In this one “ I have something to tell to you.”

“ Manu, I have something to tell to you. Your dog is called Flower Beach and is purple. I will go look for it when I am older. It is called Flower Beach because beaches are purple.”

- A. Thompson (age 5)

I would attempt to provide context to the story but nothing I could come up with is going to do this justice. All I can say is that the background to the story involves a luggage identifying tag, a made up story about a lost dog in Barcelona airport and the imagination of a five year old in a car on the way to look at Pont d’Avignon.

In this one I write an open letter to Paris

My dearest Paris,

We have been through a lot together haven’t we? From the missed trains to the massive monuments. From the statues of mental giants outside of the Louvre to the gorgeous women flashing their intoxicating smiles at me.

What can I say, I love you. While I can never inhabit you, I thank you for allowing me to enjoy your splendor. Your traffic known by lesser travellers as “crazy” was effectively tame wherever I crossed your streets. Your waiters, known for their rudeness, warmed up and welcomed me into their money grabbing clutches as soon as they heard me butcher their beautiful language.

In this one a chalet gets in the way

Before I start, I must congratulate my erstwhile torturers friends MT, KT, LM and GP who kicked the Mt Ventoux’s bottom.The quickest time recorded was by LM @2:12 followed closely by KT who did it in the exact same time albeit with more rest periods.

The ride began on a beautiful day with nary a cloud to be seen. This caused a great deal of consternation within the group as ideas of rain/hail/snow/sleet were quickly ruled out. Breakfast was consumed with the same enthusiasm as a person who is about to walk the green mile consuming his last meal prepared by the cafeteria staff. Thankfully, the cafeteria staff in question was LM and his lovely wife HM who made sure that we were fed food fit for a king (or Prince Chuck anyway). With my excuses for wanting to take a nap instead of climbing a mountain dismissed as malarky, we set off.

In this one I wake up in Bedoin.

How to describe Bedoin? Picture a storm ravaged coastline replete with massive mongooses. Bedoin is nothing like that. Bedoin is more like a tranquil shark with blue skies, remoras and mountains surrounding it. As I sit poolside, listening to wind pass through the surrounding trees, I feel completely at ease.

We all went on a 20-odd kilometer ride through the Pyrenian mountains to the neighboring city of Malaucene. A lumpy ride during which I was attacked by retirees in spandex verbally and by vicious chihuahuas physically. But perseverance is the key here as evidenced by this picture. This picture was taken when I was racing to save a puppy from drowning in a lake up the road. While details are sketchy, this image is not altered in anyway shape or form^**.

The ride was followed by a quick shower and a sojourn into the village to hunt Baguettes and Beer. Beer was obtained, along with a coffee based drink that looked confusing. Confusing because it came with tassels. Delicious regardless of its form this was consumed with much rapidity. Now I am waiting for dinner. I am right chuffed about it. For tomorrow, we suffer.


^** Image completely doctored. Any resemblance to any such events occurring at that time are purely coincidental. 

In this one I lose my pants.

My love for all of you dear readers is well documented. Not only have you guys managed to handle my months and months of radio silence, but you came back to wish me bon voyage on the way to France. Wait a tic, you did not. NONE of you came. Why is that fair reader?

However, I forgive you. I cannot stay mad at you guys (this is owing to your incredible collective cuddliness).
Regular missives will now resume as I travel for the next two weeks covering south of France, Paris, London and then after a day or two off, Acton-Waterloo, Ontario.

The upcoming 24 hours will now be taken up by travelling across one continent to another over a giant pond, followed by travelling from England to France under another giant pond. But every journey starts at the same place. Currently, I am warming my posterior in a very cool terminal in Toronto Pearson Airport wishing for the moment when I will be allowed to take my pants off.

In this one I discover that retirees are full of lies.

People in Canada had a long weekend in the not too distant past celebrating the birth of this nation, as well as the one to  the south. No. I do not mean Mexico, although I would like to celebrate their independence day as well (doing this would involve drinking Tequila).

