Have you ever noticed the arrogance associated with travel writing? Every travel writer is the same. They all think they’ve got it figured out. There’s a smugness there that says, “I’ve been somewhere you probably haven’t and I’ve had a life changing experience that you probably never will. You can read all about it in this article while you’re on your coffee break.”  Truth be told, there are only so many life changing experiences out there and the martini bar in the Prague Hilton probably isn’t one of them. This review is about a restaurant in New Zealand. If I was writing for En Route Magazine, I’d probably try and make some quasi-philosophical point about curry, sheep and Edmund Hilary. Or at least something about why you should use your Aeroplan miles to travel to New Zealand.

I’m not going to do that. Nor am I going to strictly talk about Mayur Indian Restaurant. Let’s be honest, none of you are apt to eat there.  Even if you are in New Zealand, I wouldn’t advise going there. The service on the night I dined at Mayur was slow and inattentive. The lack of attention from the wait staff did however provide me with ample time to sketch out the following essay. It’s a piece on a very disturbing trend. I call it “The Ugly Canadian”.

About 10 minutes after first sitting us down, our waitress finally came by to introduce herself and ask if we wanted something to drink. I ordered a mango lassi while my girlfriend ordered a beer.  The waitress nodded and was off to the bar to fetch our drinks. Having spent the better part of the day driving from Mount Cook to Christchurch, our pre-drink conversation was surprisingly fresh:

“Can you believe that Canadian couple on that heli-hiking tour we did?”

“Oh, I know.  They wouldn’t shut up. I wanted to strangle them.”

“So Embarrassing!”

“Maybe next time we can go somewhere we won’t run into any Canadians”

“Definitely… And why do they always think we want to talk to them just cause we’re Canadian too.”

“I don’t care that you’re from Toronto,  Or Vancouver,  or Calgary for that fact. I’m not your friend, I’m on holidays, leave me alone.”

“Yeah...Where is that waitress?”

Several moments later our drinks arrived. The mango lassi tasted poor, souring my mood but not swaying my thoughts from the disgrace after embarrassing disgrace that we had encountered in the Canadian tourists throughout New Zealand. We ordered the mixed vegetable pakoras for a starter.

“Maybe it’s the Olympics’ fault…you know, like everyone’s proud to be Canadian now and wants to show off.”

“I don’t think so, this is a trend. We as a nation are becoming ugly travelers,” I said.

I related the story of Jill (from Calgary), the only other Canadian in my tour group during my trip to India. It was a 12 person, 14-day tour of Rajasthan. By day 2, everyone knew who Jill was. A monopolizer of conversations, Jill was clearly not in India for the food. On the evening of day 3, having found out I was a pharmacist, she consulted me on emergency contraception, after having indiscriminately slept with a cricket playing Aussie the night before.

The pakoras arrived. Mine had a long black hair in it. Gah.

Our conversation continued and I provided further evidence of Canadian disgraces. Case in point, Lindsay, a young backpacker from London, Ontario I met years ago in Salzburg, Austria. She was staying in my hostel. Within 1 hour of meeting her, she showed me her giant plastic bag full of maple leaf shaped lapel pins. There must of have been close to 300.

“Why do you need so many?” I enquired.

“You know, pass them out to people as I meet them,” she replied.

“I don’t think anyone in Europe will be lining up.”

As our main entrees of Lamb Rogan Josh and Kashmiri Lamb Korma arrived we came to the consensus that wearing the maple leaf while overseas has become decidedly tacky and overdone.  Grandparents: Leave those matching CANADA track suits you bought at the airport gift shop at home. You’re not helping our image. Plus, those Mexicans are probably going to rob you anyways.

Having eaten some of the best lamb shanks ever throughout our travels in New Zealand, both of our lamb dishes were decidedly poor.  The accompanying naan wasn’t much better.

“I must admit, I’ve been guilty of misrepresenting and disgracing my country abroad,” I confessed.

Exhibit A was my personal drunken performance in Helsinki during the final of the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships earlier in the decade. Having consumed 7 Lapin Kultas before the warm-up, I felt it was my duty to verbally abuse Team USA goaltender Al Montoya from the 2nd row. Montoya’s Mom was in the crowd and I made an ass of myself. In the end, thanks to Marc Andre Fleury, Team USA had the last laugh.

We finished our meals and sat in silence, waiting for what seemed like forever for the bill. Finally, I just went up to the bar and paid. The owner asked me how my meal was. I shrugged, forcing her to ask again. I think she caught the drift.

Ours is a country established on a healthy dose of quiet modesty. Your neighbors demand it and the weather enforces it. Somehow, we forget that when we go on vacation. And yes, sinicism is easy. But so is grading my experience at Mayur.

Not at the restaurant

• Tenzing Norgay  (Never got the proper respect)
• Michael Collins  (Astronaut, Never got the proper respect)
• Alfred Kleiner  (Never got the proper respect)

   

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