Boxing day and Airports

Since December 26, 2009, I have spent 23 hours flying, 12 hours waiting at the Delhi Airport, and 3 hours waiting at the Brussels airport. If I wasn’t the fearless, handsome and yet strangely in-touch-with-his-feelings type of blogger I would say I was tired.

I think I am ready to plan my next travel.

Stay tuned to the blog though. I still have several reflections to post from some days that I have missed. PS who is currently en-route to Goa is one of the guest columnists, and MT also wanted to pen his return from India.

Also, I want to thank you all. I know that there were several people in Ottawa who were following this blog, and I know that there were more than a faithful few in Toronto who were reading this. Trust me, just knowing that people were reading this made me keep wanting to write more.

I have the next two days off work. In those two days on I shall be editing a lot of video footage that I shot,  and posting the final copies of a lot of the pictures that I took. They shall all be peppered across social media for you to enjoy. Remember on twitter you can find me @damookman and on flickr you can find me at Aramil Liadon. I suppose I will paste on facebook as well, though it is well against my religion to do so.

Oh hey, I found an emporium. It was this way.

Merry Christmas from Udaipur

Udaipur, the city of lakes, the white city, the <insert superlative here> city. Let me start of by saying that Udaipur was by far my favourite tourist spot. I have seen tons of historical buildings. Taj was beautiful, and Humanyun’s tomb and Qutub Minar were awe-inspiring. Amer Fort in Jaipur was magnificent in it’s grandness, but no place oozed history and charm like Udaipur. The streets were narrow and not entirely unlike the cobbles in Belgium or in Flander’s Field.  Even the roadside buildings were old. Some probably older than Canada. I wish I had 1 more day there to explore it. I really do.

In the last episode we discovered that Christmas morning carolling in Udaipur train station, Rajasthan, India, was in fact rejuvenating. From the train station we got into cabs to head to the hotel well before sunrise. As soon as we had checked into our rooms this is the view that greeted us.  I will update these pictures once I get back to Toronto (hooray Photoshop) so you can get a better idea.

Christmas morning in Udaipur started off with PS and AS crying off touristing because of their respective sicknesses. However, AQ and NS were more than raring to go.
We started the day off by meeting our guide. Very nice fellow, who more than made up for my guide that we had in Agra back when PD and MT were around. This guy was full of pride for Udaipur. One of the first places were went to was the city palace. City Palace was amazing. A full fledged palace maintained privately, with the Royal family still living on a separate wing.  But enough about the beauty of the building. I am sure you can read up on it on Wiki.

Let me focus for a bit on the rulers. The Suryavanshi’s who ruled all of Udaipur (and still live there) were a tough breed of fighters. The downside of that it seems was that they spent a lot of time on women when not warring. And since wars are not an everyday event, they spent a lot of time doing nothing other than fornicating (according to the guide anyway). I left with a distinct impression that they built these beautiful forts just to bed as many women as possible. The dude had a “favourite wife”. How a favourite was chosen and how often one could be chosen was arbitrary. All we were told was that a king could have multiple wives and a couple of thousand concubines. This means that NK, our dashing yet slightly stressed out guide’s, ancestors were the original Hugh Hefners. I am not kidding. The kings built entire grottos just to chill with the ladies. Needless to say our female companions were less than thrilled with the kings of yore. I remain deeply sceptical on the sexual prowess presented here. I mean they used to hang up massive curtains to prevent others from looking in. What’s to stop him from playing Solitaire in there? I mean at the end of the day, he only has one thingy…. unless…. wait…what were we talking about here? Right, Udaipur.

The coolest thing on display by far was the miniature paintings. Not as cool as our tour guide made it seem, but they were cool regardless. The miniature is because of the level of detail not the size of the painting. The detail even in the beards was amazing. However, the guide’s constant, YOU WILL NEVAR SEE THIS ANYWHAAARRR attitude, finally got on AQ’s nerves and she pretty much told him about where all this kind of work can be seen. He was pretty unhappy at having his parade rained upon but did tone it down a bit.
The guide was a feisty one thought. He revealed to us that the palaces are the pride of Udaipur, and whenever, people do stupid things there, they all take personal responsibility. I saw him cuss out several people for many infractions, including two idiots who were getting a picture taken outside of the guard rails protecting a lookout point, overlooking a 60-70 ft. drop.

