Another rain & GayCookBook

WOW– we just had another rain – thunder, lightning, and heavy, heavy down-pours – caught Jerry and I at the gay garden Inn” where they were watching the monthly “Quiz” night.  3 teams trying to answer questions from any topic. – generally prizes for the winning team is about 800 Baht – but tonight there was a special prize –

Hard bound Gold Leaf embossed “Gay Thai Cookbook”.   presented by the publisher and owner of a new web site dedicated to gay– food, humour, presentation.  They have their main page up now and hope to be on line soon

WWW,GAYCOOKBOOK.COM                               CHECK IT OUT

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The Gay Cookbook by Chef Lou Rand Hogan: The complete compendium of campy cuisine and menus for men… or what have you.

I’ll have more on John – owner and his plans, ideas and schedules.

The rain lasted all night and this morning the air was crisp and clean – what a difference.  Love it    and as a bonus it knocked the heat down too.

Ciao

Bad Thai

Sawadee Khrap

This really makes my Thai look bad – I need a better Thai transliteration Dictionary. – or better yet just use the one I have for every letter or email – sorry

I recently sent out a email wishing everyone a Happy Songkram.   It should have been HAPPY SONGKRAN – what a mistake

Songkran = Thai New Year festival

Songkram = war or battle

If you got one of my infamous emails  – please delete it.  And HAPPY THAI NEW YEAR

Sawadee Pi Mai.

Thanks

Frank

 

Wow – Lampang hit 44C today

Sawadee Khrap

That’s 111 F.   Now that’s hot.  Tasanai is coming back from his Lampang project and has stopped in Lampoon to rest up and get some water and lunch.  The car’s air-conditioner is just putting out warm humid air now and sucking the gas.  We get about 1/2 the mileage running the air-con. 

The little Mira’s air-con can’t keep up the sun comes through the windows and really heats up the inside – we had them put on a supposedly good sun screen tint but it doesn’t seem to have any effect – except you can’t see in.  They painted this crap on rather than using a film and and now it’s going to be hard to remove.  damn anyway. 

Here in Chiang Mai – I haven’t had the patio doors open today, just the air-con running and taking it easy – I did walk up to the Grand View Hotel, about 4 blocks away for lunch (I don’t cook) and could really feel the heat.  We are about 40–41C here in CM.  Really a hot wind so everywhere it’s hot – not a cloud in the sky to block the sun. Time to sit at the computer and play.

Hopefully it will break tomorrow and cool down a bit.  But that’s the hot season – should cool off some this evening but we will still have the air-con running a little in the bedroom.  Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh  well – just a weather report — see ya.

Ciao

Where’s Your Head At – Basement Jaxx

Here’s another great Song/Video from the Basement Jaxx DVD – check it out and get the full version – plus their other hits –

 

First Rain

Well we just had our first heavy rain today    – great thunder-head clouds and a real downpour – only lasted about 1 hr but it was sufficient to clear all the air in the Chiang Mai valley and cool us down.  The seasons are changing now to the rainy season, somewhat cooler and definitely cooler evenings.  What a difference, you can see all the mountains surrounding us – nice and clear, free of dust. 

Weather4-18-07  Here’s the weather picture from the satellite today from “The Thai Meteorological Dept.”  Really raining in Bangkok – fairly soon here – I should be able to get some great lighting shots

 

    more pictures later !!!

Ciao

Video – Sabadchai – Drum Special

Sawadee Khrap

Here is the full length presentation of “SABADCHAI”  performed by the School For life boy’s drum team.  This was the opening act for the dedication of the new boys dormitory from funds received from the 2006 Hillside4 Condo Roof Top Charity Night.

This is a Thai ceremonial drum song used in various observances from welcoming guests to the preparation for war:

 

Video – School For Life Boy’s Dorm Dedication

Here is video clips that Tasanai took for the domitory dedication for the School For Life. It also seems that we didn’t include a shot of the dormitory itself – a plain brick building to house the younger boys. We are going back and I will get some better shots of the full school layout.

 

Video – Poy Sang Long

Here’s the video for the Poy Sang Long Festival celebration that we showed on April 5th Post –

 

Lets get WET – It’s SONGKRAN 2007

Sawadee Pi Mai Khrap

It’s Songkran and time to get wet – Here is a video I took from the top roof level of the Central Shopping Center on Huay Kaew Road – just down the street from our place. This was taken on Sunday – the last day of the show and so the crowd is not as large as it was Friday and Saturday – almost 3 times as many – roads blocked and much, much more water.

 

Songkran – Saturday

Sawadee Pi Mai

Here are some shots from the top of “Huay Kaew Road Central” shopping center down the street from us – just up from the moat.  There were 4 dancing stages, each with their own bands playing within the same block – here is the one in front of Central itself – If you look closely you can also see the stage up and on the other side of the street – in the upper left, below the “MK” sign. There was also another at the Orchid Hotel.

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And then we ventured into the streets – These are shots from Jerry’s car – windows up naturally, or we would have been really soaked, going down the moat street at Chang Puak Gate. Figuring that each side of the moat surrounding the Old City area of Chiang Mai is about 1.3 miles – that means just here alone there is a gauntlet of almost 5 miles of people on both sides of the street throwing water on all passers by – especially those on motorcycles – and almost any one who had one was riding there – It’s not Songkran unless your soaking wet. ————

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Tomorrow I am going to get some video with sound to post – I’ll be at the Central area and then in the shopping center – great eye candy, wet shirts, pants – really brings out the great figures.        Warm day – cold water – lots of fun       Stay tuned !!!! !

