PeterRS

I will look forwarrd tp watching all of that video posted by @fedssocr. In the meantime while that kiss at the start in Wellman's movie was certainly historic, it is hardly seen to be a gay kiss. Having flipped through the vdo I realise it does mention what was I believe the first true lips on lips kiss in John Schlesinger's wonderful British movie Sunday Bloody Sunday. In this the bi-sexual Murray Head plants a real gay kiss on Peter Finch who plays a gay doctor, even though he was known as an actor to be agresively straight. It caused only minor comment when the movie was released in 1971 - except in the USA where the movie was generally despised and several theatres refused to show it. The third party in the trio was the late quite superb actor Glenda Jackson.

Condoms certainly help but even kissing can be a way to transmit syphilis. The real problem is that an individual can be infected with it and not know it. The average time from infection to noticing (or not noticing) symptoms is 31 days but can range from 10 to 90 days. Unless treated, as this CDC advisory states - "Syphilis can spread during vaginal, anal, or oral sex . . . A single chancre marks the onset of the primary (first) stage of syphilis, but there may be multiple sores. The chancre is usually (but not always) firm, round, and painless. It appears at the location where syphilis enters the body. These painless chancres can occur in locations that make them difficult to notice (e.g., the vagina or anus). The chancre lasts 3 to 6 weeks and heals regardless of whether a person receives treatment. However, the infection will progress to the secondary stage if the person with syphilis does not receive treatment." Worryingly, the guidline also points out - "In the United States, MSM who are HIV-negative and diagnosed with P&S syphilis are more likely to get HIV in the future." It's quite normal now for those getting HIV tests also to be tested for syphillis - and I reckon with the current trends this is highly advisable. Treatment is usually three weekly injections into the upper thigh and is not expensive. https://www.cdc.gov/std/syphilis/stdfact-syphilis-detailed.htm#:~:text=Syphilis spreads from person-to,%2C anal%2C or oral sex.

Saw the movie this afternoon at the Paragon iMax Theatre. I have not included any additional words in the title of the thread because I cannot think of any. This brilliant movie says it all. Its three hours went by so quickly. Superb direction and some stunning performances. I will be really surprised if Cillian Murphy is not given the Oscar Best Actor award for his truly magnificent portrayal of the conflicted genius that was Robert Oppenheimer. Most surprising, at least to me, was Robert Downie Jnr. who gives as fine a performance as any I have seen on film in the role of the scheming, two-faced Lewis Strauss as first a member and then as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. He too must be a shoo-in for a Best Supporting Actor nomination. This could have been a movie exclusively about the bomb and its effects not only on Japan but of a drastically changed future for the world. Instead at its core is a whole series of complicated personal relationships and how all see both their roles in assembling the bomb and the morality of their actions. The future comes later. To say more will give too much of the story away. Throughout, Murphy and Downie Jnr. are backed by some great acting from Matt Damon, Josh Hartnett, Kenneth Branagh, Emily Blunt and a host of others. A word, too, for the truly excellent and dramatic music score. It's as though throughout it subtly tells us precisely what is about to happen and how vital that event will be. The ending of the movie left us shattered, but certainly not in any manner we were expecting. Please try to see the iMax version. Director Christopher Nolan loves the iMax format and filmed the entire movie with iMax cameras. I feel the movie cannot be as powerful on smaller screens.