Touring was fun, but this was the last place that was on the itinerary for me. Christmas night was spent at a wonderful restaurant with my good friends. This restaurant overlooked Lake Pichola on whose banks City Palace and the Palace of Pleasure were resplendently lit, and whose reflections in the lake was too beautiful for words. It was the perfect end to my adventures.

Or so I thought.

I can almost taste it

Short post.

Current time, I am in Brussels airport. I am so close to home I can taste it. In fact I already did. I drank my first Starbucks coffee in 20 days.

I know it is not the best coffee in the world, but  it tasted great after having drank nothing but instant/airplane coffee for the better part of the month.

Now back to the program. Coming soon, the day in Udaipur, and why NK, our dashing yet slightly stressed out guide’s, ancestors were the original playas.

Train ride to Udaipur

So how bad could it be, right? I mean we are at the train station, we already had confirmed seats before we started. I mean what could possibly go wrong?
My last post had the brothers S, and AQ sick. Any analogies that I can draw as to how sick they were would be quite weak in comparison to what they looked like/must have felt like.
The train pulled in (only 10 minutes late as opposed to 15) and  we boarded after a little bit of pushing and shoving. Once inside the train realization struck us that we had entered from the wrong side of the train. Being hardened travelers, we pushed and shoved our way right to the other end. I sat between PS and AQ, which in retrospect could have been a bad move. But thankfully those two were so drugged up that they pretty much passed away straight off the bat.
At this point in time I would like to draw your attention to the fact that we were travelling on Christmas eve. And as tradition goes, a certain slightly creepy fat man visits you on that night to give you gifts. Turns out, we did get a visit from a fat man who was quite a lot creepier. The fat man  in question was not Santa, but rather was a hijra. Hijra society and their place in the current society is quite a sad tale as they are quite marginalized by society, and one of the only ways that they can support themselves is through visiting families en masse during child births or other joyous occasions. They generally dress as women, and in a very annoying voice, clapping (in a way that I cannot describe) and through socially shaming threats (such as stripping themselves outside of the house, cursing the home owners etc.) will cajole money to be given to them for them to go away. However, as otherworldly this sounds to you my dear reader, people here are quite tolerant of this behaviour.  Though wiki will tell you that there are often brutal beatings.
Back to the story, this certain fat man did pay us a visit. He woke up PS by caressing his cheek. Poor PS was so out of it thanks to his medication and so taken aback by a) being caressed, and b) waking up to a guy so fat that his gut was sticking out from under his shirt that he thought it was Santa a ticket collector. Once he realized what was going on, he was apoplectically angry. It was only due to a combination of grogginess, laziness and sickness that he did nothing.
The hijra on the other hand decided to try and wake me up as well, and as he moved to caress my cheek he was confronted with the open, anger/exhaustion filled eyes of a handsome yet humble blogger. Something clicked inside his head telling him that I probably might not know what a hijra is and yelled out sixer. Now here is the part that confuses me. If I was indeed a foreigner, and did not know what hijra was, there was no conceivable way that I would know the colloquial term for hijra was sixer. NK, our dashing yet slightly stressed out guide sprang into action. He did not want AQ who was sitting beside me touched nor did he want AS (sitting in a seat a one row past us) disturbed. He gave the hijra some money for him to go away.  Just like the fat man who watches you all throughout the year and then sneaks into your house to give you a gift, this fat man snuck in, watched us, and gave us the gift of culture-shock.
NK, our dashing yet slightly stressed guide, did get a chance to speak with the ticket collector later on. The T.C completely disavowed any knowledge of anything like this happening on his train. He stated that this kind of stuff does not happen here, but closer to Delhi. Sure….
The rest of the ride was quite uneventful. AS and AQ had no idea what had transpired. We sang Feliz Navidad, and some other Christmas carols at the train station upon disembarking the train. There is something really surreal about singing Christmas songs in Spanish and English whilst dancing at a train station in Rajasthan, India.
I think the quality of the trip is directly proportional to the companions. I have been blessed so far. I have had great friends throughout this trip and have really enjoyed each and every one’s company.
The next post will encompass travelling Udaipur. Also this adventure is coming to an end. While I am delighted to be heading back home. I must admit a small part of me misses hanging out with my friends and discovering more things.

The return of exhaustion

The wedding was fun. Both the bride and groom and their respective families were not only warm and welcoming, but amazingly generous as well.

But this is a travel blog. I will not overwhelm you with details of the ceremonies and the awkward social interactions that I inspire. The downside of this is that, there are two days that are missing here which I will at some point in time talk about, but this is not the time nor the place. Well all right, it will most likely be here, but just not today. Maybe on my epic 20 hour flight, or the epic-er (it is a word if I say it is, goddamnit) 13 hour wait at the airport.