In this one I discover that the sea is salty

How to calmly abandon people

So what does one do on an island paradise? One finds a remote part of said island and goes snorkelling of course. I was informed of this fact by a local named Ian, the minute he saw me step foot on the beach. He did sort of ruin the moment where I see an ocean for the first time in my life (readers will remember I am 193 years old). So I did what comes naturally to me. I glowered, bared my teeth, unleashed my adamantium claws and tried to walk away.

In this one I stop looking at roadside crabs

One might argue that I am a fairly worldly traveller. While they would be as wrong as Sarah Palin is about everything, they, much like her, have the right to argue this point. It turns out that despite my best efforts at being totally awesome, this visit I truly felt awed by what all is left for me to see in this world. After all, this was the first time I was going to see an ocean. Little know fact, oceans are also known as the giant-blue-portions-on-the-world-map-that-I-used-to-think-meant-land. I will personally french-kiss you (whether you want me to or not) if you can get that reference.

Early  into day #1 in St.Lucia I was very excited for my first trip to a beach that did not strongly resemble a bunch of sand that was dumped on a landfill next to a fresh water lake (looking at you here Britannia Beach).

For those not in the know, a beach is not only a place where a terrible Leonardo Di Caprio movie was shot but also a curious phenomenon of nature. This is the place where sun, sand, salt-water come together in a mixture of awesome. It is as spectacular in it’s beauty as a herd of Chihuahuas are terrifying.

I decided after glancing at the *insert superlative here* beach that  I should look strip down and find myself a bench and stop staring at the giant crabs on the road. As cool as the crabs may have been, they were at the end of the day giant insects that move sideways.

At this point in time I bid you, dear reader, a fond adieu. I would talk more but I have some beach chilling to do. If you happen to find yourself in St. Lucia, and you stumble upon a young, handsome, ripped, brown blogger who is staring at giant crabs who are impudently crossing the road, rest assured, you have not met me.

Lessons in booking a roof over my bald head

Good day my lovely cetaceans,

I know that you have waited with bated breath for my next communiqué. I have deprived you of this amazing, handsome and talented blogger’s pithy writings. For this, I do apologize, just like a famous golfer did recently for sampling a cavalcade of fine women. In so much that I am sorry for my (in)actions, but to be honest, I was having fun while doing (or not) it.

So back to the post. As I mentioned in one of my past musings, that we (PS aka the useless co-writer, DS who is no relation to PS but also quite useless as a blogger, and KB who is no relation to me and is quite unsure what a blog is) were heading to St. Lucia. Well as I type this I am flying over Savannah, Georgia headed to Miami, from where I shall fly with my metal wings to St.Lucia. The problem is that we do not know where we are going to stay once we are in St. Lucia.

You see, PS, apart from being the world’s worst co-writer, is also one of the people who was responsible for booking a hotel for us to stay. So proactive was this man, that within a few hours of us deciding to do this trip, he had been in contact with a small hotel owner in St. Lucia. This was followed by him promptly declaring this endeavour a success and assuring us that he had taken care of accommodations. We slumbered in our belief that everything had been indeed taken care of.

This dream was shattered much like a Ming vase shot out of a howitzer in the middle of a hurricane made of angry tigers. You see on Wednesday, PS, decided to check up on the hotel room. It turns out that the hotel room was *not* booked. This caused some amounts of consternation inside his capacious cranium. Upon enquiring how a room that he had “booked” 4 months back is not in fact booked. Apparently, hotel rooms are not booked if money does not change hands. Since the hotelier was asking for a wire transfer and PS was not used to wires, transfers or money and the only think that he  provided instead of green pieces of paper, the hotelier with was supplied with ample assurance that we were coming, and told him to hold the room. It appears that someone might have given the hotelier a better deal. A deal that might have actually involved small green pieces of paper.

So where does this leave us? PS managed to speak to “Simon” who is a hotelier in St. Lucia, who has managed to link us up with his friend “Trevor’s” apartments. So we have two 1-bedroom flats to stay in. The following is the questions that I was most concerned about. The following is the answer that I was provided with.

Do we know the address of this place? No. Turns out addresses are quite unnecessary. We are supposed to land at the airport and call Trevor to acquire the required directions.  This I am sure will end well. May the great flying spaghetti monster have mercy on my meatballs.

That sounded wrong.  