I generally stay at 3-star hotels like the Dandy Da'An which looks on to a large park and is just 30 meters from a subway station. Note, though, that like some hotels it has a few rooms with no windows! Pay more for a view of the park. Or The Ambience, although it requires a longish walk to the two nearest subway stations. There I like their Elite rooms which are at the back. Don't expect much from their breakfasts, though - certainly they are very basic compared to Le Meridien in Bangkok! On my visit at the end of this week, I got a great low rate at the Landis Hotel which is 5 star. It started life as The Ritz and was the only 5 star hotel until around 1990. I like it as it has an art deco theme. Great breakfast, but pricey! Normally I would not be able to stay there due to room prices. As I am in the Marriott Bonvoy points scheme, I have stayed at the mid-price Courtyard Downtown hotel which I much enjoyed. Excellent rooms and a fantastic buffet breakfast. It also requires a bit of a walk to the subway. Not far away is the large 5-star Grand Formosa Regent. Big rooms and excellent service. I don't think you have to stay in the Ximending area. Although the subway stops before midnight taxis are plentiful and relatively cheap. Only if it is raining hard or during a typhoon will they be difficult to get. On the other hand I am told Uber has a good service in the city. Besides, i can't recall any 5-star hotels in that area. One subway stop away is the main rail station. Here there is the Caesar Park hotel which used to be the Hilton. It's an older 4-star hotel which personally I do not like. Not far away is another older hotel, the Sheraton Grande. Never stayed there and I believe it is quite a walk to a subway station.

Finding information certainly seems more difficult than it was a few years ago. There used to be the section of a website titled AVERT which did publish statistics, although I believe it covered a more general msm percentage. I can no longer find it. A Paper issued by Australia's CSIRO in the Sexual Health section headed The Continued HIV Epidemic among men who have sex with men and transgender women in the ASEAN region: Implications for HIV policy and service programming, states re Thailand - "HIV incidence among MSM under IBBS (integrated behavioural and biological surveillance) decreased only in Bangkok from 28.6% in 2014 to 10.3% in 2018." https://www.publish.csiro.au/sh/Fulltext/sh20134 This is clearly illustrated in a graph showing the rate of increase/decrease in 7 major Asian cities. If the chart is accurate, the rate of HIV among msm has decreased substantially. A major concern arising from the chart, though, is clearly the significantly rising rate in Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh. There have been several other reports including data from 2014, but they require a great deal of time to analyse exactly what they mean since all seem based on different modelling methods and results which are extremely difficult to compare. Worrying, though, there is one paper dated July 16 2021 in Britain's highly respected medical journal The Lancet regarding an 18-month Study which suggests that "MSM will represent over half of all new HIV infections by 2025." This figure refers only to Bangkok. All reports I have looked at indicate a rise in the number of syphilis cases in Bangkok. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00313-8/fulltext

I doubt if I would fall for such a scam, but you never know. I seem to be one of the few who refuse to do banking on my phone.

No idea about massage but happy to confirm @floridarob's enthusiasm for Destination. Great gay club with lots of handsome, mostly tall and slim gay Chinese guys at the weekend. Cannot speak for mid week. Perhaps surprisingly, Destination has a float at the annual Taipei Gay Pride Parades.

No. It is on Suan Phlu. Senso is still on Soi Saladaeng

Please be careful. Le Siam is a lovely 3 star hotel on Soi Convent. The Siam is a hugely expensive ultra luxury hotel on the river up from the Royal Palace complex.

