NFR NFC for 2020

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

46 minutes ago, Bisque said:

You aren’t missing out much in Laos to be honest, I preferred all the places you’ve mentioned. Myanmar is apparently the next place to go to before tourism ruins it.

I’ve done South Thailand islands so was really nice to take my gf to Chaing Mai to see the elephants (we did the ethical thing, no riding). I loved Cambodia, did Siem Reap down to Koh Rong Samloem for Xmas, the usual. Kampot was strangely my favourite.

Also did the Top Gear Vietnam trip too. 

I used to live in North Malaysia on the Thai border... I would recommend Malaysia but it’s a Muslim country so you can’t do what you can do further North & Singapore is cool but it’s like London but warmer. BUT... Perhentian Islands are absolute bliss though.
 

If you save up a little, not a lot, but just a little more, & you are taking your other half, go to Bali. Changgu, Ubud, Nusa Lembongan, party like mad in Gilli T, Kuta is like a whole town of Koh San. Got flights for £400 with Singapore airlines. Just go when the Aussies aren’t there!

 

edit: ever wonder why there are still ash trays in the toilets of aeroplanes? Well it’s better having a cheeky smoke on a flight & putting it in there than the waste basket with the flippy lid full of toilet paper! If you look closely in the those flippy hand towel bins you’ll notice a little nipple covered in rubber. It’s not rubber, it’s wax, if it melts because some selfish asshole has had a cigarette in the toilets & thrown it in the trash (full of paper!) it melts & immediately sets off a sprinkler to put it out. We used to catch at least one Upper Class person smoking per flight but as they were Gold tier members crew normally let it go. Those smoke detectors only detect accrid plastic burn.

Yes, I'd heard that Laos might be a bit disappointing. I'd heard from the two mates that I mentioned. However, they told me that they'd taken a trip through the Laos jungle for hours on end, floating in a large tractor rubber inner tube each. Before they started their trip down river they paid to drink some liquid hallucinogenic liquid out of a coconut shell. As they went down the river and the drugs kicked in, they started hearing different music systems kicking out music within the jungle. They investigated some of the sources of the music and they were all bars. What's not to like about that? OK, it's a bit shallow on the cultural and culinary front etc, but maybe it's time for me to admit to myself that I am a shallow person, and want a bit of that!

As to your advice Vis-à-vis Bali, Changuu etc, I thank you greatly, as they are not places that I have been, and welcome their recommendation from someone who has evidently done some travelling.

I wasn't aware of any wax nipple on an aeroplane - or person for that matter! And I'll sue anybody that tries to claim that that is untrue, especially with regard to the later scenario!  lol

I have a mate who has to go to the Far East (and thereabouts) with his work quite often (lucky bastard!). He told me that when he first started travelling there on Air France when there was a smoking ban, that passengers used to just go to an area between classes and smoke there. He put it down to french Gallic bastardry towards the rules. It didn't last forever though. I'd never have a fag on a plane. I had great difficulty in doing it in non smoking hotel rooms. My wife's an ardent smoker and cured me of the hotel room problem at an early stage in our relationship.

Edited December 27, 2019 by Yoghurt on a Stick

[Bisque]

1 hour ago, Yoghurt on a Stick said:

Yes, I'd heard that Laos might be a bit disappointing. I'd heard from the two mates that I mentioned. However, they told me that they'd taken a trip through the Laos jungle for hours on end, floating in a large tractor rubber inner tube each. Before they started their trip down river they paid to drink some liquid hallucinogenic liquid out of a coconut shell. As they went down the river and the drugs kicked in, they started hearing different music systems kicking out music within the jungle. They investigated some of the sources of the music and they were all bars. What's not to like about that? OK, it's a bit shallow on the cultural and culinary front etc, but maybe it's time for me to admit to myself that I am a shallow person, and want a bit of that!

As to your advice Vis-à-vis Bali, Changuu etc, I thank you greatly, as they are not places that I have been, and welcome their recommendation from someone who has evidently done some travelling.

