There was no phonecall, no pregnant ex. 'twas all an April Fools.
Dont think Dad saw it in time but I fooled:-
Lisa
Todd
Jules-even though he was there when I wrote the post!

News. What do i do?

My ex girlfriend Jara has just called me to tell me she is pregnant. I don't know what to do. She may be lying to me again. More news as i find out. Phil

Third Day with Nokk - Dam It!

IF YOU ARE RECEIVING MY EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS OF THESE BLOG POSTS, YOU SHOULD GO TO MY ACTUAL SITE TOO, AS THERE ARE VIDEOS ON SOME OF THE POSTS THAT YOU CANNOT SEE FROM THE EMAIL THAT GETS SENT.

Well we had arranged with Mike and Annie to go either to Huay Teung Tao Lake (Where my old coffee shop is), or to go to Mae Taeng, or more specifically, Mae Ngat Dam in Mae Taeng. I got the impression that Mike preferred the latter, so after Nokk and I had got up and had breakfast, I called Mike and arranged to pick him and his girlfriend Annie up later that morning.

Annie & Mike in the Back of the car en route to Mae Taeng

Mae Ngat Dam is basically a big reservoir with floating houseboats and diving platforms. With this in mind, I thought that maybe Frank may like to come out for the day. He got very excited, and Nokk helped him accessorize for the trip:-

Yo Yo Yo - Big Frank In Da Car - Give it up Bitches!

We even had fun on the drive there. Just general silliness in the car. :)

Car Silliness

Upon arrival at Mae Ngat Dam, some cunning thai talk and Mikes T-Shirt from the school he works at, allowed us to get in for Thai price, rather than the full Farang (Westerner) price. This sort of double pricing is very comon at a lost of tourist sights. Although Mae Ngat Dam isn't really that touristy.

We parked the car, and then arranged for a longtail boat to take us out to the houseboats for the day. The cost of the boat taxi to and from the houseboats is 500baht for the boat for the return journey. So the more the merrier! Here are some pics from the trip over in the boat:-

Nokk is a fantastic photographer, and I need to thank her so much for all the pictures she took on this trip. My camera is buggered, and even when it wasn't, I seldom took it out on trips with me. My kindly brother Kevin is sending me his old Nokia N95, so hopefully I can be less lazy in future, as it has a decent 5MP camera built in, and I've always got my phone with me.

Found this hat in the back of Jules' car. Not the best look, but hey, it kept the sun off me. Actually, this day was a little overcast, but with the recent heatwave, it was actually very pleasant.

I gallantly gave Frank my lifevest for his safety. He was very unsure of the boat....

The mottley crew! Annie, Mike and the gorgeous Nokk.

This photo may appear as if I am deep thought, and admiring the view, but really I was trying to remember the route back to the car, in case the boat didn't pick us up. :)

I should point out that whilst the above pictures look serene and picturesque, in real life, we had to contend with the noise of a 1.6Litre 16 Valve Toyota Car engine powering the boat, with no sound insulation. :) As can be heard in the video below:-

Speed Demons

We pulled up to a row of house boats, and as we were there quite early (11a.m), we got to choose which of the house boat platforms we wanted to claim as ours for the day. The lady at the floating restaurant suggested we take the first one, as the breeze coming off the water hit that platform, so it would be a little cooler. We took her advice. :)

We ordered some drink and some food. I brought out my MP3 player and speakers, and put on a mix of The Rolling Stones Magazines Top 100 Songs of All time, and also a couple of chillout mixes from the masters of chillout Cafe Del Mar.



I can't quite remember everything we had for lunch. I think it was dry cured pork, which was lovely. And then Chicken with Basil, Cashew Nuts and Garlic, which was also lovely. Two different SomTams were ordered (Thai Spicy Papaya Salad), and some other stuff too. It was really nice!! I thoroughly enjoyed it. And Nokk was also pleased I was eating well. :)

Well, we spent the day swimming and relaxing. It was fun.



Mike mentioned that the houseboat on the other side of the reservoir looking inviting, and that maybe we should swim there. So being blokes, we both got stuck on that idea, and decided to do it. As it was a day out, and we had both only had 1 beer, we decided that upon reaching the platform on the other side of the reservoir, we should reward ourselves with a bottle of beer each. So we both put our heads together and came up with a good way to transport beer whilst swimming:-


And so, we set off:-


Mike got a little tired swimming over to the other side, and I was quite surprised that I wasn't suffering too much. It was a lot further than it looked! Anyway, we got there in the end, and here is proof .... (Click on the photo for a larger version and you should be able to make out our heads over at the other houseboat - Photo courtesy of Nokk)


It took Mike and I a little while to actually get up onto the platform on this houseboat. It was very old, and the bamboo that it was sat on had rotten away so much that no weight could be put on it. Furthermore, as we approached the boundaries of the house, we had to swim over a net that was acting as a perimeter around the property. There was no way we were turning back without a rest.

We got up onto the platform and had a little chat about the universe and everything, and then head back to our houseboat back on the opposite side once more. Here we are just reaching home:-


As you can hear from our homecoming, as Mike says "It was crap coming back" :-

Crap Coming Back....

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and reading, swimming and chatting. It was a great day spent here at the Dam.