It is almost 2 decades since I spent 4 nights in Luang Prabang - and loved them. It is a completely charming small city but never felt like a city. I flew in on Bangkok Airways. I understand there is a long boat service down the Mekong from Chiang Mai, but that would need to be checked to see if it still runs. Just meandering through the centre with its plethora of small temples and colonial houses was a joy. As was the gentle climb up Pussy Hill (although it is spelled Phousi!) to get an overview of the city. The former Royal Palace is now a Museum. And there is a lovely boat ride about 25 kms up the Mekong to the Pak Ou Caves where there are many hundreds of small Buddha sculptures. I had booked through the long dead Utopia Tours. I had a non-gay guide during two days but frankly a guidebook would have been just as good. One evening I had a gay guide. Funnily, that evening I had had an early dinner in a little restaurant around the corner from my guesthouse and spent the meal lusting after the two cute waiters. I was then amazed when my evening guide arrived. He was one of the waiters! Gay nightlife then was mostly limited to one very large bar cum disco with very few people and one smaller bar, again with few patrons. But I did get a feeling of Luang Prabang being quite cruisy. On my last afternoon before my flight back to Bangkok, I was sitting at one of the tables outside the guesthouse looking at the boat traffic on the Mekong. Soon three cute boys - not sure if they were in the last year at school or first at university but they were in uniform - came and sat nearby. As they were drinking their tea, they obviously were aware that I was looking at them. Soon one came over. He said one of his friends liked me and asked if I lliked him! Of course I did and told him so, but sadly I had absolutely no time to do anything. Bummer! One anecdote. The guesthouse on the banks of the Mekong was quite new. It was the idea of a Lao architect who had spent about 20 years in Sydney stuying and working before returning home. As I returned from sightseeing one afternoon, he told me I had just missed meeting Mick Jagger and his daughter and how he had had a fascinating chat with them. Another bummer! The Rolling Stones had had a concert in Bangkok cancelled when the plane taking all their stage and technical gear from the previous gig in Mumbai had broken down. So Jagger had hired a plane specifically to visit Luang Prabang. Since he was sitting on a table across from the guesthouse, the owner went up to say how nice it was to see him again. It turned out that the guesthouse owner had met Jagger during a concert in Sydney some years earlier. Then he formed part of the security guard. At a rehearsal, seeing that he was Asian Jagger had gone up to him to say the band had run out of pot and was there any way the Lao guy could obtain some more! It turned out that the owner had a friend in the Lao Embassy. So overnight, a stash of pot was sent down in the diplomatic bag!

I stayed at Le Meridien early last year when returnees still had to have covid testing and spend one night in an approved hotel. It's a lovely hotel and the breakfast was great. It permits guests in the rooms without any fuss. A 5-8 minute walk takes you to the Skytrain station at Saladaeng or the Samyan MRT (subway) station. These easily get you to many parts of the city. But it is pricier with the cheapest average room rate next month being close to US$200. I only stayed once at the Crowne Plaza in its previous incarnation as the Pan Pacific. I found it a little offputting having to exit the first lift on the 23rd floor to get another to my room if I had brought company. But the reason I decided I would never stay again is that i was accused on check-out of stealing a bathrobe! Never in decades of travelling a vast number of kilometres around the world have I ever been accused of taking anything from a room. And what was so silly on this occasion was that I only had a small trolley bag which would have had difficulty stuffing into it a fluffy bathrobe along with my own clothes. Even so I was still asked to open my bag. Mind you, the management has changed long since then.

I had my annual HIV test at Pulse on Saturday. The clinic has moved from its rather plush premises one door up into much simpler accommodation.

I think it is madness! It used to be 800,000 baht in the account for 3 months prior to renewal. Thereafter it could be spent and I know that most lived on that cash without requiring another infusion from overseas for 9 months. Now that this amount is all but locked and unable to be spent, as @fedssocr suggests how many retirees are actually able to afford this every year till they pass away? I had read over a year ago that the entire business of retiree finances was being investigated by some government committee. The only thing I have heard since is the adoption of the new 10 year visa. From all accounts that is so far not a success.

Great looking guys and nice website layouts.

I also visited Pattaya on one of my first visits to Thailand. It was in the early 1980s just as the gay scene was starting to develop. I enjoyed the beach, but during the infrequent visits I have made since then the beach has become a reason for not visiting. I realise it's close to Bangkok but I like a beach to be a proper beach with white sand and great clean water. The Thai guys who'd come down in the late afternoon were certainly an added attraction. But in those days, there were a few go-go bars in Bangkok with great young guys and nudity after around 9:30 pm. But not in Pattaya. Hence Bangkok was more interesting. And so it has remained. That said, I did enjoy staying at the small, isolated 6 bungalow Le Prive on Thappraya Soi 1 when it was run by the two French guys. Not sure what it is like now. I also enjoyed staying at the Rabbit Resort and Deborah's always warm welcome. Both were easy to bring gay nighttime visitors. I did visit some of the bars but apart from a couple I still found Bangkok more interesting and enjoyable. Now I am more settled down, even the Bangkok bars in their new locations hold little interest. But I still love a great beach. I used to love Nai Harn and some other beaches in Phuket but not since the real tourism invasion a decade or so ago. Have written elsewhere that I think Khao Lak is wonderful for its peace and fantastic beach. Few in Thailand though have equalled the beach on nearby Phu Quoc Island in Vietnam. It is actually relatively close as it is located just under Sihanoukville.

