PeterRS

For those not acquainted with Hong Kong, Hong Kong virtually has four seasons. The best times of year to visit are November, December, February, April and May. June to October is typhoon season. If one gets close or even worse there is a direct hit, Hong Kong has an excellent early warning system and the city basically shuts down - even public transport. Up to mid-September it's also extremely humid which usually gets to visitors more than the heat. And of course it's also the rainy season. I have omitted January because this is the most likely month when for a few days the winter monsoon will blow down from the north. If it's freezing in Beijing, you can be sure Hong Kong will be in for temperatures in the 6 - 12 degree range a day or so later and usually lasts a few days! March is when the humidity starts to rise dramatically and you can often see banks of fog rolling in over the hillsides. That said, naturally there can be glorious days in those winter months with low humidity when the sun will shine in bright blue skies and the mercury rises to around 25 in the daytime. Just take a few warm clothes to be safe.

I am sure you are correct. And with a majority of the boys in the bars - at least the go-go bars - being non Thais brought up in countries with a less comprehensive health system, the risk that they may also have HIV and/or other STDs is probably quite high. I have seen posts on another Board where one or two members have bsically suggested that anyone in the sex business has a responsibility to look after their own health and so they, as the customers, have a right to unprotected sex if that is what they want. This always makes me mad, but this is another issue that young guys should be made aware of - there are always idiots out there! That said, when you are in desperate need of money, what is the chance of these guys really saying 'no'?

Illustrative of what many medical related websites have been saying. The reduction in education about HIV in Thailand is resulting in some young pepole growing up unaware of the risks. For example, we know that condoms are much less in evidence in the young Thai-for-Thai saunas that have spread around the outskirts of Bangkok. I know some readers will slam me, but this young man's life was probably cut short due to some form of unprotected sex with others, one of whom could have been a farang. There are still farang who press their young Thai boys du jour for bareback sex without first ensuring the boys are fully aware not just of the risks but of the availability fo PrEP and PEP. Perhaps they should even pay the boys for the cost of that medication in addition to their tips.

I suppose this could have been a continuation of the Bernstein Maestro movie thread, but it seems to merit a thread of its own. We've had the black face controversy in movies and on the stage. Now its Jewish men and women complaining about non-Jews playing Jews on film. Bradley Cooper's movie about the love between Leonard Bernstein and his wife premieres at the Venice Film Fesitval on September 2. Given Bernstein's fame there is a great deal of interest in it, the more so considering he was very much a homosexual - something his wife acknowledged in a letter to him soon after their marriage - and little was publicised about his marriage during his lifetime. Cooper himself plays Bernstein and from early clips he seems to "be" Bernstein. Not being Jewish, though, he wears a prosthetic addtion to his nose. Certainly Bernstein had a largish nose, but it was more broad, shall I say, than long. Having watched a movie preview and compared the prosthesis with photos and videos of the maestro, I think the make-up artists have got the shape wrong. Compare the two - Berstein's children have come to the defence of the movie saying the "nose" is like their father's. Hmmm! I guess we have to wait to see the movie before we can make a definitive conclusion. This is reminiscent of the other controversy concerning that wonderful actor Dame Helen Mirren whose portrayal of one of israel's great figures, Prime Minister Golda Meir, will be revealed on August 25 in the new movie Golda. Other non-Jewish actors have played Jewish characters but without the fuss that this is causing. Actor Maureen Lipmann told the Jewish Chronicle she disagreed with the casting of Helen Mirren "because the Jewishness of the character is so integral." To me this argument does not really hold up. Did anyone complain about Meryl Streep playing Margaret Thatcher because she was not quintissentially English? Again we'll have to wait for the movie to make up our minds. https://variety.com/2023/film/news/bradley-cooper-maestro-nose-controversy-leonard-bersnstein-family-defends-1235697835/

Babylon apart, was this the norm for most of the gay saunas in Bangkok? It is certainly true of my one time favourite Chakran.

Better not visit Japan @vinapu unless you allocate a lot more for hotels.