Words that move and do other things

Good day my beautiful mudskippers,
As we all know that being an elite, erudite, and thoroughly charming bloke that I am, means that I have certain sectors of populace to please. Consequently, I took my own sweet arse time to put the videos of my India trip up. While the audio is a bit off and there is plenty of shaky cam. (I refer to them as the typos of the video world) I would suggest that you have a box of  tissues beside you because you are about to be taken through an emotional tour-de-force.
The videos are after the jump, and I would suggest having HD switched on.

Different kind of travel

Being single is boring. Turns out you can only laugh at your jokes only so many times, if you hold hands in public people look at you strangely and if you try to snog yourself, you leave lip marks on the mirror. Okay, none of this happened, but solitude does become boring when I am not running, climbing, biking or working.

So today, I am treating you to a different kind of travel. I am entering the scary world of online dating. Your protestations aside, my little narwhals, there are times when drop dead stunning bloggers such as myself must brave this new world.

Live blogging from the first class coach

Quite by accident I found myself travelling to Ottawa via train. Well, the train part was not an accident, but the travel was. Even more by accident I found that my trip to Ottawa (at least 50% of it) was by first class. Instead of doing a recollection later on, I reckoned that I would liveblog this journey.

 1715 hrs 

In the train.  I entered the wrong coach. They judged me first and then grovelled when I showed my 1st class tickets. That’s right plebs.

1720 

Sitting in the right coach now. Lots of leg room. Very hot looking women here.

1721

Oh god made eye contact with one of the hot women. Must look away.

1721

Now her big male friend is looking at me. I am calmly checking my seat for irregular stitching.

1722

It is all good now. They have gone back to talking to each other.

1723

Wait, they are offering drinks already. Do I have to pay? I have never travelled first class. I am going to order pop just in case I have to pay.

1727

Damn. Alcohol was free.

1728

Telling the world over Gmail and twitter that I am travelling in First Class. Basking in my friends adulation.

1730

What was that ?!?! Oh, hah. We are moving. Silly me. I forgot where I was.

1731

I still have internet. This is a good thing.

1745

They are handing out menus. And we are only at the first station. I am never travelling like plebs again.

1747

Cute woman is asleep now. She has hot boots. Outside scenery is of …nothing. Sad. Oh wait houses. Man those houses must hate trains.

1800

Just saw the menu. Turkey cacciatore, stuffed pasta thing and salmon. Having the salmon. Hope it does not turn out like Airplane, as I do not know how to land a train. I also do not know how to drive one, as I have no license, train or otherwise. No, not drinking as I do not feel the need to supplement fish with beer. Walnut apple cake for dessert. Double W00t. *note to self* Must stop acting like a poor person.

1801

Just prevented a disaster of massive proportions. Saved my neighbour’s drink from spilling.  I am a fricking hero. She thanked me, I pretended it was not a big deal. I wonder if she can read this. Hello neighbour.

1810

At Oshawa station. Waiting for commoners to embark and disembark. I look at them with scorn. Why are the attendants not rushing to my side with nourishment. Heroes should not be kept waiting.

waiting….

waiting….

1900

Oh wait. A trolley. Hooray it is the appetizer. Quite succulent. That is what a rich person would say, right? Oh, maybe one glass of white wine will not really harm me.

1915

This wait is interminable. I wonder how fresh the fish is going to be. I simply cannot stand store bought you know.

1925

Ah yes, the good man who brings food has arrived. It smells appetizing.

1928

Umm… I finished it.

1929

I ate the dessert as well.

1931

Hmm. I think I might have eaten my food too fast. Others are still unwrapping their food. I am now staring at the pretty girl’s food. Oh hey guy, yes, I will take the baguette

1931

Ummm… I eated it and have resumed staring. She’s thin, I don’t think she needs to eat all that food does she? I mean will she really miss the cake?

1945

Yes, I will have the second glass of wine

1946

Also the decaf coffee

1947

Free chocolate you say. Yes… OM NOM NOM NOM

1949

No I do not need no goddamn liqueur… I will take some more wine and sparkling water though.

