Error when exporting data to Excel

While exporting data from SQL Server 2005 to Excel, I got an error "Columns "Field1" and "F1" cannot convert between unicode and non-unicode string data types". I was exporting data returned by a particular view. In order to fix the issue I had to modify the view, utilizing CAST function to cast the columns to their existing data type. Weird, huh?

Here is my original view. Please note that Field1 and Field2 are of type varchar(5) and varchar(100) respectively:

CREATE VIEW [dbo].[myView]
AS
SELECT Field1,
Field2
FROM Table1

Here is what I modified my view to and what worked for me:

CREATE VIEW [dbo].[myView]
AS
SELECT CAST(Field1 As Varchar(50)) as Field1, 
CAST (Field2 as Varchar(100)) As Field2
FROM Table1