I wasn't aware of any wax nipple on an aeroplane - or person for that matter! And I'll sue anybody that tries to claim that that is untrue, especially with regard to the later scenario!  lol

I have a mate who has to go to the Far East (and thereabouts) with his work quite often (lucky bastard!). He told me that when he first started travelling there on Air France when there was a smoking ban, that passengers used to just go to an area between classes and smoke there. He put it down to french Gallic bastardry towards the rules. It didn't last forever though. I'd never have a fag on a plane. I had great difficulty in doing it in non smoking hotel rooms. My wife's an ardent smoker and cured me of the hotel room problem at an early stage in our relationship.

Well, I love Air France, my friends call them Scare France due to their accidents.

I cannot comment on all Air France crew but our crew loved to hang out with them as we often shared hotels with AF & KLM. They were apparently allowed to have a drink or two on the flight, obviously not now days. But Air France were mainly male crew so we’d hit the gay bars with them & it would be a mess (gay bars in US are so cheap) as our crew were mostly female but loved the gay scene as nobody bothered them... & it was cheap

Fuck off paying $300 for a table in a bar when I can watch a drag queen belt out some tunes for $2 vodka lemonade.

 

edit: I did the tubing, if was great fun but some of the crowd were a bit dickheadish (Aussies) but we beasted them at beer pong, nothing to be proud of, but it shut them down for a bit. Honestly I would skip Laos.

 

edit 2: Vang Vieng is the tubing place. Lots of opium & strong weed you can only smoke out of bamboo bongs. If that’s you’re thing that’s cool, rent a bike & go to the viewpoint & you will see beautiful karst scenery. However those drugs are strong so a motor taxi would be better but more expensive. There’s nor a lot to love in Laos, go Bali, it’s not that expensive. Treat yo self

Edited December 28, 2019 by Bisque

[lucyginger]

Hello, reporting in. Can’t remember if I’ve said anything but I’m doing much better than I was. People that know please explain to everyone else. 

Still all very odd. 

Love you all xxx

[Quark]

1 hour ago, lucyginger said:

Hello, reporting in. Can’t remember if I’ve said anything but I’m doing much better than I was. People that know please explain to everyone else. 

Still all very odd. 

Love you all xxx

Glad to see you've checked in dude. Know your friends have got your back, but still good to see you pop up on here. Thinking of you and yours x

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

18 hours ago, Bisque said:

Well, I love Air France, my friends call them Scare France due to their accidents.

I cannot comment on all Air France crew but our crew loved to hang out with them as we often shared hotels with AF & KLM. They were apparently allowed to have a drink or two on the flight, obviously not now days. But Air France were mainly male crew so we’d hit the gay bars with them & it would be a mess (gay bars in US are so cheap) as our crew were mostly female but loved the gay scene as nobody bothered them... & it was cheap

Fuck off paying $300 for a table in a bar when I can watch a drag queen belt out some tunes for $2 vodka lemonade.

 

edit: I did the tubing, if was great fun but some of the crowd were a bit dickheadish (Aussies) but we beasted them at beer pong, nothing to be proud of, but it shut them down for a bit. Honestly I would skip Laos.

 

edit 2: Vang Vieng is the tubing place. Lots of opium & strong weed you can only smoke out of bamboo bongs. If that’s you’re thing that’s cool, rent a bike & go to the viewpoint & you will see beautiful karst scenery. However those drugs are strong so a motor taxi would be better but more expensive. There’s nor a lot to love in Laos, go Bali, it’s not that expensive. Treat yo self

Cheers Bisque. That additional information that you have provided may well come in useful in the future. I do so hope that it's the not too distant future, but the reality is that it probably will be. I've been very fortunate to self fund tha last 5 years away from the rat race, but now me and the wife are running out of funds. I am not joking or exaggerating when I tell you that we've (between us) spent a little over £0.5M on drugs since we first hooked up seven years ago. Would I/ we have done it any other way? We are both very much in agreement that we wouldn't have. Possibly stupid, but it was the Egyptians that proved to me that you can't take the stuff with you when you depart the planet. 