WIth respect there is already a thread started by @reader in the Gay Malaysia section of the forum. But the action goes beyond banning as the Festival's organiser is now suing 1975 for £2 million. To me that is another idiotic action given that any Festival organiser booking 1975 must have had a pretty good idea what might happen on stage - after all, it had happened before! But would I trust the Malaysian courts? Nope!

I also much prefered Kloster. The article above does not mention the smaller Thai Amarit Brewery which makets its own brand primarily for export. Seems it used to be the distributor for Kloster from 1978 which it made under license from the German brand. But beer in Thailand is encased in a wide array of regulations making entry to the market from overseas subject to taxes of up to 60%. Although brewed in Thailand, due to its size Amarit had difficulty with distribution of Kloster. Early in the century, Amarit sold it off to Boon Rawd which tried to rebrand Kloster as a premium beer. For whatever reason, sales never took off. But it seems it was never actually withdrawn from sale and can still be found in some outlets like hotel bars.

Yes, it was a police raid that closed Obelisks for good and I think it was probably the first of Purachai's Social Order casualties. It was one of the first batch of gay saunas but located near Thonglor which made it a longish tuk tuk ride in those pre-Skytrain frightful traffic days. I did visit a few times in the late 1980s. It was a tall narrow building meaning you needed good leg muscles especially to get up the 10 floors to the very nice rooftop jacuzzi. There was a tiny lift that could squeeze in about 5 guys but if you'd just missed it you could wait ages for it. While it was more elegant than the earliest sauna I remember (Volt in a soi off Asoke in the mid-1980s), it did have a small restaurant, bar, gym and a tiny maze. But with floor areas being so small, it really was not on a par with the original Babylon. Also once Babylon opened, most tourists and farang could not be bothered going what seemed so far out when Babylon was all but on their doorstep. More than a decade later, for a while the other recently opened gay sauna Chakran on Soi Aree with its Moroccan theme, small pool and plenty of cruising areas became almost as popular as Babylon. It was certainly as beautifully laid out and very popular with the younger Thai crowd. After years of visiting the original Babylon, I never really took to the new larger version further down the soi. I then preferred Chakran which happily also welcomed foreigners. Sadly within a few years it had begun to change to being much more Thai-for-Thai/Asian. The original Babylon opened in 1988 in the building on the corner of Sathorn Soi 1/Soi Nantha-Mozart. Perhaps ironically much of that building is now occupied by the long-time French restaurant Le Bouchon which for decades was located on Patpong Soi 2 where many of the gay go-go bars can now be found! !t was founded by the son of a very rich family who wanted somewhere for professional gay Thais to relax away from the pressures of life for gay men in Bangkok at the time. The lobby had full-length glass cases filled with Thai antiques. The coffee shop had a guitarist or soft live music at the week-ends. All the staff seemed to me gorgeously handsome. Off the coffee shop was a massage room. Oh, the number of great times I had with Khun Gung who always seemed to be on duty there! I particularly enjoyed sitting having drinks at its rooftop bar watching so many cute guys pass back and forth in their towels from the showers at the end. It very quickly became so popular that on Friday and Saurday evenings there were always queues waiting to get in. For a few years, almost all were Thai. When word eventually got out, more farang started to discover its pleasures. As to your question about why Obelisks died yet the larger Babylon further down the soi remained open. Surely that had to be fat envelopes for the BIB! The Babylon owner had tons of cash. I doubt if Babylon ever made much if any profit, but he ran it more as a service to the gay community.