1951

WHEEEEEEEE……

1956

I am not as think as you drunk I am

2014

zzzzzzzzzzz *snork* I think we are at Kingston. Oh! I mean we are leaving Kingston. My head hurts. I am going back to sleep. I hate wine.

2021

Drinks trolley. Get thee behind me drink of Satan. I asked for a ginger ale. He told me that they are only doing bar now and that he would come back for pop. I think my poor parts are showing again.

2030

Pulling into a small town called Gananoque. Why it does it sound like a disease of the… you know… lower parts.

2035

The train horn keeps tooting. As I am listening to Stephen Fry caress my ears with his dulcet tones (I am listening to a Harry Potter audio book), I cannot help but think I am heading to Hogwarts.

2055

At Brockville. Ho-hum

2105

CHUG-A-CHUG-A… TOOOOT TOOOOT

2120

I have no idea where we are. Oh god Smith Falls. Be scared. BE VERY SCARED.

2140

Almost there. I give this trip 18 thumbs up. I shall wrap this up. And so ends my brief foray into the world of the rich. Now, I must mingle with the rest of smelly commoners. Oh well.

The one where I freeze myself for science.

Dear lemming-esque followers of my musings,

Today I cryogenically freeze my body. I shall attempt to ride this frigid, almost tundra like day on my beloved Trek 1.5 (2009). 

So why am I riding today? Is it because that cold air can act as a good replacement for Botox treatments to keep my youthful appeareance err.. appearing youthful? Not that I need it of course, I am after all a sprightly 210 years of age, and have been told that I can pass for a 200 year old. 

No, it is because I am attempting MONT VENTOUX *da dum dum*

To all my non-bikey readers, this (referring to the picture of Mont Ventoux) seems like a normal hill and would appear as a "what's the big deal?" moment. First of all, I would strongly encourage you all to start riding so that you understand how hills work and secondly, you see the greenish thing under the tower? That is about 23 km away from where this picture is taken from, and over a kilometer and a half straight up. 

The pain that this is going to cause is going to be epic. It is to steel myself against the pain that I am going to wilingly freeze myself. Oh goody, it is only -8 °C (-16 °C with windchill) today. 

Ugh. 

Oh and also St. Lucia.

So a few days back I posted an open letter to my fellow cyclists/adventurers. But that is not the only trip I am signed up to do.

A few days back, a couple of my friends suggested that the boys should have a boys trip out to a Caribbean island. The place in question... St. Lucia. (In case you didn't guess that you clever little golden marmoset)

At this point in time I have a sad admission to make. I am nearly 210 years old (give or take a couple of centruries) and I have never seen an ocean/sea/a large saline body of water in my life. Yes, I, @damookman the first, am an ocean virgin. Thusly it is up to the eastern Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to take this precious gift away. Hmm, this metaphor seems to have gotten away from me.


Right, so I am heading to St. Lucia with a co-writer of this blog and a few of my close friends. A co-writer who, I must shame mention,  is yet to write even a single post. 


But this is not a normal boys trip. There are no strippers, there is no blow, and there is definitely no long walks on the beach followed by a glass of merlot by a campfire while the Atlantic ocean glistens under the moonligh... errr. 


Right, this is not a normal boys trip. You see, we are all cricket fans and being that St. Lucia is one of the places that the Twenty-20 world cup is being held, how could we not go? I am also going to use this opportunity to run on the beach to continue training for my upcoming duathlon, and to keep up with retirees clad in lycra who are going to make me climb up Mont Ventoux and then laugh at me for being slow.  


Well that's it for this post. More will come as things become more and more clear. 


@damookman

Elephants at Amer Fort.

Just a short post.




 Taken in Amer Fort, Rajasthan, India. (click on the picture to take you to my flickr page) 

One of the ways that you can actually get to Amer fort is on Elephant back. Here is the kicker though. They will take you up but they do not accept any fares to go down. 

An open letter to my fellow cyclists/adventurers

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening all of you hyper-intelligent shades of blue,

Yesterday, I received a communique from a certain Sir MT. It turns out that his family, and his in-laws are going to the south of France. Mr. T  has graciously invited me and another crazy cyclist @bad_akuro to join him for about a week or so.