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

1 hour ago, lucyginger said:

Hello, reporting in. Can’t remember if I’ve said anything but I’m doing much better than I was. People that know please explain to everyone else. 

Still all very odd. 

Love you all xxx

Hello lucy,

I'm sure that it is still all very negatively surreal. It's bound to feel that way. However, deep deep down, i suspect that the quote 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all', runs deep. 

xxx

[Crazyfool01]

3 minutes ago, Yoghurt on a Stick said:

Cheers Bisque. That additional information that you have provided may well come in useful in the future. I do so hope that it's the not too distant future, but the reality is that it probably will be. I've been very fortunate to self fund tha last 5 years away from the rat race, but now me and the wife are running out of funds. I am not joking or exaggerating when I tell you that we've (between us) spent a little over £0.5M on drugs since we first hooked up seven years ago. Would I/ we have done it any other way? We are both very much in agreement that we wouldn't have. Possibly stupid, but it was the Egyptians that proved to me that you can't take the stuff with you when you depart the planet. 

please a clue ... as to how you self fund ?  

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

4 hours ago, crazyfool1 said:

please a clue ... as to how you self fund ?  

I received a large pay out after orchestrating my own redundancy, I was able to claim my pension at 50 whereas most people can only claim it at 55, and me and my wife run an Airbnb cabin in woods at the rear of our garden. That lot has kept us going, until now. Our main problem is that we both have a voracious appetite for drink, drugs, and fags. Our fag bill alone is £140 per week, and I'd hate to put a figure on / mentally work out the rest. So, it all means, back in to the rat race for me. It's going to be a complete shock to the system, but will probably temper our indulgences, which is no bad thing. It may even prolong our lives.

[Bisque]

6 hours ago, Yoghurt on a Stick said:

Possibly stupid, but it was the Egyptians that proved to me that you can't take the stuff with you when you depart the planet. 

I was born & raised in Egypt.

Do what you do, money is just a thing.

I would like some more though be told. I’m not needy, I only do expensive things when invited by my London friends & even then I try & take the cheapest option. I don’t have children but one day I will need some when I do.

edit: try vaping, you can get strong nicotine for your juice & you can Netflix & chill in bed all day without causing brown stains to the ceiling. I’ve got a VooPoo Drag. Even if you don’t quit you could half your monthly costs on fags.

edit 2: Go to Bali but DO NOT DO DRUGS!

Edited December 29, 2019 by Bisque

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

13 hours ago, Bisque said:

I was born & raised in Egypt.

Do what you do, money is just a thing.

I would like some more though be told. I’m not needy, I only do expensive things when invited by my London friends & even then I try & take the cheapest option. I don’t have children but one day I will need some when I do.

edit: try vaping, you can get strong nicotine for your juice & you can Netflix & chill in bed all day without causing brown stains to the ceiling. I’ve got a VooPoo Drag. Even if you don’t quit you could half your monthly costs on fags.

edit 2: Go to Bali but DO NOT DO DRUGS!

I've been to Egypt 7 times and absolutely loved every holiday there. That said, I haven't seen too much of the place as all those holidays were diving holidays, and four of those were all off shore staying in live aboard dive boats.  I have stayed at Dahab (my favourite), Sharm, and Marsa Alam. I even managed to score some dope in Dahab off some Bedouin's. That was a costly affair - not because of the cost of the dope, but because I borrowed a large glass hookah off a restaurant to smoke the stuff. I was pretty drunk and only got about three steps with it before falling over and smashing the thing. They charged me a load of cash to replace it. I could have just gone to the market the next day and bought them a replacement for much cheaper. However, I was mortified at my own actions and just coughed up the cash.