However, what I can tell you is that half of the travelling retinue of six is sick. You see, the plan at the end of the marriage camp was to travel to Udaipur on Christmas eve after spending the 24th of December touring Jaipur. The adventurers were PS and AS, we have our dashing guide NK and three intrepid ladies NO, NS and AQ and of course myself. The problems were apparent in the morning itself. With PS complaining of a stomach cramps, and AQ (who was in a wheelchair about 3 days ago due stomach problems contracted in Myanmar. Did I mention that she was intrepid?) suffering from a resurgence of the maladies. 

NO toured Jaipur with us and then headed back to Delhi. It is around this time we started to realize the monumental problem facing us. PS, AS (he was coming down fast with symptoms very much similar to flu), and AQ were all sick. Really sick.  NK, NS and I were tiring fast as well, and we all realized that we were in Jaipur facing a scenario that looked more and more scary due to the 8 hour train journey that we had to contend with.

Being sleepy/comatose/sick we decided against going to a coffee shop, and headed to NK’s aunt’s place in Jaipur.  Their wonderful hospitality blew my mind. They not only welcomed us, but fed us and allowed us to relax. Some of us used that time to sleep, while others stocked up on medication.

We boarded the train on time, and actually travelled without any major drama but as I have learned time and time again, there is always a little bit of tension and stress and I think people seem to enjoy that hectic lifestyle as things always seem to work out. 

I will detail the train ride and the incident on my next post.  Also my lovely angoran rabbits I shall be back in Canada soon, and you will be able to bask in the glory that is me.

The one where I sit in a train

So after a solid week of sitting around waiting to get on a train I finally did it. I am headed to Jaipur this evening to attend my friends' wedding. That sounds grammatically incorrect, but life is like that so deal with it you grammar checking pterodactyl. AS and PS came to the hotel last night and and soon after their arrival we spent the evening at a bar. Sounds like a chill evening, right? Well yes it was, however you prancing lemmings, it was the next day that was going to be the painful part.

You see in the morning we were scheduled to get to a train station quite a bit far away from the hotel. As I did not know how long it would take I budgeted some significant A LOT of time for this journey. Consequently, I made sure that there was a wake up call scheduled for three thirty in the morning. Let me express it in numbers. 0330, or 3: 30 A.M. Do you know what that looks like? I do. It looks like hate. Hate that streams through the eyes of your friends.

I got them dressed and out the hotel room in a 1/2 hour. This required a lot of mothering and possibly some fathering and accordingly I am now ready to tell others how to raise their kids now. P.S if any parents are reading this, if you do what I did, then you are great, if not, then you are doing it wrong.

Picture this. Two very sleep deprived, slightly hungover adults at 0400 ready to head to a train station. The cabbie was thoroughly professional, and took us to the station fast. The problem with this was that we were now at the train station at 0500, a full one hour before we were supposed to meet the rest of our retinue. This was not something that sat well with the rest of my friends. They were really not happy when I told them that the train was scheduled to depart an another hour after we meet up with the rest, making it's departure schedule for 0700 hours. In summation, I made them wait 2 hours in the cold after having woken them up from a 2.5 hour drunken slumber.

As I write this from the train heading to the Pink City of Jaipur, I find myself asking what did I ever do to deserve the horrible fate that my friends have planned. A fate that they assure me will cause my head to explode. May the flying spaghetti monster have mercy on my soul.

On my way to Jaipur

So a few things happened in the last two days. One of them was me buying a Van Heusen Shirt, a Van Heusen Belt, a Van Heusen Tie, and a pair of shoes from guess where?.... Nope you are wrong. I did not buy a pair of shoes.

Some of the other interesting things. People have suddenly stopped paying attention to me thanks to a complete and utter absence of the white man. In fact the only person who paid attention to me was a cute girl at Van Heusen who was interviewing for a job. The attention in question was the result of me smiling at her, and the attention took the form of a complete nonchalance as she answered the question posed. But there was eye contact. But seriously, it has been 48 hours since someone got in my face and told me where shops and emporiums were.

I meet up with the other part of the travelling menagerie that I associate myself with tonight. The brothers S who for the purpose of brevity shall be referred to as PS and AS. PS being the older elder one for those asking and AS being the fatter one.

