EL159

13 minutes ago, Rob13 said:

 

Bit far from CM though; innit

Not getting my irony, Rob !!

If you re "looking for a hotel near the nightlife" I have a few suggestions:

1. Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok

2. Beach Road, Pattaya

3. Bangla Road, Patong.

They seek them here, they seek them there,

Is it round or is it square?

Is it deep, or is it thin?

Is it spicy or is it bland?

Can you eat it out of your hand?

Is it Dukes, or is it Viva?

It doesnt really matter, its only Pizza!

Come on everyone, back upon your horse, this ones more than  run its course!

Assume Dukes is desperate. I m fairly new here but it seems like almost every week someone is posting about how good dukes pizzas are. Perhaps the owners mates are being asked to post and eulogise his stuff?

For the record, I ve had "great pizzas" recently at Viva Pizza, a great little place near Hangdong, and also at Street Pizza on Thapae Road.

It doesnt take a feat of engineering or Stephen Hawking to make a good Pizza!

What a great idea. I m still struggling to come to terms with my dear old (bonkers!) friend Nicks untimely passing. My travels with Nick are catalogued in two of his books, and re reading them these past couple of weeks has brought all the memories flooding back!

Anyone who needs to know who I am can PM me. Otherwise, see you there on 5th.

Really hope The Cubs can finally win the World Series again. I m from UK but on my US holidays ( 20 years ago) I saw Major League Games at Jack Murphy ( San Diego Padres), Candlestick Park ( San Francisco Giants), Fenway Park ( Redsox) and Wrigley Field ( Cubs). The latter two are delighful places to watch sport, with the often hilarious wisecracks aimed at the fielding team from the "bleachers" adding to the fun! For those on here who love Baseball, Ken Burns documentary series on the history of Baseball which came out a few years ago is terrific!

Trip Advisors rating system is nonsense because it rates on where gets the most reviews ( hence Davids Kitchen being high up) not on quality of food. Example? I went to Luang Prabang recently, and if you ask Trip Advisor about the best restaurants there, you get a list where a street corner noodle joint comes out number one, and yet places like "L Elephant" a very highly rated French place comes out at about number 7.....the whole system is nonsense!

26 minutes ago, phetphet said:

I dined there about two -three years ago. Wasn't bad. Can't recall what I ate, but I had an enjoyable evening.

 

A bit outside Chiang Mai. Got the hotel to call the restaurantl for directions, and explain to the taxi driver, but I think they have their own driver if you want to book a pick-up.

 

 

"A bit outside Chiang Mai" ? You must have a different restaurant. This one is opposite the British Consulate,  just around the corner five minutes from Good View and Riverside.....hardly "outside" Chiang Mai !!!!

4 hours ago, CMKiwi said:

Be careful for what you wish for. The landlady in charge of that area has been making life increasingly difficult for tenants lately.

 

Changes to the rules, what you can and can't do in relation to decor or alterations. It seems she has become extremely controlling.

 

Methinks the writing maybe on the wall.... maybe it will all be knocked down and a new condo block put there? or perhaps another coffee shop.  I'm sure we can do with another dozen of those.

 

Time will tell....

Zoe closing? Wow, hope so, thats the best news I ve heard these past few days! Oh dear, the arrogant ignorant self important blogging fraternity might move on to another city, or better still, another country.

If youre coming to Chiang Mai with "decent" ( indecent?) entertainment in mind, I d stick to places like Bangkok, Pattaya and Patong. Not been much doing here for a year or so now,  ever since the requirement to close relatively early was imposed.

2 minutes ago, Mekong Thunder said:

True Visions at 3,000 Baht/USD $100 per month for their Platinum package even when they lost the football to CTH?

Platinum sevice is nowhere near 3000 baht.  I pay 2600 but that includes the rental of a second box upstairs which I think costs 400 a month, so Platinum service with only one box much closer to 2000 than 3000, OK? Check your facts out before you start laughing, Mekong, always a good idea!

Sorry to state the obvious, but if a persons VERY keen to watch all The English Premiership games live,  why not, ( expects gasps of horror!) actually purchase Truevisions newly re acquired and now excellent service, all games shown, including four at any one time on a Saturday, all in HD, plus added bonus of other major European leagues too?

And no, I dont work for True,  I just prefer to watch the games live in full without trailing around all sweaty looking for it!

Leanne, none of us who knew Nick have any further information. Nick took himself off back to UK quite a few months ago without revealing to anyone what he was suffering from, which we now understand was lung cancer. Personally, I feel so sad that I dont have "closure" on his passing, no opportunity to say farewell to a very good bloke, all I have is fond memories of travelling with Nick, memories that will stay with me always.

Thats not correct, elektrified, they ve been charging 10 baht, which I have no problem with, for as long as I can remember, and I ve been here 10 years. On this occasion, its nothing to do with the Chinese, I park there several times a week and have never seen "Chinese tour companies taking up spaces"....just saying.....for the record.

I think to be a success in the Disc Jockey market in Chiang Mai you should read the Alan "Fluff" Freeman textbook. "Hey there pop pickers, here comes the new one from Chubby Checker, Lets Twist Again"....That would go down a storm at the Expat Coffee Mornings, hey, Nancy, how about it? As long as theres a medical team close at hand to deal with the sudden spate of heart attacks and strokes!!!