Anutin is a large snake in the grass. He has made his desire to become PM extremely well known but his term as Minister of Health has been pretty dreadful.

Don't have Tik Tok

I had the same understanding. Thinking back over several decades, though, I recall that 'twinks' in the countries I have lived in or visited most often - Japan, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore - were mostly not entirely smooth/hairless. Veyr few had hair on their chests but most had hair on their legs. Some, especially from parts of Japan, just happened to be particularly hairy on arms, legs and to a certain extent chests. I do find most of the guys I meet in Taiwan have very little body hair. To me, smooth means almost no hair anywhere. I like the more recent fashion of waxing genitals so the torso is entirely smooth. One of the most intense sexual experiences I had was with a young guy I had noticed when dining at Dick's on Soi Twilight. He worked for a bar almost directlly across the soi which had a sort of computer theme. We started by smilng at each other across the soi on several occasions. When I finally took him home, he quite literally had no hair anywhere on his body apart from the tiniest genital bush.

Unfortunately I think it also reflects somewhat badly on Khun Pita. Everyone in the elite and in politics knows exactly what happened with Thaksin's share scandal and how he could never have been Prime Minister without substantial bribes to at least some of the members of the Constitutional Court. The fact is he lied on his paperwork, he lied to the media about his shareholding and he should have been booted out of parliament. But he was also aware that his fortune would only be infinitesimally reduced to pay off the Court members. There was also more recently another parliamentarian (I'm sorry I can recall neither the name nor the party) who was disqualified for virtually the same reason. Khun Pita knew the rules and if he had really wanted to become PM, he would have had a group of his close associates go through all his past history to ensure this shares nonsense was not allowed to happen. Of course, had it not been for the shares debacle, the Constitutional Court would have found some other reason. But through his inaction he has more or less guaranteed more street demonstrations and perhaps in due course yet another army coup.

Sorry I wrote my post! 😵

We all know that at least some members of the Constitutional Court are corrupt. After all, Thaksin senior held shares in his own media company but had parked them temporarily with his garener and housekeeper. He then bribed the Court which ruled 4 to 3 that he could in fact hold office. The ridiculous charge against Khun Pita shows that nothing has changed, except perhaps that Pita is not prepared to go down the corruption route. From what I read, the Senators' main concern - apart from the fact that most of them would probably find themselves out of a job - is Move Forward's policy determination to change the draconian lese majeste law. Clearly a majority of the country's electors agree, but this was certainly a red rag to a bull for the army appointed geriatrics. Although the party's stance was modified after the election win, I can't help feeling that had this modified platform been in the original manifesto it would have still satisfied the electorate and made it more difficult for current senators to object. Then again, Pita or someone in his entourage must surely have been aware that he held these media shares and that this could only result in instant disqualification whether or not the company was in fact broadcasting. After all this has had happened before. Why they were not sold prior to his submitting his eligibiliity papers is surely a mystery, but one that will I'm certain have voters out on the streets again. And if that gets ugly, just stand by and wait for the next military coup.

