PeterRS

Showing my ignorance I have not been to Soi 4 since about 2015. Am I right in thinking that Jupiter is where Roxy used to be? For those with longer memories, that space was for years occupied by one of the great Bangkok gay Clubs, Rome Club. In some year, I believe around 1990, the owner decided to make a complete change. He ruined it by turning it into a straight club. That lasted all of a year before it closed. Another go-go bar Roxy then took over but it was not much nore successful, I suspect because Soi Twilight was then entrenched in visitors minds as the home of gogo boy bars. I cannot now recall what it became in the roughly 2 decades bewteen Roxy's closure and Jupiter's re-opening.

And I agreee there are benefits from both options. Usually I'm a fighter for my rights. Presently I have a continuing problem with my bank in the UK. I have not been able to access the account since November 30 last year because my Thai phone account and service provider (which has not changed in more than 8 years) can no longer receive the 6-digit PIN codes required as the final step for internet banking. PINS from no other service providers anywhere have been affected. The bank says it has checked and it is not its fault. AIS here have had its technicians check three times with my attempting to gain access, and received no PINS for my phone. Result: impasse! I am one of those who refuse to use phone banking. I know too many people who have had phones hacked, lost or stolen. There is a much more complicated way to access my account but I have not used it yet. Instead, I have written a long complaint with full details and copies of correspondence to the UK's Commissioner for Banking. I've asked for £5,000 comensation. I know I won't get it but I might just get something. In the meantime the Commissioner for Banking has told me it will take 4 months to investigate my complaint!!! 12 years ago I had another major problem with the same bank. That time it provided £1,000 in compensation. So perhaps the time and effort making the complaint may generate something. And if anyone thinks I am a bit of a miser - bang on!! LOL At Tops supermarket on Friday I checked and discovered that two items had been overcharged by 3 baht! When I last complained about overcharging at Tops, it had a policy of refunding not only the overcharge but the full price of the item. So I went to the counter to point out the error. Sadly, the policy has changed and I was handed 6 baht! Not even enough for a tiny cup of weak coffee! All that said, though, if I'm on holiday I'll only complain about major problems. It's just not worthwhile disturbing the holiday for lesser amouns - like 6 baht 🤣

WIth the US$ still high against the Japanese ¥ it is as good a time as any to book a trip Japan - although the heat and especially the humidity in summer can be stifling. Late autumn in November can be stunningly beautiful with the trees changing colour. At US$1 = ¥140 this is a lot better than the average of ¥106.76 it was in 2020.

Let me start by saying how much I really enjoy @macaroni21's posts and longer comments on the shamlessmack site. I still have copies of his guide to masseur types and the ground plan he posted years ago about his ideal Bangkok go-go bar. if only someone could have taken him up on his suggestion! As for Bali, I agree with his comments about Ubud. I now find it much overrated but then my memories go much further back, although not nearly as far as @Marc in Calif. My first trip there was in 1981 when I stayed in the Campuan Hotel just over the bridge at the end of town on the way to Sayan. It was merely a large wooden building which incorporaed the admin offices and an open dining room. Each accommodation was a simple hut on the hillside with gauze for windows and buckets with holes in the base for showers. The hope was you could raise the bucket high enough to get some water before it emptied! Yet I loved that hotel and its wonderfully friendly staff. There was a western style bar nearer the bridge and just over it Murni's Cafe with superb honey drenched yoghurt with fruit! I returned 10 times over the next five years. Wandering through the rice paddies you could make out the sound of gamelin playing in several villages. There was virtually no sex but it was the culture of the island that totally gripped me. Yet it was starting to become clear that more and more tourists were visiting. So I stopped going. The charms of Bangkok had won me over some years earlier and so I concentrated my future visits in Thailand. I did return in with my bf in 2005 as he was desperate to see Bali. I was reluctant but gave in. I found the island almost overrun and the peace I had enjoyed two decades earlier had all but disappeared - even in Ubud. But then that is just how tourism works. I was saddened by that visit, but remain thrilled at my meories of earlier times.

There are several. I used to see quite a few advertised in one of the large monthly magazines but have not been in Tokyo since pre-covid and no longer have a copy. The problem you will almost always find is that the mamasans and big boys will have little if any English. Point taken. Surely the easy answer is just to call the bar and find out. They obviously speak some English and I am sure will answer your questions.

Almost always it means Not Available. Not a question of being shy or eventually persuaded. Just plain fact.