If I m not allowed under Thai law to paint my own house, then presumably it must also be illegal for people from abroad to work as a DJ?

Quick question. Has anyone else noticed a dramatic slowing down of internet speed these past few days?  Now I know it depends to some extent on where you live, which provider you use, etc, but in general terms, how are others finding it recently?

I was beginning to think I d got something virus wise in my laptop that needs cleaning out as it was so slow this weekend just gone, but suddenly this morning all seems a bit quicker, making me think it might be the feed coming in from wherever that could be slowing things down.

By the way, I m talking about laptops, PCs etc, smartphone speed as per normal. Thanks, any thoughts/ feedback welcomed.

1 hour ago, Anthony5 said:

 

Of course you can track items arriving from overseas. Everything I ordered from overseas, and which is sent with a tracking number, can be tracked from the moment it enters Thai soil.

Sighs! Did you read my post, I m not talking about "orders" from overseas, such as Amazon, I m talking about normal day to day mail posted by family in UK and not being delivered here! You dont do "tracking" for normal inexpensive stuff like christmas cards etc, its those that dont arrive. Please pay attention!

38 minutes ago, neilrob said:

I agree with Nancy. My experience with the Thai postal service has been positive. The tracking system is excellent---I wish the USPS tracking system were as good.

Yes but you cant track things supposed to be arriving from overseas, its those that go missing, not stuff within Thailand!

Agree with opalred. Over the past four years I have had countless greetings cards posted from UK, virtually none have arrived at my house. Out of frustration I have now agreed with my family to not send stuff be it birthday, christmas or whatever.

And before anyone says ahhh, how do you know its Thailand not UK....well, over the past couple of months, my son has twice posted something I wanted ( car stickers for my football team!) and used UK tracking service which reports back upto departure from UK shores. Both items left UK, neither arrived with me, and in both cases they were small normal envelopes, nothing "gifty" at all.

Sad to say, we re foreigners here, and therefore I suspect "fair game" for the possibility of something of value. If I see a Thai vehicle with stickers on it from my little UK football team, I ll pursue at great speed!

Thank you, Saan for that additional but very sad information. Nick lived his entire life to the full, rock musician, sound engineer, traveller, travel writer, lived in California, played golf with people like Jimmy Page of Led Zep, ( I ve seen the photos!), had a funny story or anecdote to tell about all sorts of stuff, but equally, was a good listener too, so to end your life in palliative care, and probably alone is just impossible for me to come to terms with.

My favourite "Nick" story was when we shared a room at a hotel in Siem Reap ( everywhere was full!) and he pre warned me about his tendency to sleepwalk. At about 4am there was a loud knocking on our door, when I opened it, there was Nick stark naked....he d sleepwalked to the toilet except instead of the toilet door he d taken himself out into the hotel lobby area instead!

I think everyone who knew him would remember him with a smile. He was a very regular customer at The Writers Club, where our other dear friend Bob Tilley sadly also passed away last year.

Rest In Peace, Nick, I will always remember the laugh a minute times we had in Cambodia, Burma, Nepal, and Thailand of course.

I m devasted to hear that good friend and travelling partner Nick Pyatt, former professional musician, noted author of travel books, and one of Chiang Mais most well known characters, with his long red hair, and a friendly conversation with anyone and everyone has recently passed away. I travelled extensively around South East Asia with Nick about ten years ago, having some high old times in Cambodia, Burma and Nepal. Nick could be described as a bit eccentric, but always for me in a good way.

I lost contact with Nick about a year ago and now hear that he went back to UK or USA for treatment for something but tragically never recovered. Most recently Nick was proprietor of "Doctor Nicks Bar" close to Soi 2 Moon Muang, and he genuinely was entitled to use "Doctor".....he had a PHD in Musicology from a UK University.

Any news welcomed about someone I will always remember with great fondness and funny stories.

Absolutely agree with every word from ianf. I also live close to the facility, I am not a swimmer, but I ve been intrigued and not in a good way by the staggeringly inept development of this death trap place. I ve been for a coffee and watched as people jump in one after the other to exactly the same place, similar to what happened with this death. The so called lifeguards are just a joke. They do nothing other than stand around playing with their phones and having a good laugh at scrapes and near misses, if this facility is allowed to continue as it is now there will be more accidents, no doubt at all.

12 hours ago, Throatwobbler said:

Yes close it down. Let's close everything down. We can't have people having fun now can we. I bet you are real fun at parties.

"Having Fun" ?  Yeah.....life heres all part of "having fun".....unsafe ziplines, unsafe bungy jumps, already took lives, now we have an unsafe unsupervised cliff jumping experience that has taken a few lives, all this on top of an awful lot of unsafe driving standards! which take many lives on a daily basis.

Yeah, life here is so much "fun", risking your life every day in so many different ways, what a laugh, its all so funny isnt it throatwobbler!

This was an accident waiting to happen. I live very near, am not a swimmer myself, but as this place has developed I ve been there a few times for a coffee overlooking the whole place. People behave really, really stupidly, Thai and Foreigners alike, and I ve seen almost the same thing a few times, people jumping from exactly the same spot a few seconds apart will invariably land in the same place in the water.

There are a few sort of "lifeguards" but doubt if theyre professionally trained as they simply observe and dont intervene at all. Contrast that with the professional lifeguards at places like Bondi Beach, where the lifeguards are constantly watching and have a rapid response if anything silly is in danger of happening.