I have been in 24 a couple of times on each visit to Tokyo virtually since it opened. It's certainly big even though the layout and experience there is much the same as other saunas I used to go to. I'd also recommend 24 in Ueno, the second of the three 24s to be opened probably around 20 years ago. It's a smaller facility on several floors and tends to attract a more well-built and dare-I-say working class fractionally older type of crowd (late 20s to 40s I'd guess). It's also a good 15 minute walk from Ueno station. Haven't been in the original 24 close to the end of the Ginza subway line in Asakusa (not to be confused with Akasaka) and virtually at the back of the wonderful Senso-ji Temple for probably 2 decades. It was pretty run down then, on two floors and had quite a number of much older men. On the other hand, I recall also a lot of student types which struck me as odd because I cannot think of any universities being nearby. Unless the sauna has been renovated, I imagine it must be in a pretty rough condition. The faciities in 24 in Shinjuku are slightly different than as described by @hojacat. As you enter, there are the shoe lockers on the right which require you to deposit a ¥10 coin. Then you go to the ticket machine on the left of the reception desk, as you need to purchase a ticket before going further. If I recall correctly, the basic fee gives you something like 10 - 14 hours. Here also you'll pay extra for tickets to the private rooms. You then take the ticket and your shoe locker key to the reception desk which is low enough so that neither party sees the other's face. There you will be asked to give a name and handed a small basket with a large towel, long small towel and a yukata. The large towel is mostly for drying off as you are about to leave the sauna, although some patrons do use it as they walk around cruising. Several will don the yukata and walk around in that. On your way to the changing area, you will see a TV room on the left. This is purely for relaxing. The next floor has the bathing area. On one side there is a bank of low showers for washing thoroughly before proceding further. Hence the small towel! On the other side are two medium heat pools for relaxing and people watching. Many guys will be totally naked as the Japanese, unlike many in the west and in quite a few parts of Asia, have no hangups about walking around nude in such a setting. Proceeding through the washing area, you come to a much darker area. This has about 8 full sized shower cabins, some with glory holes, and some patrons will use these for sex. Also at this level is a pool with freezing cold water, a sauna, a totally dark steam room next to a room with a sling, a rainshower room and a more popular steam room with a little more light where there is often a lot of action usually involving a few guys. Most people walk around this area naked. As you leave, there is a small fast spin dryer for drying your small towel before taking it with you upstairs. This floor is closed for cleaning, I think about 6pm On the next floor up, there are the two very large dark rooms, one virtually split into two sections. Each has long mattresses running along one or more sides. One side of the right section has only bunk beds but there are more bunks spread throughout the areas. When the sauna is busy, these rooms see a lot of action, and few seem to mind if you watch, even though it's not possible to see much given that it's dark. Imaginations, though, are useful! 🤣 Bareback is unfortunately not uncommon so take your own condoms and lube. At one end there is a TV room often showing Japanese porn (sadly when I have been there with mostly chubby actors) with around 8 slightly partitioned bed areas. The next floor up also has another large dark room with mattresses and bunk beds. At the end above the TV room on the lower floor there is a smaller dark room, again with a mattress and nothing but a starlit ceiling. It's on the next floors that there is a variety of private cabins which require extra payment and keys. I have never been to one but they do seem to be popular. No one cruises up there that I have noticed. As in most Japanese society, it is important to be polite in a sauna setting. If you see someone you like and gently touch his towel or his leg, if he is not interested he will either gently move your hand away or himself move elsewhere. It's not acceptable to pursue this guy further. So just find someone else, or pop down to the bathing area to see if there are any new arrivals who interest you! You'll have fun! I honestly can't imagine any Hong Kong sauna owner changing policy in order to embrace inclusivity!! Increasing profits is much more Hong Kong! I'm keeping my options open for the moment. Having been to 7 already and being much less interested in the dance parties and overcrowded saunas and hot springs than in the Parade itself, I may give it a miss this year as I do want also to revisit Tokyo.

Quite a few years ago @macaroni21 in his earlier incarnation put forward his ideas on an ideal go-go bar. If I recall correctly this included different rooms for different types of entertainment, including one where the boys would dance naked. I suppose the changing times mean that any form of nude dancing in the VIP room will be a no-no, unfortunately.

WIth all respect to @ChristianPFC whose experiences over years in Thailand have been so insightful and interesting, we have also to remember that he speaks Thai and so bargaining or making clear his financial parameters is much easier than those visiting for a short vacation who do not have a command of the language.

Quick question. When i was in South America, Brazil was not on my schedule. But when I visited the Iguazu Falls and stayed on the Argentine side, I was told I HAD to first see the Falls in the morning from the Brazil side - something I would certainly recommend. This meant crossing into Brazil in the morning and returning to Argentina just after lunch. No visa for UK passports was required 13 years ago. Would American citizens now require a full and expensive visa for just a few hours?