The last thing that I did was I changed my ticket so that I leave one day early. The cost of booking a hotel for one day, paying for a cab there and back to the airport, and the numerous tips was actually more than the cost of the change itself. It will also allow me one day of recovery more before going back to work.

Oh, by the way MT, I have your sunglasses.

Picture please

Let's rewind back to a time when PD, MT and myself were a trio and pretend that they did not abandon me to be with their families for Christmas and the new years. TRAITORS.... *ahem* I am not bitter and will not be referred to as Bitterji. 

On the last sightseeing day we went to the Red Fort. Now you can click on the link and read about it, but from what I remembered it was a place of sadness. A massive structure that ended up being a prison for an old man, the last of the line of Mughals. The structure had it's own share of problems as well. The quality of workmanship was there, but it seems that it was never able to capture it's glory it had been during the hey-days. 

But enough of depressing history. The fact of the matter is that MT and PD were taken to see this last bastion of the Mughals on the last day in India. What followed was interesting. You see, MT and PD have been photographed a lot. And when I mean photographed, I do not mean by me, or by some tout trying to con us into a paid photoshoot. Random strangers have taken shots of MT and PD when all of us were standing still. The best ones were always when I would be lining a shot, which would leave MT and PD waiting patiently behind me. People would saunter up casually, pose beside MT or PD`s backs, and  get their friend/family to take a picture whilst MT or PD were unaware and subtly walk away. MT started to notice this phenomenon only in the last day at the Red Fort. 

Finally, right near the end of our walking around, a very cute teenager runs up to me, and literally jams an old camera into my hand, yelling "Excuse me, please, picture" and without asking for permission, gets between MT and PD for me to take a shot of them with the camera. 

Frankly, I am hurt... Why was I not allowed to be in the picture? I blame racism. But for the confidences of my fellow travelers, this did a huge world of good. After travelling for 8 days where every day it was "Sir shopping that way." To have someone (and someone who was sort of cute) come up to get a  picture taken and not try to sell us anything helped... a lot.  

This to me seemed like a fitting farewell from India to MT and PD rather than the one that was given at the airport.  

So long and thanks for all the Fish. Your's Sincerely, Signed MT and PD

Hello loyal unicorns. First up I have to apologize. I am a bit behind on my posts simply because the experiences come in fast and furious and it takes time to properly tease out the memory from all the other jumbling incidents of the day. Once a memory is targeted, it is normally followed by me adding a bit of truthiness (TM Stephen Colbert) to it, and then it is regurgitated out on to this blank blogspot canvas.

So... What is happening in real time with @damookman in Delhi. Well, MT and PD flew out last night. This was the last surprise that India would throw at these gentlemen.

As we had different travel dates I had to book their tickets separately. Now most places you can travel with the guests up to the booking counter at the airport and if there are any problems with their check-in and the airline needs to see the card that paid for the tickets, well the other person is right there. Not so straightforward at the International Indira Gandhi airport.

On our way there, our cabbie told us flat-out that I would not be allowed in. This presented a problem as I did not want either of the two to be stranded here and blaming me. A brilliant idea struck me as a cream pie would strike Dean Martin (which I presume it did at some point in his career). I would show them my ticket, count on the guy at security not being observant, and try to weasel my way in. This plan was hailed as brilliant by my chums.

Yeah..... so about the pie that hits one in the face. What happens if it has a hammer just buried beneath the cream? This is about how well the plan went. MT and PD managed to get in just fine. When it came to my turn the guy really scrutinized my Passport/Ticket, and discovered that my hair and my current baldness were not the only thing he disagreed with. In short, he did not allow me in and MT and PD could not get back out. I had to tell them that I would wait out by the entrance, and if there were any issues that they should get a Jet Airways employee to come out and talk to me. MT being the level headed one got it instantly and stated that he would come to the door and give me a signal that everything had worked out well. We came up with a complicated signal with him giving me a thumbs up, and me thanking every god that I could think of in the Indian Pantheon in sign language.  Thankfully, after a sphincter clinching 10 minutes, MT appeared at the door way, and gave me his sign. I proceeded to thank about 20 different deities (I had time to remember them) and conveyed the sentiment of safe travels, thanks for coming, and their presence will be sorely missed in a series of  frantic use of thumbs, fingers, folded hands and random gesticulation. I am sure they got the gist.

I am taking this day off from touring to make sure that there is nothing that gets in the way of the marriage ceremonies that commence day after. After the marriage ceremonies I am leaving to tour Jaipur and Udaipur. This means that the next two days are going to be quite intense travel wise. After tomorrow, I cannot promise when I can make these posts. They might come all in a hurry depending upon internet access.  But before tomorrow, I will try to get all the posts updated.