Booking.com is one of the world's leading internet travel booking sites, including in its portfolio Agoda, Kayak, Hotelscombined, Priceline and other sites. It operates in 220+ countries in 40+ languages. In 2022 it's worldwide gross travel bookings were US$121.3 billion. Like many travel sites, it collects cash from bookers and later passes these on to their accommodation clients after deduction of commissions and fees. Now, though, it has been accused of not paying quite a number of accommodation providers. One in the UK is owed £50,000 for rentals of several properties. He claims thousands of others around the world are also suffering from delayed payments. Another renter had failed to receive any income after being promised payment five times. A statement from booking.com claims it is "urgently working to resume payments, which were delayed as a result of a planned system maintenance." Well, believe that if you wish! It further claims the majority of "partners" have been paid on time but "in a small number of cases, there have been unforeseen technical issues that are quickly being resolved." And believe that if you wish! https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-66459808?xtor=AL-72-[partner]-[bbc.news.twitter]-[headline]-[news]-[bizdev]-[isapi]&at_format=link&at_link_origin=BBCNews&at_link_id=4326623C-3776-11EE-B378-0FFC5B3BE886&at_campaign=Social_Flow&at_medium=social&at_campaign_type=owned&at_link_type=web_link&at_ptr_name=twitter&at_bbc_team=editorial I recently booked a 5-star hotel in Taipei at the lowest rate i could find through a company I had never booked through before - Klook. This is a relatively new Hong Kong based startup and I was slightly concerned about the booking. An email to the hotel confirmed everything was in order. Klook has a number of impressive investors including Goldman Sachs and Softbank. From a quick check, its rates are also competitive with Agoda.

An understandable conclusion. All I might add is that i believe that having been badly burned by this climbdown, Thailand Elite will find it difficult to play around with promised privileges again. It has too many professional members including lawyers and PR people who I think had a major effect on the recent reversal. If I was sure about Thailand, I'd jump in and get the 5 year visa at its present 600,000 baht before it is withdrawn, as this will give you the option of upgrading by 15 years for 400,000 provided it is done within 3 months of the expiry of the original visa. We now know that the new 5-year visa to be introduced in a month or two will cost 900,000. I also think there will be no option to increase at the end. A 5 year visa is stuck in to a full page in your passport. Same with the 15 year upgrade. So your basic immigration rights will not be affected. It's the perks that they seem to want to play around with. Against that, you will still be just 74 by the end of the 20 years. By then, I am certain Elite visas will be a great deal more expensive - assuming there are no more issues severely affecting the Thai economy. What would you plan to do then?

Well! Well! Well! After Thailand Elite decided just 3 weeks ago that ordinary members with their 5 year Easy Access membership would have the right to upgrade by 15 more years for a further 500,000 baht (or 400,000 for those who had paid the increased 600,000 initial fee introduced last year) and gave members a strict deadline of 4:30pm today, there was a near riot among members. The addtional implication that the cash had to be transferred to Thailand Elite on the same date and time created more havoc as many members are on family vacations outide the country. Later, it was announced the payment could be delayed by around 3 months. Now, on this the deadline day for applications, Thailand Elite has finally realised its actions gave not only ridiculously short notice, they may have been illegal. Accordingly, today within hours of the deadline an email letter has been sent from the company running the scheme, Thailand Privilege Company, admitting it had upset many members. Therefore, it has changed the prevously announced policy. Easy Access 5 year members will now not have to decide whether or not to upgrade until three months prior to the end of their current membership period. In my case, that means I can delay a decision until April 2025. After all the shenanigans of having to transfer cash, fill in a mutitude of forms and obtain other photocopies and photos in order to meet today's deadline, this is not only a huge slap in the face to current members, it is a massive climbdown by TPC. As one contributor to the Thailand Elite Visa Members Group wrote, "Clowns!"

Since 2008 Pattaya has installed 2,418 cctv security cameras. Yet the lifespan of the cameras was designed for 7 years. Should we therefore be surprised that in November 2021 the Pattaya Mayor admitted that only 43.8% of them actually worked? Many condos have their own cctv coverage. Perhaps the incident with the Russian lady was covered by one of them. As for the rest of Thailand, I can only find some details about Bangkok. Early last year the Bangkok Governor informed the public that an additional 62,000 cctv cameras had been installed around the capital. Then later last year, the Police Chief admitted another 23,000 new devices had been installed to cover the APEC Conference. It is doubted these were thereafter removed. The only other information I can find is that 20,000 were installed by the end of 2012 and a further 27,000 by the end of 2014. Whether they work or not I have no idea, although many were found not to be working after the bombing at the Erawan Shrine in August 2015. There is one rather general article stating that in 2018 there were public 360,000 cctv cameras around the country. https://aseannow.com/topic/1239479-pattaya-less-than-half-of-cctv-cameras-actually-work-city-hall-prepares-200-million-budget-and-new-charter/ https://thethaiger.com/news/bangkok/bangkok-officials-install-more-than-62000-security-cameras-around-the-capital https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1394934/push-to-fix-integrate-security-cameras

I use Safari on all devices and have never seen any warnings.