Sawadee Pi Mai – Happy Thai New Year – Songkran

Today we went to make merit for the Thai New Year (Songkran).  We went to a small temple outside of town in the Mae Rim District.  Tasanai wanted to find a small temple in the remote areas that needed supplies and didn’t have a large congregation.  We found a beautiful, small temple, Pong Yang Nai Temple. 

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The inside was painted with these colourful murals:

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The Head Monk and second weren’t there so we left our merit offering with a novice monk who was meditating when we arrived – The baskets had food, medical supplies and other needed items.  Plus a envelope with a little bit of cash.

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Then we headed back home. Along the way we stopped at a roadside coffee shop and got ice cream shakes – great in the heat of the day – Sitting in the place next to us was a cute kid.   His father was a worker for the inn and we bought a shake for the kid too. 

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 He really had a great expression when they brought the shake to him.

 

For the next few days we will be celebrating SONGKRAN – the Thai New Year – the “water festival”  as it is known – I’ll get some shots to show you what it’s like.

 

School for Life

Sawadee Khrap

Tasanai, I and a friend, Mike, attended the ribbon cutting dedication of the new dormitory for boys at the School for Life, on the Suan Suoi Fha Sai (clear skies over beautiful garden) Farm deep inside a royal forest in the Doi Saket Mountains.   Our Condo held a fund raising party on the 15th floor last Dec and raised over 1 Million Baht  so they could build the new dorm.

I didn’t get any pictures of the grounds – we will go back to present the school with copies of the pictures we took and then I will get better images of the site.  It is much larger than I thought.  I am going to offer to take more images, especially of the children, if they want, so each can have their own picture.

Here are some random shots of the children and the afternoon:

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Don’t your heart go out to these kids – Here are some dedication images

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Then we were treated to Drum and Dancing by the children:

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The dedication by the monks:

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And finally a Soccer game with the Farangs and school teams:

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Then I ran out of memory – more games followed, cucumber swing and hit the ball – wish I had gotten shots of this – It was great fun,  and the chili, coke and power game – I won’t try to explain these – leave that for your imagination.

We had a great day and will go back again –

They are looking for Sponsors for the children and I will post another time on how and what it involves

hope you can help.

 

 

Poy Sang Long Images

Sawadee Khrap

Here are some shots from the Chiang Mai Wat Papao Festival on April 5th.

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First the Temple (Wat)  This is a very old Burmese Temple and local police are not allowed in the temple grounds – they police the area themselves – that can be scary, especially after they have been drinking all day and then celebrating at night. Lot of fights here – but during the day they are friendly but we did not see a lot of smiles, I was the only Farang in the complex.

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The temple area is very large and sets back from the main road  – you don’t realize the size until you enter the complex – it also has a little market with vendor/food stalls. Almost like a little Burmese city.

At this festival every family with a son about 10 y/o or so will spend all their money to dress their sons in royal princess clothes and carry them through the streets to the temple for presentation to the Abbot for monk-hood.  Here are some images starting from Thapae Gate and the procession leading to the Temple:

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And here you can read the whole story of the Shan novitiation ceremonies.

Chiang Rai – The Beach

Hi again

Now lets talk about Chiang Rai “Beach”:

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The water front area is lined with vendor food stands  – here are some shots ( No names are used  – just candid shots) but aren’t these some beautiful people:

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We stopped for lunch here and watched the vendor next door build the bamboo constructed eating area over the water’s edge – both his sons were helping out – and then were treated to a diving show put on by some boys on the other side to us. — what a great lucheon show.

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In the next picture you can see where they were building the new sitting area.  Sorry Tasanai was cut out of the image– you can just see his hair in the left of the picture.  Jerry and Art in the foreground.

Tas and Art had “Spicy Dancing Shrimp Salad” – live shrimp in a pot with spices – the spices cook the shrimp but they still jump when you open the bowl lid so they call them “dancing” – ha ha.  Jerry and I passed on this one.

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Ciao

 

Chiang Rai – The Trip

Sawadee Khrap

What a great trip to Chiang Rai with Jerry and Art.  We had a HOT time, both figuratively and physically.   Lets start with the trip there:  First as we left Chiang Mai, they were working on the freeway over-pass,

Thai-CalTransThis is a private contractor’s workers finishing a typical over-pass – I thought it looked like Thailand’s CalTrans – but here everyone is working

This is just for California residents– LoL.

It costs far less for manual labour than for heavy equipment – so most projects are labour intensive.

I also spotted this soldier apparently going home – in the heat today it’s far more enjoyable using a Doi Saket Yellow-Cab than braving the hot wind alone.  

Going HomeIt was very hot today – near 40C (that’s about 104F)  and the wind can be brutal.  We spotted him on the way to Chiang Rai – looked like the thing to do.

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When we got to Chiang Rai, we stopped at the “Chiang Rai Beach”  actually a public park on the Maekok River before it flows into the MaeKhong River.  In the next post I will show more pictures of the park area.   I am going to split this into several posts to keep each post shorter.

In the evening, Jerry and I went to “Little Patpong” – LoBo Bar (Go-Go boys featured) and after the show we went to the Regency Bar – a local gay bar, while Tasanai and Art went to the “Par Club” – largest Disco in Northern Thailand. 

All of us had a great time – Tas & Art said the Disco was more of an older crowd, but the music was good, not overly loud – they didn’t get to “The Sperm” (now doesn’t that bring up some images  LoL )a smaller Disco down the street that caters to a much younger crowd – you can tell by the number of motorcycles in front and the ground shaking from the music inside – ha-ha   

Our visit to the clubs was very exciting, great shows, great eye candy, meet some special boys (hopefully we can get some to model for Tasanai ).

We are now planning to make a special trip to Chiang Rai and feature a special post on the activities available, bars, clubs, other night life and events that Chiang Rai has to offer – we are definitely going back.  Don’t miss this one.

Ciao