Vijay the auto-rickshaw driver

On one of the mornings where PD was sleeping and recuperating, MT and I decided to take a lovely walk to Connaught Place. We just wanted to get some money changed, and maybe look at some trinkets to buy as souvenirs. So we did just that. We got our money changed, and a very nice guy helped us to an auto rickshaw. The auto-rickshaw driver was a gentleman named Vijay (pronounced vi-jay) Bhatti who was a merry fellow who took us to an emporium. There is video out there of me inside an Auto, worrying about my impeding and rapidly approaching death. Incidentally, I am happy to report that those fears were unfounded. An auto rickshaw as I described in a previous life is one of the more economical modes of suicide transport and this one lived up to that reputation.

Once we were done at the emporium, I asked the salesman, to direct us to Barakhamba Road as that is where our hotel was. The salesman while telling me that he was not used to reading  a map then proceeded to "read" the map anyway and gave us "directions" based on what he thought the store was. According to the route he provided it appeared that we would be walking only a distance of about 20 minutes. MT and I were ready for another adventure so we decided to walk it.

However, once we stepped outside, we realized that Vijay had been waiting for us. He immediately flagged us down. He insisted that the directions that were given to us were wrong. In fact he swore by it. He even pulled out a map to show where we "actually" were. Finally, to humour him, I asked how much. He said "20 rupees". Now even I know a good deal when I see one. I called MT over, and we decided to hop into the rickshaw, and actually see how "far" it really was, and I was looking forward to cussing him out if it wasn't. Also this satisfied MT's pre-trip desire to do something idiotic at least twice.

Umm... As it turned out Vijay was right. It was a good 20 minutes of him sticking to main roads with narrow escapes on both ends to get us back to the hotel. Both MT and I were shocked. We got back to our room with our heads spinning.The shop keeper was wrong and the touty auto rickshaw driver was right. Had we been wrong about everything till now?

We soon decided that we might as well grab something to eat, so we headed downstairs to the hotel restaurant just to grab some quick bite to eat. It was over lunch that I thought about this. We do not know Delhi well at all. Which means that he could have taken 3 lefts in a row, gone around in a huge circle and then taken us to the hotel and then told us that we had traveled a huge distance. Either way, for 50 cents (for that is what he wanted), we thought he earned it by pulling a fast one. We just laughed it up to our naivety, and assumed that everyone lies. However, we did not know for sure, and this mystery lingered.

It wasn't till about 2 hours before MT and PD were supposed to take off that I on a hunch pulled up google maps and along with a receipt from the store (it had the address on it) were we able to solve this mystery.

The directions that the storeowner had given us were garbage. He gave us directions from a restaurant of the same name. Not only that, had we by some miracle figured out where we were, we would have had to walk 4 kms. That is 4 kms of touts yelling "Shopping here sir". Thanks Vijay. You may or may not have taken us for 50 cents, but I think we might have still been wandering Delhi without your help.

They always make it a little bit harder

In case you stumbled on to this website and don't know yet, PD, MT and I are in India. India is the land of hospitality. I have never been called "sir" so many times without the words "you are making a scene" attached to it. (If 21st century Fox lawyers want me to stop using that joke I will.)


We have had lovely drivers, lovely warm people who have assisted us at every turn. However, one of the country's biggest issues is poverty. I think all of us know that. For every upmarket middle class family there are three someones working menial jobs. As such tipping from foreigners is an additional source of revenue. We get that. What we cannot get is the additional service that causes just a bit of hinderance. 


Case in point, we went to a restaurant yesterday for Lunch. Delicious food was ordered and served but therein lies the rub.  The chicken curry came in a big bowl, and as we attempted to serve it, the server (Houdini's Indian cousin) appeared out of nowhere, asked permission, and before I could say no started serving all of us. Nice touch but what it did was freak us out. Were we supposed to wait every time we ran out of food? Was it insulting to serve ourselves? This led to us doing covert ops. With one person keeping lookout, the other would serve the third quickly. With the amount of the serving was pre-determined the entire op took under 2 seconds to pull off. The revelation from this was, while we complain moan and whine about the lack of service industry in Canada, to come to a country where it is heaped upon you, I find myself complaining yet again.