I was living in Bangkok when this raid occurred. It was during the Interior Minister Purachai's Social Order Campaign and one of many that took place in gay venues. What gave the Babylon one so much publicity is that Purachai himself led the raid. At one point in full view of the cameras, he picked up a used condom. He then said something along the lines, "You see. Illegal prostitution takes place here." No one in the Health Ministry thought to go public by adding it was an excellent thing that condoms were actually being used! 207 patrons and staff were detained that evening and subjected to urine tests. 20 tourists tested positive for drugs. As @reader points out, Purachai's campaigns were particularly popular in the country. He himself was one of the very few politicians who was incorruptible. A devout Buddhist, he named his children after Buddhist precepts. (His boss, Thaksin, on the other hand, named his children after the word for "gold"!) Allegedly Purachai was shocked by what he found on his nighttime raids. He looked back fondly just a couple of decades when Thai children obeyed their parents and even holding hands in public was rare. He blamed the influx of western ideas for the rise in glamorous night clubs, drug use and prostitution. When criticised by the western media, he lashed out and termed his crusade a "social evils" campaign. Even the much esteemed General Manager of the Oriental Hotel, Kurt Wachtveitl, criticised Purachai's campaign and the effect he believed it would have on tourism. Ironically, as one lawyer and senator Thongbai Thongbao was quoted as telling the Los Angeles Times, "He has popular support, but no one in government is on his side!" And so we have this single individual for the laws which thereafter changed gay nightlife. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jul-07-adfg-moral7-story.html

As if that is going to result in anything changing in the future!

It is not just visa processing issues. As my friend from Shanghai informed me earlier this week, after covid many Chinese no longer have valid passports and the backlog is such they will wait many, many months for new ones. Another factor affecting Chinese demand must surely be the dreadful state of the nation's economy. It has failed to recover from covid anywhere near as quickly as most thought and 2022 saw its worst economic performance in decades. The country is now in recession. The property market is suffering massive declines, far more than in previous years. Unemployment amongst the nation's youth in the 16-24 age range rose to a record 21.3% in June. 11.58 million university graduates are about to be thrown into a job market with few jobs to go to. President XI has urged them to go work in the countryside - echoes of the Mao era. None now want to do so. Then throw in the work force that is starting to show signs of rapid ageing thanks to the now abandoned one child policy. The losses of once the largest property developer Evergrande rose to US$340 billion last year, making it the global real estate's largest indebted developer. To all intents and purposes it is bankrupt. Hot on its heels, this week now the nation's largest developer, Country Garden, warned the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it will see a $7.6 billion loss for the first 6 months of this year. No less than 30 real estate companies have already defaulted on overseas loans. The government has increased loans to the sector but they are essentially a pittance that will do nothing to stop the slide. Worse for the government, in a country where it is usual to pay much of the value up front for property, last year millions of mortage holders rioted when developers could not deliver promised apartments. Indeed, many had stopped construction altogether. Given that China's construction market accounts for a third of the nation's economic output and about 70% of personal wealth, economists agree that the present crisis affecting disruption of such a massive sector will inevitably have an affect on the global financial system. Little wonder that President Biden has warned that China is a "ticking time bomb". Clearly many Chinese will still have the desire and the funds to travel. This group will no doubt fill up quite a few aircraft. But for the next few years the Chinese travel bubble is dead. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66470170 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-62402961