Yes, I'd never do drugs in Bali. I only did them in Thailand as we were on top of a mountain and not even the SAS could have got in there without disturbing the animals penned up around the small village. My friend was lucky on that trip - we flew in to Bangkok, then flew to Chiang Mai. At breakfast in the morning I saw my mates, one of whom was white faced, and the other looking a bit sheepish. It turns out my sheepish mate had just stuffed a load of clothes in his rucksack and headed to the airport. This was the same rucksack that he used for Glastonbury. Anyway, when in the hotel in Chiang Mai he rooted in his ruck sack for something, and then produced a small brown medicine bottle that contained 6 or 7 e's in it. It doesn't bear thinking about what would have happened to him if caught. Anyway, they flushed them down the toilet, which I truly considered a shocking thing to do. I told them that I'd have had at least a couple of them for breakfast.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

For your entertainment;

[Bisque]

@Yoghurt on a Stick that is truly worrying. I always have a small panic attack when walking through security as I use the same rucksack for fests as I do travelling. Even my money belt gets a thorough check before putting it in the grey box. i’d rather not end up in the Hanoi (sorry Bangkok) Hilton.

My father did a lot of diving too in Egypt, he worked on Suez/Cairo metro so have been to some of those places when I was a nipper. He used to go off on jollys during downtime with his friends (now my god fathers). I’d like to go back but the heat & opportunity to go to other places has put me off so far. My other half is also terrible with heat stroke.

I got told off by armed military for climbing a few blocks up the Great Pyramid of Giza. Surprised I got that far. I was 15. I don’t remember if I went in it or not. I remember Abu Simbel.

Edited December 29, 2019 by Bisque

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

5 hours ago, Bisque said:

@Yoghurt on a Stick that is truly worrying. I always have a small panic attack when walking through security as I use the same rucksack for fests as I do travelling. Even my money belt gets a thorough check before putting it in the grey box. i’d rather not end up in the Hanoi (sorry Bangkok) Hilton.

My father did a lot of diving too in Egypt, he worked on Suez/Cairo metro so have been to some of those places when I was a nipper. He used to go off on jollys during downtime with his friends (now my god fathers). I’d like to go back but the heat & opportunity to go to other places has put me off so far. My other half is also terrible with heat stroke.

I got told off by armed military for climbing a few blocks up the Great Pyramid of Giza. Surprised I got that far. I was 15. I don’t remember if I went in it or not. I remember Abu Simbel.

The first time I went to Thailand I was bricking it about somebody putting something in my bag and then getting caught that way. So, I took a large floppy nylon bag with no firm sides or bottom where another person could hide anything. I also man marked that bag while it was with me in the airport. I'd already read the book No More Tomorrows (The Compelling True Story of an Innocent Woman Sentenced to Twenty Years in a Hellhole Bali Prison), and was truly ill at ease about even having a bag that needed to go in to the hold. 

[deebeedoobee]

Happy New Year you filthy animals With love from the PPP.

 

ps Guy old son (aka naughty boy who is currently on the naughty step) says Happy New Year to you of you efesters.

[Crazyfool01]

21 minutes ago, deebeedoobee said:

Happy New Year you filthy animals With love from the PPP.

 

ps Guy old son (aka naughty boy who is currently on the naughty step) says Happy New Year to you of you efesters.

Can you say happy new year back as I don’t know how naughty he’s been ... and of course to everyone on here x 

[Curlygirl]

Happy Hogmanay you beautiful people. Have a fab night whatever you doing x

[carlosj]

Have a great evening if you're out or in tonight, and hope next year is even better for you all.

[vintagelaureate]

Happy New Year all - thanks for bending your (virtual) ears over the last twelve months. It's good to talk or on my part ramble, and on occasion it's kept me going! Thank you. And I mean that. 

All the best to you all, take care!

[Losing my hair]

I've not been here for quite a while and so I've probably - almost certainly - missed out on lots of news but frankly I really can't trawl back to mid November in order to catch up - I just hope that I haven't missed anything truly momentous. 

I trust that everybody is well and that life is treating you at least tolerably. 