But this problem started to get endemic soon. I went to the washroom at a bar yesterday. The attended opened the door, saluted me, walked in behind me, waited patiently till I finished peeing, turned the tap on for me, saluted me, operated the button on the soap dispenser, saluted me , gave me paper towels, saluted me, turned the tap off, saluted me,  waited for tip, when he saw none was forthcoming, he stopped saluted me.  Yes, I come off in this story as a bit of a dick. I get it, I get that people need to work. And this employment probably pays very poorly, and the tips probably supplement his income. I don't know why I didn't tip him. I think the culture shock of someone watching me urinate probably did me in. 


coming soon: Humanyun's Tomb and Vijay the Autorickshaw driver. 

PD talking to his fans

Untitled from Honey Badger Pictures on Vimeo.

trouble or Trouble (spot the one with a capital T)

As of December 15, 2009, I am pretty sure that MT has made it on some governmental watchdog lists. Oh yes, I am pretty sure he has. "But why do you say that you strikingly gorgeous hunk of a blogger?".... Hah, you lovable platypusses. I will tell you why if you only stopped fawning so.

Let me start at the beginning. Marcus Aurelius the Third (AKA MT), Prince of Deep breaths (aka PD) and I decided to go on an adventure. We decided that we were going to find our way around by walking. This was fine as we wanted to get to Jantar Mantar which was fairly close to the hotel.

We must have taken a wrong turn, because soon we were close to office buildings including one with with a  high wall and even higher fences. I saw other people asking security guards directions so I decided to do the same. I started to ask a guard the route to Jantar Mantar, and while he was explaining in very vague terms where we were, MT and PD stood a bit behind me looking at the traffic. MT decided that this would be a good time to test out his early christmas gift (Hi K! Lovely gift BTW.) The gift in question is a RCA HD video camera. As I was asking for directions, I hear another guard yell, "No pictures NO PICTURES." The guy I was with suddenly snaps into action yelling " NO CAMERA, NO PICTURE.". MT, who up till then was filming the traffic on the road, was looking at me, and I was busy putting two and two together, and was not liking the answer. All I could say was I don't think we are allowed to take pictures here, and MT instantly apologized and put the camera away. Things seemed to have calmed down, when within minutes were joined by a young man who was very angry looking. He wasn't angry but just angry looking. He demanded to see what he had filmed, while the other guards tried explaining that he did not film the building. This is when I glanced at the young angry man's ID badge.

G4S Security

U.S Embassy

It struck all of us at the same time that to all others it must have looked like a scam where one distracts the guard and the others take pictures of the building. And when the building in question is not just any building, but the U.S-freaking-Embassy things get warm very fast. Mark quickly showed the angry young man that he only took the shot of the road and complied with the request to delete the video. As we left we heard a senior officer coming and berating the other guys and more shouts at each other.

Once we had moved about a kilometer away, MT decided that he still wanted some footage of the traffic, and so he scanned the surrounding area for tall office buildings with taller fences, stood behind a lampost and took a very very short video of the traffic. You could say we were a bit shaken up by that incident. regardless of this I am sure we have more adventures awaiting us.

P.S I have a video of PD that I shot this morning. This unedited video will make it up later up this afternoon.

The dreaded Delhi Belly

It had to happen, it was just a matter of who was going to get it. PD woke up at 0330 this morning and had to rush to the washroom. Many hours of sickness followed for the poor lad which left him quite drained and tired.

The rest of us are very, very tired as well. I was reading earlier posts and there are parts where the grammar goes to hell. This is a sure sign of my mental fatigue.

But on to the day that just passed. The one thing that does blow me away is that while there are tons of touts and people looking to make a buck off of us, there are also some lovely lovely people as well. This morning MT and I decided to just walk in a random direction, and ended up chatting with a wonderful local sports reporter for a Hindi news paper who was headed in the same direction. As we started to talk with him we must have appeared wary (mostly because we were). He saw this straight away and was laughing as he was saying that he is not trying to sell anything. He told me some great stories about his daily life, his girlfriend, his job and the struggles that a young person faces in Delhi all while he waited with us as we got our money changed. We also discussed cricket. I do feel for MT because the guy switched to Hindi completely, and because my brain is hardwired to speak in the language I am spoken to I followed suit. Sorry MT.

Nothing too interesting till the afternoon. You see we were supposed to head to Shimla this evening by train. I will not bore you with details, but I will say this. The only entity that could have designed such a counter intuitive train ticket booking system which works for millions but confounds just as many millions has to be god. Thus, I am officially believing in God, because this is proof that God exists. Oh wait, proof denies belief and without belief God cannot exist. Uh-oh....religious dilema.  And since I have just proven that god cannot exist, god decided to punish me with no trip to Shimla. Sorry PD and MT. We are still in Delhi because I pissed the Big G off.

