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.

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. 

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.

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.

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