I'm so looking forward to June on the farm but as an early season taster I'm off to Roackaway Beach at Bognor Regis in a weeks time.

Happy New Year to everybody.

Edited December 31, 2019 by Losing my hair

[sheffieldlady]

Happy new year everyone. I’m still on the I hope I get tickets train. 
Hopefully I’ll be brave enough to meet you all this year (ticket permitting). 
 

Hope life has been treating everyone well, I’m feeling too lazy to go back through the thread x

[Funkyfairy!]

Happy new year one and all, very very lazy day yesterday  (it’s the one lazy day I have a year , sofa beckoned for most of the day, but did manage to cook breaking and beef stew for guests . Also spent the day doses up on lemsip, bloody Nasty cold attacked me yesterday and sniffed and streamed my way through today 

@lucyginger hope you’re holding up ok, and your friends are still being awesome support network

@Yoghurt on a Stick oh how I love Egypt too, I’ve dived it too many times to count, and started on liveaboards out there probably 25 years ago. Dahab is my favourite town too by far 🙂 . Great memories 🙂

anyway once again hope everyone has a healthy and happy 2020 

FF xx 

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

14 hours ago, Funkyfairy! said:

Happy new year one and all, very very lazy day yesterday  (it’s the one lazy day I have a year , sofa beckoned for most of the day, but did manage to cook breaking and beef stew for guests . Also spent the day doses up on lemsip, bloody Nasty cold attacked me yesterday and sniffed and streamed my way through today 

@lucyginger hope you’re holding up ok, and your friends are still being awesome support network

@Yoghurt on a Stick oh how I love Egypt too, I’ve dived it too many times to count, and started on liveaboards out there probably 25 years ago. Dahab is my favourite town too by far 🙂 . Great memories 🙂

anyway once again hope everyone has a healthy and happy 2020 

FF xx 

Yeah, Dahab is ace. I guess you must have dived the Blue Hole too? That's a lovely place to dive and hang out between dives. It's also a scary place with those plaques in memory of divers who have tried to dive down and up the other side. We saw some tech divers complete that down and up dive when we were there. They each had more cylinders on them than you can shake a stick at. 

We were also at Dahab only a couple of weeks before some bastards set a bomb off there. Same thing happened to us at Sharm too, in that we missed it being bombed by a few weeks. 

[Funkyfairy!]

6 minutes ago, Yoghurt on a Stick said:

Yeah, Dahab is ace. I guess you must have dived the Blue Hole too? That's a lovely place to dive and hang out between dives. It's also a scary place with those plaques in memory of divers who have tried to dive down and up the other side. We saw some tech divers complete that down and up dive when we were there. They each had more cylinders on them than you can shake a stick at. 

We were also at Dahab only a couple of weeks before some bastards set a bomb off there. Same thing happened to us at Sharm too, in that we missed it being bombed by a few weeks. 

Yes dived the Blue hole, we dived the chimey a little along the coast and came up through the blue hole (from memory) . Very sobering all the plaques. Was down looking at the walls of the hole, turned around to face a beautiful freediver facing me, looking so serene - a true mermaid.  There was me tank on, and her just looking stunningly free and beautiful. Always wanted to freedive and that made me want to try it even more (still not got around to it)

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

55 minutes ago, Funkyfairy! said:

Yes dived the Blue hole, we dived the chimey a little along the coast and came up through the blue hole (from memory) . Very sobering all the plaques. Was down looking at the walls of the hole, turned around to face a beautiful freediver facing me, looking so serene - a true mermaid.  There was me tank on, and her just looking stunningly free and beautiful. Always wanted to freedive and that made me want to try it even more (still not got around to it)

I'm a heavy smoker, so couldn't even dream of free diving and holding my breath that long. Those free divers that go down to enormous depths on a metal luge type thing are mental. Definitely not for me. I've been down to 40m on a deep dive course, but going deep isn't really for me. I just like looking at the fishes around the coral. If you look long enough you realise that it's like top gun with fish trying to eat smaller fish etc. How about night diving, have you done that? talk about Scary Mary. The adrenaline really kicks in then, especially as you know that sharks mostly hunt at night (or so I am told). 