But this is really a blessing, a very poorly executed one, but a blessing regardless. This allows us to get some valuable sleep. This also allows PD to recover his strength and for MT and myself to struggle with the massive amounts of people and the cultural intricacies. We can also actually take time to explore Delhi, it's monuments and it's surroundings.

Also I hate the Indian Rail Network.

Agra

Enough said.

The cabbies of Delhi (part 1 and hopefully the only time I make this kind of post)

This city runs on tips. Understandable, as so much of the traffic that comes through here is based on tourism and there is a lot of poverty. But still, most of our moneyzz (TM) has been spent on tips, tips and more tips.

That being said our cabbies so far have been interesting. There are only two major ones to speak of. R from day one and UK from day 2. R from day one (not his real name) was a very upfront driver who first took us to a money changer in a seedy backalley. "Why oh venerable blogger?" Who said that? Oh its you again, I should have known. It's because, my beautiful lemur, stupid western unions were closed on a Sunday and since he did not "know" where else to take us and just "happened" to take us to a place where he would get a small commission. At least now we knew the game was on.

He was then hoodwinked when we demanded to go to a place for shopping, and eating not on his lists. The bugger got us back though. He stated that if we were looking for items for souvenir we should head to a place called "Emporium". At least he was honest about saying that he is going to get a commission out of this and if we bought anything, he stands to make more. Awesome deal for me, as his "tip" went away.

Day 2 was Agra. Post to follow soon on that day. The driver that we had for that stretch was a completely different person. A very professional man, who led us through some of the worst traffic we have seen thus far.  He did however, mention that traffic has been very light thus far.  MT's video of the traffic screams otherwise, but hey, who are we to argue. However, I must say he is also the only person to take a shot at MT thus far. Here is how the conversation went.
UK: Sir, you did go to Agra right?
@damookman: Yes?!?
UK: And you saw the Taj, and the other beautiful things there?
@damookman: We did indeed.
UK: And you and the other sirs, took pictures and videos there.
@damookman: Yes.
UK: I only ask because it seems that sir (pointing to MT) does not appear to have found anything other than a traffic jam to videotape.

I like UK as a driver.

Day 1 in Delhi.

We are here. What fair reader, you say you have a question. "So how does one get to their hotel from the airport with no relatives/friends to drive you?" Simple, you fanciful beast. You get a prepaid taxi. You pay at the kiosk and then get directed to the cab. Once you manage to dodge the touts who "try" to help you load the baggage into the cab you get driven to the hotel.
Yes, my fantastically loyal but slightly elongated reader, do you have another question? "But @damookman, how does a handsome and totally-in-shape blogger like you dodge the touts?" Simple my lovely aardvark. You do so by slapping their hand away when they try to reach for the suitcase...repeatedly. PD on the other hand did give them his bag. The tout then spent the remainder 10 minutes begging PD for money for lifting a bag a monumental distance of 1 foot.

From 2009-12-13

We got driven in night to our Hotel. No major drama there. We ordered some late night dinner and then went to sleep.

We woke up this morning at 1100 and decided to grab a taxi for the entire day and then get some breakfast/shopping/touring done. We got out of the hotel, grabbed the taxi and head to Kwality (not misspelled) restaurant. Umm... oopsie. That did not go as planned as we could not find the place because the moment we got out of the cab because we got mobbed by touts.  We had to duck into a McDonald's to just grab something, while we thought about our plan of attack. We decided that MT and PD needed to buy clothes. Jumped back into our cab, and then jetted to Greater Kailash Markets to buy clothes.After getting my friends suited and booted (metaphorically speaking) we ducked into a local cafe for a quick bite and even quicker pint. Mission accomplished.

From 2009-12-13

From 2009-12-13

The plan for the evening upon return from shopping was to go to India Gate and dinner at "Punjabi by Nature". Well owing to time restraints (RE: we leave for Agra in the morning, making our wake up time effectively as too-bloody-early 'o' clock) the India gate trip had to be postponed. Well after having a great meal, and drinking a few more pints, it is 1240 local time, and I am still up. This is going to hurt in the morning.

Tomorrow: Our various cabbies

Enroute to Delhi

Still cannot sleep. Been up for 26 hours now straight. Why I cannot sleep on planes is beyond me. But right now, I am typing in a very cramped position. What has happened in the last oh, 4 hours? Not a helluva lot.