Another great shot from Nokk

We then got picked up by the boat at 5pm, so that we could head back to the car, drive home, and spend the night relaxing. I will leave you with some pictures of the boat ride back with sun-setting over the water. Nokk and I spent the rest of the night at home. Check back tomorrow for a little update of the final two days of Nokks first visit to see me in Chiang Mai. Thanks for reading. :) Phil xx

Ignore the date on the timestamp - Mike must have his camera set to the wrong date. But what a great picture huh?

Second Day with Nokk - Lions and Tigers and Bars oh my!

DONT FORGET - YOU CAN CLICK ON ANY OF THE IMAGES TO GET A BIGGER VERSION SHOULD YOU WISH.

So we got up on Saturday, and Nokk wanted to ride elephants. So after breakfast, we jumped in Jules' car (Thanks Jules), and we set off for Mae Rim, or more precisely, Mae Sa Elephant Camp.

When we got to Mae Sa Elephant camp, they wanted 1200 baht for an hour elephant ride. They also wanted us to wait a while before we could do it. So we decided that we would leave that for another time. You can get a 3 day trek for the same price, and ride elephants and do bamboo rafting all included. We both want to do that, so we will ride elephants when we go trekking together.

Nokk bought some Pineapple and some drinks, and we drove up the Samoeng road further into the mountains. Its really nice scenery there. Nokk was feeding me pineapple as I drove the car. :) Beautiful weather, great company, life is good. :)

We got to a T-junction, and had a choice of Samoeng, or Hang Dong. We had both spoken about having lunch at the Tiger Kingdom, which was back the way we had come, so we just turned round, and went back the same way.

We got to the Tiger Kingdom, and sat down for lunch. Nokk ordered herself some Laab and something else - hmmm I can't remember what else. Anyway, I ordered Chicken Burrito. The food came, and her Laab was too sweet, and so was my Burrito. So we decided to go into one of the enclosures to play with the animals.

Now, I'll give you a little background. A couple of weeks ago, I was reading about some German lady who was in Chiang Mai hospital after playing with the Tiger Cubs. Something like 61 stitches for the bite to her leg. It transpires that the Tiger Cubs were getting a little older and boystrous, and were due for moving into the adolescent enclosure.

There are 2 packages available. Go in and hang out with the older Tigers (The adolescents), or go in with the Tiger cubs. I asked Nokk to ask the lady about the age of the cubs. The lady said they are getting a little big now. Not a chance in hell Im going in there with the "big" cubs. Not after they have already had a taste of human flesh within the past couple of weeks. Haha. The lady then said they have some small Lion cubs too. So that was my mind set! I wanted to go in with them. And here is the result:-

There were 2 Lions there, and one was really wanting to go outside to play, so he was roaring in a very cute way. The other one was much more playful, and this is the one in the better photo's above. This really is an amazing experience getting so close to these beautiful animals.

After the Tiger Kingdom, we drove back home and stayed there for a while. We had a look at the photos, and then we went out to Carrefour supermarket. On a Saturday there is a night market where they sell clothes, and bits and pieces, and handmade stuff. So we went there. We were hungry, so we went to a restaurant called Dink for some food. It was really good, and very tasty. Here is a pic, but do bear in mind that this food was for the both of us. Im not really this greedy. :) :-


After the meal, we had a wander around the Carrefour night market. I bought a photo frame because I wanted to print one of the lion pictures, and put it in my living room. Nokk bought some Keyrings for her colleagues, and one for me too. :)

We went into Carrefour to get a photo printed, but unbelievably there is nowhere to get photos printed in the supermarket. So we got back in the car, went for a little drink and then went home to bed.

Another great day. I feel like I've known Nokk for years, and every minute spent together was just amazing. I feel so lucky to know her.

My next post will be about our Sunday together. We went to Mae Ngat Dam in Mae Taeng, but more on that tomorrow.

Introducing Nokk

Hi,

Well I've kept this quiet, because I wanted to see how things work out between us, but things are fantastic, so here goes. My weekend with Nokk!

Todds girlfriend Dang passed details of her friend Nokk onto me a few weeks ago. Nokk lives in Bangkok, and works as a PA for the manager of the Bangkok office for a Software company. The software is the CGI animation software that was originally designed for the Lord Of The Rings trilogy so that Peter Jackson could create those amazing scenes with the Ork army.

Anyway, we were getting along like a house on fire, so last Friday, she hopped on a bus to Chiang Mai, and at 6 o'clock I went to meet her at Chiang Mai bus station. :)

The first night, as I'm poor, we just ordered in some pizza's, and shared them with my friends at a local Bamboo Bar near my house. It was good for her to meet my friends, plus it helped me relax because I was nervous as hell. Here are some pics from that night:-

Nokk is shy the first night! :)

Annie, Mike, Rob and his Wife (I dont know her name)

Hugo and Kanya - The Bamboo Bar owners

Rich and Kanya's brother, and myself of course :)

We had a nice night. After the bar, we went home and watched a movie. It was great that Nokk got on so well with my friends. And the pizza went down a storm too. :)

More birthday.

The couple with my mate mike, and his girl annie. Phil :)

Birthday party

Dutch guy hugo, me, and his wife kanya at his house for her birthday. Fun. :)