So the withdrawal of Kaohsiung was clearly political. Just as athletes from Taiwan are stated to be from "Chinese Taipei" and airlines no longer use the name "Taiwan" as a country, the powers that be in the Executive Yuan would surely have been concerned at the use of Taiwan in the title. Whatever the reason, it was surely more than stupid of the Kaohsiung World Pride organisers not to have compromised. They have denied their city a place on the world gay map and a galaxy of visitors who would have spent a fortune on flights, hotels, food etc. I would happily have joined @hojacat but will aso now be stuck with the Taipei Pride Parade (not that that is anything but a great pleasure!)

If I recall correctly - and I am not at all convinced that I am - John Goss was associated with Utopia. Indeed he may have started it. The copyright on that site starts in 1994 which was certainly before Utopia Tours started. I only know because a friend of mine who had moved to Asia went to visit him off Sukhumvit (on one of the odd numbered streets after Asoke) from which the original Utopia was based. I suppose there could be an association with the Utopia-Asia site, but that has a ton of information which must have taken a great deal of time to collate over the years. John Goss seems to have restricted his publications to Thailand. That site is still far from perfect, but can be very useful especially if reports from readers are up to date.

FIrst the facts. The Study was carried out by Ipsos, the world's third largest research company, in only 30 countries between February 17 and March 3 and involved only 22,514 adults under the age of 75. It is therefore hardly very wide-ranging. But it does seem to indicate a trend. It found that Millennials and Gen Zers were more likely to identify as queer, bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual or asexual than older generations. I think this is hardly surprising as study after study in Asian countries like Japan, Taiwan and elsewhere have identified the older generations as being more anti-gay. This was certainly true in Taiwan where religious and older groups tried hard to block the gay marriage legislation. It is also no doubt true in Singapore where it is the relatively recent rise of mega-evangelical churches which, according to a 2009 Report in the Singapore Straits Times, count for a whopping 10% of the city state's charities. Why these churches should benefit from charitable status beats me, when their shenanigans have included one so-called pastor, Kong Hee of the City Harvest Church, and some of his church leaders being jailed for having misused $50 million of church funds. More than half of that amount was uselessly spent trying to develop the pastor's wife's singing career in the USA. In Los Angeles, this woman rented a $28,000 a month apartment and gave $1.9 million to rapper Wyclef Jean to produce an album - that totally bombed! When Kong was in jail, the congregants somehow permitted his wife to become the pastor! And tens of thousands still believe these thieves and their homophobic utterances. Anothe pastor, Lawrence Khong of the Singapore Faith Community mega-Baptist Church, is a magician - literally. When not screaming about gays and calling "the homosexual act the greatest blasphemy against the name of God", he runs an entertainment company and presents magic shows. Many wish he would include a disappearing act and just emerge in a puff of smoke. Thankfully, despite their best efforts, these bigots failed in their attempts to persuade the government to retain the notorious anti-gay Section 377A of the penal code. Back to the Ipsos Study. 56% said that gay marriage should be allowed legally. Women were more in favour of gay marriage than men. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/02/us/adults-identify-lgbtq-survey/index.html The full interesting detail of the survey is here - https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2023-05/Ipsos LGBT%2B Pride 2023 Global Survey Report - rev.pdf

I hope the phone lines are properly manned to cope with demand. Those for airlines like British Airways which has recently been cancelling many dozens of flights are impossible to get through. And I wonder about the quality of English spoken. What about French, German and other tourists whose primary languages are neither Thai nor English?