A wonderfully inspiring vdo. Greed is such a powerful motive. It is not just the massive amount of national treasures looted from countries. There is a very large and thriving market for stolen art trsasures. There was a television prgramme recently about the heist at the Garner Museum in Boston in 1990. With apparent ease, two thieves got into the gallery at night and made off with 12 paintings and one artefact, including one of the rare 34 Vermeers then in existence, several works by Rembrandt and others by Degas and Manet. None has ever been recovered. The value today is probably somewhere near $1 billion. Given the crude way in which some of the near priceless paintings were cut form their frames, it is viewed unlikely that they were stolen "to order" by a dodgy collector. But despite the involvement of the FBI over three decades and a $10 million reward, the artworks have vanished. Some believe they may simply have been destroyed by being badly stored. But no one knows. Over time many major artworks have been stolen from museums, incuding the Mona Lisa, a Picasso, a Rembrandt, 2 Edvard Munch paintings and Goya's Portrait of the Duke of Wellington which was famously included in a short scene in the first James Bond movie. All were eventually located and returned. The Garner Museum heist remains the largest of all - and the most mysterious.

Anyone depending on stated readership of the site is probably on the wrong Board. Does it matter how many readers a thread gets? When you open a newspaper do you look for a specific section? Readership provides a guide as we have no idea who is actually doing the reading and whether or not they have a special interest. I read some threads on gay bars in Thailand even though it is years since I have been in one. I still maintain that it is the variety that makes this Board special, not the likes and dislikes of one group who happen to post or merely happen to read. If this Board was primarily for those visitors interested in gay bars, saunas, spas and other gay events, some posters would certainly disappear. And as i stated earlier, your claim is absolutely nowhere in the Board's Mission Statement.

Sorry, but "no". That said, I think there are definitely two basic and important discussion issues - one primarily for those visiting and one for those actually living in Thailand. We have a pretty good idea of how many posters belong to each camp. But do we have any real idea of total readership and their prorities? Now, of course, with the expansion of the site, we have the Latin America sections. I have surprised myself as I find quite a few posts there really interesting. I suggest it's both the variety and volume of the posts that keep this Board interesting. I note that on other similar Thai-based Boards, the volume of posts is now reduced to 1 or 2 per day, with some days when there are no new posts. We should consider ourselves very fortunate that this Board is alive and well whatever one's particular interests may be.

In all my dozens of visits to Singapore I have had the same thought. In my case, though, it would be expense. Assuming there is ever a way around the visa issue, no way could I afford to live there. Although it is around 5 years since my last trip, I have always found it extremely cruisy with some of the best looking guys in Asia. But there is also something about the attitude of Singaporeans in general. None that I know seem particularly happy there. Too much of the nanny state is a common complaint. I have read many of the books on the Vietnam War and remain horrified at how that country suffered. Yet i only started visiting Vietnam a few years ago. Loved Hanoi, disliked HCMC, adored the island of Phu Quoc and had a ball in the central area of Danang, Hoi An and Hue. There used to be a long term visa and I know of someone then in Chiang Mai who had purchased a seaside home near Danang for retirement. Then the long stay visa was withdrawn. He is now back in Australia and extremely unhappy. If the visa situation changed, I would certainly consider the country.

Where did you get that idea? It is nowhere in the Board regulations. Indeed the mission statement reads, "The Gay Guides Message Center forums are provided as a venue for the discussion and exchange of information about Thailand and other related issues. It is a place to submit queries and share experiences, information, concerns, news, and views, and maybe even a little humor for the benefit of members" Looking through a variety of pages at random, I cnnot see that your assumption is correct. This Board works because there is such a variety of opinions on so many issues unrelated to "paid sex".