Talked to a pretty cool dude, who sat beside me. Apparently, he lived in Jaipur for 7 years, loved it there. That is always good endorsement for someone who has only seen the place as a child, and doesn't have fond memories of it.

I took a picture of myself in the plane. The lighting just about does it justice. But because I am new to this entire thing, please forgive me if it does not upload properly.

Brussel airport

I hate queues. No really, I hate queues. In Brussels airport we had a 3 hour layover which was taken up by  waiting around for security check, a cup of coffee, and to buy a bag of chips took us, about that time. I am thoroughly annoyed at this airport. Also I did not manage to get my goddamn cup of coffee thanks to the crowd.

Good news everyone. We are now in the plane. The stewardess has already complained to me for not offering her any chips. Regardless, I must now recap what happened on the previous flight.

The connecting flight from Toronto to Brussels took about 7.5 hours, where we were served delicious dinner pretty much straight off the bat. The dinner was delectable shrimp, daal, rice, and a slice of green vegetable. PD is a true adventurer. He decided that the green vegetable (according to his mental schemas) was a slightly elongated green onion chive. He proceeded to pop it in his mouth, and chew on it. Much to his surprise, and to everyone's delight, it turned out to be a honking big piece of green chili. He strangely could not wait to tell me this story, so that I could blog about it.

At this point in time, he is the star of this trip.

I have now been without internet for a bit, but this should be solved soon as we land in Delhi in about 8 hours.

I just wish I could sleep.

Enroute to Brussels

At 20000 feet now. I have never had the experience of blogging from this high up in the air. I mean normally when I type a long message, I am usually in a comfy(-ish) chair with my feet planted firmly on terra firma, or it's closest equivalent. Currently, I am sitting in a comfy chair typing away at a 36000 feet, travelling at 1022 km/h (ground speed). I must admit it is a cool feeling.

We took off pretty much on time, and looking at the map (which nicely tells me that it is not showing any political boundaries) we are almost past Ottawa and are about 20 minutes away from Montreal.

MT and PD are in the back, and PD's description of the takeoff was "FU[bleep]ING AWESOME". Yes, it was all caps and the reason I know the exact casewas because it was sent to me via the plane's interseat communicator. Yes, we have those.

It is just around dawn time in New Zealand, Brussels is showing up as late-ish evening. Let's see when we land. More pics from Brussels.

In a lounge after getting searched.

We all now have boarding passes. Turns out that really none of us are sitting near one another, but the leg from Brussels we are sort of close by. 


Right now as we sit at a Lounge slightly drunk. We can only reminisce as to what just occurred. Long and short of it, the least experienced traveler in the trinity of lunacy got his baggage searched. Needless to say he was slightly shaken up. Although I must admire the efficiency of his baggage packing. PD had 1 umbrella, a box of crackers, a massive tangle of wires, 4 packs of tissues, 1 change of clothing, and a huge deck of cards. Oh and a camera. 


Engineers, they are a "special" breed.


So to reward ourselves we checked into the airport lounge, which has all inclusive booze. Consequently, I might be slightly buzzed. Video to follow in a bit.  

All ready and nowhere to go.

So my two compatriots are here. Currently as we sit here in my living room watching Top Gear (Season 12 ep 1) and awaiting our Pizza, there is a sense of pain. Why the pain? Because upon arrival MT punched me in arm and excitedly exclaimed  "We are going to India."
Jerk.

PD is also training hard as well. Here is he is taking a nap to prepare on sleeping on the plane. 

From 2009-12-10

PD is interesting. He told me that he has never actually been in a plane and that he might be slightly claustrophobic. To cure this, either he is getting a stiff shot of nyquil or I am. Regardless, we have just under 24 hours to the flight. To simply say that we are "excited" would be a massive understatement. 

Packing.

When should I start? How many clothes do I need for 16 days? Wait, I think a better question is how dirty is too dirty?

Welcome to "Why must it be always uphill?" This is a travel blog. The contributors are all friends, and I reckon most of the people reading this all know each other. The idea is to chronicle a 16 day trip to India, but then it expanded into my different travels. Whether it be a trip to Europe, or a gosh-darned trip to grocery store in the middle of a snowstorm, expect a verbal diatribe from me about that.

Our flight time is 1845 on Friday. MT and PD (my 2 friends for the first leg of the journey) are scheduled to arrive in about 12 hours. I will post once those idiots swell fellas get here