 Ah-ha! I hear your protestations and complaints already.  "But @damookman", you say shrilly in a distinct but husky tone, "Why do you want to go on his family vacation? Is he adopting you?"

Hah, you lovable dopes. NO, OF COURSE NOT. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU TO ASK SUCH RIDICULOUS QUESTIONS ?!

*composes himself*

You see Big Lad MT, KT (his wife) and LM (his father in law, aka, the retiree who kicked our arses) are avid cyclists. And they plan on biking around the neighborhood. Of course, the neighborhood is the south of France, specifically the town of Orange, just a stone's throw away from Marseilles, close to being under the shadow of the legendary Mont Ventoux and maybe even spend a day or two in Barcelona which is 3 hours away. And as M "look at my shaven muscular legs" T put it.

Southern France has some great views through wine country so we could do la-la rides everyday and work in a few workout routes as well.  LM mentioned one nasty mountain route (he refered to it as iconic) that he and G? are planning to do.  I think it may be Montpellier.  Where we are LM says it's easy by car to get to a few good biking spots along the tour route.   Also we will be close to Avingnon (location of the "pont d'avingnon" a childrens song and key destination for AT) Marseille and a 3 hour drive from barcelona.  I think there will be a day trip of two to those locations.  KT has even suggested spending a night in Spain.

For those who do not know.
LM - Father in law, the retiree who kicked our arses fully clad in lycra at the beginning of last season.
G? - FIL's friend. Possibly also lycra clad. The ? is because he is mysterious.
AT - M "Productive Loins" T's daughter
Marseille - Type it into google, you lazy prat.


Ah yes, the cost. Here is the part I was scared of. It is not a trip to Wasaga beach or even to Goderich, ON. The flight is going to cost about 1000-1200 bucks. For staying there,  M "Sir Moneybags the Third" T, has suggested renting a house which would drop the cost to about 50 bucks a person per night. So if we stay for ten days that would mean $500. So just to get there and chill would cost us $1500 per person.


BUT. And pay attention here you spoiled yet lovely anacondas, for this is the important reason that I want to go to France.


I want to go to France. 


That being said, I am scared that at some point in time M "Dr. Livingstone, I presume" T will try to sell me to local caravans in exchange for trinkets. As he so nicely pointed out this time he will speak the local language. This worries me a bit because he did try to sell PD when we were in India, and it was only the fact that he could not speak the language that stopped him.


But it will be fun, we will have bikes, amazing scenery and French Women who will try to ply my affections with generous libations.

Yours in pain and hope,
@Damookman

Traffic is really physics

It has been a while, has it not, my frolicking mudskippers. Well fear not, this venerable charmer has not abandoned you. You can blame my infrequency on the recession and global weather changes. However, my musings will continue till the well starts to run dry and then I will run away to another location and carry on from there.

One of the constant factors in India that we always had to budget for was the traffic. Travelling is not straightforward there as heading from Yonge and Bloor to King and John (or Parliament Hill to Sussex drive if you are unfortunate lucky enough to live in Ottawa) might be.

Traffic in Delhi is not a stream but a raging torrent. In Jaipur, however, it was more akin to whitewater rapids… with sharks… with superlasers attached.. being ridden by bears… well you get the idea. Lanes are merely suggestions, and traffic lights are at best idealized concepts. Now granted that this might just be a small section of the city, but I sincerely doubt it.

Crossing the street is an exercise in physics. If car A approaches the intersection at 30 km/h and and is being driven by a man busy on his 22 cell phones, how many bodies does Car A need to dispatch before the sea of humanity forces it to stop before hitting you. The answer is dependent on how fast you can shove your friend.

The lesson that MT and I learned on our second day was to keep moving. As long as you can do that, the cars will adapt, but god forbid if you change your mind. That will lead to disaster. The other thingwe learned was the stick-your-hand-out-in-a- stop-please-gesture MANUeuvre(get it, huh? Huh? Huh?) . This complicated manoeuvre involves, and bear with me here, sticking your hand out in a stop-please gesture and walking. I am sorry if I got too technical there. There you go my lovely dumplings, armed with this knowledge you are now safe on the streets of Delhi. Assuming you know where the hell you are going because there are no street signs, and the streets have no names. Enjoy.