East Canada, one will spend around $70-90 per day only on parking. We used to park at one place and then walked to all nearby attractions, this saves significant time and money.
Journey to Niagara Falls
At 6 PM, we left for Niagara Falls, a two-hour drive away. Toronto’s traffic was terrible, think Mumbai traffic, with two exception, people stay in their lanes and don't honk.
While I was navigating my way out of Toronto, I heard something - big snoring sounds of my entire family. Everyone in the car was sleeping and that too like there is no tomorrow! I too felt extremely drowsy. In the morning I had thought we had beaten the jet lag and here I was felling very drowsy at 7 pm - I was so wrong! Had to drink lots of tea to stay awake.
Finally we reached our hotel in Niagara Falls safely. That's when I realised who had charged that $500 in the morning, it was our hotel at Niagara - the hotel was called “Roadways Inn”! I breathed a sigh of relief.
Next Time
In the next post, we’ll explore the amazing Niagara Falls, 1000 islands and how I almost ended up filling diesel in a petrol car!