The bloke who taught me to dive (a mate) and his now wife were once circled by a bunch of sharks while diving off a livaboard in Egypt. He's a very qualified diver and a cool and calm collected man, but apparently he was shitting himself during that experience. As an aside, he was diving in a UK quarry once and somebody was reported missing. As this was the end of the day everybody had completed their dives, doing their deepest dive first. Anyway, a call was made for any fully skilled volunteers to go back in and down deep to see if they could find / rescue this lady. Anyway, to cut a long story short, he and a few others went back in and down deep. When they found nothing they returned to surface and shore only to find the lady was on the shore crying because she'd got out of the water much earlier, but failed to register that with her group. Anyway, the divers (including my mate) were rushed by ambulance to a hospital emergency unit. He said it was odd because the group was rushed past those who had been waiting hours for treatment, and put in to a hyperbaric chamber, took down to the depth they'd dived at in terms of pressure, and gently brought back up again over a fair bit of time, so that they didn't get the life threatening nasties of having reverse dived. I believe that is no longer considered a problem, but am not too sure on that. Anyway, he's a bit of a hero in my eyes for having risked his own life to try to save another's. 

 

[Funkyfairy!]

8 minutes ago, Yoghurt on a Stick said:

I'm a heavy smoker, so couldn't even dream of free diving and holding my breath that long. Those free divers that go down to enormous depths on a metal luge type thing are mental. Definitely not for me. I've been down to 40m on a deep dive course, but going deep isn't really for me. I just like looking at the fishes around the coral. If you look long enough you realise that it's like top gun with fish trying to eat smaller fish etc. How about night diving, have you done that? talk about Scary Mary. The adrenaline really kicks in then, especially as you know that sharks mostly hunt at night (or so I am told). 

The bloke who taught me to dive (a mate) and his now wife were once circled by a bunch of sharks while diving off a livaboard in Egypt. He's a very qualified diver and a cool and calm collected man, but apparently he was shitting himself during that experience. As an aside, he was diving in a UK quarry once and somebody was reported missing. As this was the end of the day everybody had completed their dives, doing their deepest dive first. Anyway, a call was made for any fully skilled volunteers to go back in and down deep to see if they could find / rescue this lady. Anyway, to cut a long story short, he and a few others went back in and down deep. When they found nothing they returned to surface and shore only to find the lady was on the shore crying because she'd got out of the water much earlier, but failed to register that with her group. Anyway, the divers (including my mate) were rushed by ambulance to a hospital emergency unit. He said it was odd because the group was rushed past those who had been waiting hours for treatment, and put in to a hyperbaric chamber, took down to the depth they'd dived at in terms of pressure, and gently brought back up again over a fair bit of time, so that they didn't get the life threatening nasties of having reverse dived. I believe that is no longer considered a problem, but am not too sure on that. Anyway, he's a bit of a hero in my eyes for having risked his own life to try to save another's. 

 

I love love love just looking at the fish on the coral - they all have such different personalities :-) and in my head they are having conversations and going about their own lives.  I used to do a fair amount of deep diving (not so much now) but for a while in my 30's was hooked :-) . I lived in malta for 2 years so dived every weekend regularly to 40 metres, and have been down to 52 metres off the back of Jackson reef, Tiran Sharm, under a coral arch. Was convinced a shark came the other way as I went under the arch and still to this day don't know if I was narked and imagined it lol

I'm not a night diving fan, s0d that I have nothing to prove any more, but have done a few including one in the Maldives when the sharks were hunting big time, and in and out the reef, so scary catching them in a torchbeam and they whipped by - not sure I've done a night dive since then to be honest :-) . that's amazing re your friend, and I applaud him - I'm not sure if going deeper on the second etc dive is still considered a no no, all the dives I've done recently have been deep one first :-) .

The underwater world sure if a mystical awesome one :-)