Way back in the mid-1990s when I decided I should start thinking about where I might eventually wish to retire and consider purchasing a small condo, I looked more closely at several of the Asian countries. I had been in love with much of the continent since 1979 and already knew several countries extremely well. One factor was wherever I chose, it had to be within relatively easy flying time of Hong Kong where I expected to continue running my own small company for the first 2 decades of the new century. Eventually i narrowed the options down to 2 - Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. At one moment of near madness I considered Penang. When the Asian Economic crisis hit, developers were left with large blocks of unsold ocean-facing apartments just off the road between Georgetown and the main beach area at Batu Ferringhi. These were all but being given away. But I knew I could easily end up becoming something of a beach bum and resisted the temptation. Yet KL was a city I really enjoyed then. Much less so now. Thankfully therefore I chose Bangkok which I knew extremely well. The Asian Economic crisis took 3 years before it hit Hong Kong. When it did, it experienced its worst recession since WWII. The finances of my company crashed. I could no longer afford actually to live there and so I decided to relocate to my Bangkok apartment and just commute. (Anyone who has tried to open a small service business working internationally in Thailand is aware that the regulations are a minefield - hence I had no intention of relocating the business here). I even found I enjoyed the regular monthly commuting and so did not bother to relocate back to Hong Kong after business finally picked up after SARS in 2003/04. The one city that I now kick myself was never on my radar was Taipei. I had been frequently in the city since the last year of marital law in 1986/87. A small gay scene had started developing by the mid-1990s but the city was very different from the one we know today. Sadly, it has also become considerably more expensive, especially in terms of real estate. I did think about a move there about 7 years ago. Now it would be too much of a financial stretch. I may well end up just staying in Thailand. But just the thought that a complete break with a move back to Europe and the possibility of continuing to explore so many more parts of that fascinating continent has given me a bit of a buzz. I do know two people who have moved there, one a good friend from Hong Kong who had been living with a boyfriend in Auckland for 15 years before they split up. He wanted to come and live in Chiang Mai but is not yet of an age where he could get a retirement visa. So friends persuaded him to move to Portugal. He enjoys it a lot.

As may have been obvious, I have the basic Elite 5-year visa. Although it was more expensive in the long run than continuing with the 800,000 baht retirement route, it involved far less hassle, required no cash lock up and, as I travel frequently, lots of free airport limousine transfers and special treatment once at BKK. The option to upgrade for up to 15 years during the currency of the membership for a similar amount was also very appealing. Now that I have been through all the palaver of the disgraceful cancellation of this upgrade during the currency of a membership and not at the end of the actual membership period - something I believe no reputable service oriented company anywhere in the civilised world would tolerate, I have been robbed of my option to decide on final retirement location prior to expiry of my membership in July 2025. I have made my feelings clear in emails and in two meetings with the management. Did they give a fuck? Of course not! By withdrawing the option now and forcing existing members to pay for upgrades now, they make a ton of cash in a country where "cash is increasingly king". Although I made my decision that Thailand would be where I wished to retire way back in 1995, since learning of the Thailand Elite latest money grab, I had started to consider if there might be other options. With a partner with excellent qualifications who is quite keen to work in Europe, I had begun to consider Portugal which, as @reader kindly pointed out in the Thailand Named Ninth-Best Retirement Destination thread, has come top of retirement polls for several years. I have been to Lisbon and Porto and enjoyed the cities a lot. For retirement I'd have to consider a town probably midway between where rents etc. would be less expensive. But the more I have thought about it, the more attractive it seems. My partner could probably end up with a decent job in Germany or Switzerland as he speaks German extremely well. He's never lived in either country but quite likes the idea, the more so if I am based relatively nearby and within easy flying distance. Having handed in my papers for the 15 year extension this afternoon, I was informed it could be up to 3 months before the extension was granted and then another month before payment was required. So I do not have to make any decision now. It also means I have time to make another trip to Portugal in the next couple of months to look at possible locations and meet with estate agents, lawyers etc. In the past 25 years I never once considered not living in Thailand. Oddly, it feels quite liberating to be considering another option even without bars, saunas and the Asian gay environment.

That is certainly the general consensus. But there are always exceptions and I have to say here that I am one. I am closer to 70 than 60 and my partner of 4 years is still in his 20s. I have told him many times that I will never stand in his way should he find someone younger who can offer him the chance of a longer life together. He refuses to consider it! Not only have I never taken him abroad, he has said he has no desire to travel abroad other than one day to visit Europe!