There were indeed quite a few of these booklets, often with interesting information. But with respect I think your memory is not quite accurate regarding the Australian taken to Court. If we are referring to the same incident, there is an excellent report of it here - https://web.archive.org/web/20050606015724/http:/www.yawningbread.org/arch_2005/yax-435.htm For those not interested in wading through a very long article, the bare bones were these. Some may recall a travel company in the early 2000s named Utopia Tours with its office based in the Tarntawan Hotel (it actually started business in 1998). It organised gay-themed tours to various parts of Asia with gay guides, although only the guides for the evening tours took patrons to gay venues. I remember it well because it organised excellent tours to Phnom Penh and Luang Prabang for me. In March 2004, police raided the company's office alleging they were on the lookout for companies arranging sex tours for pedophiles. This was total nonsense. It was based on the flimsiest of grounds and only because they had seen some free gay magazines on a table in the shop. It was titled 'Thai Guys'. All the company's computers and files were removed and all but one of the staff detained overnight. As is usual in this country, the following day there was a media conference with the 'evidence' placed in a table in front of the accused directors, Douglas Thomson, John Goss and Robert Scobie, whose apartments had been raided. And again as usual, the police painted a lurid picture of the men engaged in sexual enslavement of children and arranging prostitution. Had it all been so simple and the full facts discovered, perhaps everything might have died down. Unfortunately Robert Scobie had been on the Australian Federal Police Watch List, although his fellow directors were not aware of this. While Deputy Ambassador in Hanoi in the 1980s, Scobie had been linked to questionable photgraphs sent in the diplomatic bag. For several years, according to the article, there had been a "simmering paranoia" about Australian pedophiles in Asia. Questions had been asked in parliament. It was alleged there were at least 20 diplomats engaged in such activity. It seemed that Scobie was being "nailed", rightly or wrongly. For a time the Australian police had a team based in Thailand to investigate the general accusations. It is even suggested that once Scobie had been arrested, the Australian ambassador went to the Immigration Department to congratulate them on the raid on Spice Trade travel (the formal name of Utopia Tours). Goss, a US citizen, and Scobie had their passports confiscated. Eventually they were returned and the case basically dismissed! But the Australians were incensed. Pressure was put on the Thai government and the case was reopened - to be heard not in the High Court where cases regarding pedophilia would normally be heard, but in the lowest Thai Court which would normally hear cases dealing with traffic offences. The trial took place in November 2004 before one judge. Extraordinarily, he gave an order that the media could not take written notes on pain of imprisonment! Scobie's private files from his home were entered into evidence even though they had nothing to do with the Spice Trade trial. At the trial it was established that Spice Trade did not publish Thai Guys. Further that the publishers had not been arrested. In Thailand porn is not acutally illegal. Trading in it is. Yet, Thai Guys was a free magazine! Scobie was sentenced to 7 months in prison and a fine of 10,000 baht; Goss got 8 months and 20,000 baht. But both were suspended and some employees had work visas cancelled. By now the Tourism Authority of Thailand had become involved. It suspended Utopia Tours licence to trade for 6 months. Perhaps oddly, the Thais really wanted the case to disappear. It was the Australians who kept pressing for more and more action. Utopia Tours eventually returned under a rebranded name (I believe it was Purple Dragon). But the damage had been done. It could not last. The company died. John Goss gave his own version of the story with much more detail in another very long article - https://web.archive.org/web/20050731080446/http://www.yawningbread.org/guest_2005/guw-098.htm

I should have made this my first point! @thaiophilus makes a very imporant and indeed serious point.

There is a timely article on today's BBC website. Although it refers to art stolen from Jews prior to and during WWII, this particular painting ended up in Japan. About to go to auction, it was spotted. It has now been returned to Poland. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65779417

The problem about airing this problem on any chatroom site is that you are going to get a wide variety of opinions. Which should you consider appropriate to your situation? It's impossible to say. Further, we know almost nothing about you apart from the fact that you mention you are living in Singapore. Are you Singaporean or an expat enjoying a bigger apartment and a better salary that most salaried Singaporeans? For my twopenny worth, it's too easy to fall in love - or to develop a strong attraction for a bar boy - on first meeting, no matter the number of nights you spend together. Put simply, I'd say that's infatuation. It's not love. With respect to you and your feelings, you need to spend 2 or 3 more visits and a lot more time with him before you can really understand what your true feelings are for him. It also helps to find out who his good friends are here. What other posters have said is perfectly true. More than one boy has been known to "love" several farang at the same time and to have each send money for his room or his family. Please also remember that Myanmar is presently in the middle of a ghastly army crackdown with many murdered and no end in sight. China is probably the eminence gris in this scenario. The last thing it wants is problems on its borders. So it feeds cash to the Myanmar army to enable it to purchase weapons - and so on and so forth. That will not end any time soon, in my view. You must also think what might happen in the future if you find your feelings for him are indeed love. Are you happy for him to continue to be based in Bangkok with all the temptations open to bar boys here? Or will he return to what I assume will be poverty in Myanmar. Would you consider asking him to move with you to Singapore - or wherever you are because Singapore is actally 1,800 kms from Bangkok but you mention 3,000 kms which is more like Jakarta? If you'd like him to move back with you, how do you get him a visa to stay more than a very short time? Can he get a work visa? Does he have any work skills that will be welcome where you live - now and in the future? If the answer is no, how do you see the relationship developing? You move to Bangkok? Or you just visit perhaps more regularly? Just thoughts.

Doing some very late Spring cleaning this morning, I came across a Bangkok Gay Guide for June 2007. I believe these were printed monthly and given out free in most of the go-go bars and other gay venues. Usefully Bangkok was split up into various sections to make it easier to find venues.Equally usefully each sub-map has a box with the main venues listed in them. It is not always easy to locate them but if you look closely they are there. I have tried to take photos of several with my phone. I see that Soi Twlight was listed under its proper name, Soi Pratuchai. Sad to see how many are closed. Yet some still survive even if not in the same locations.

What memories! I recall watching a vdo of the first edition of the British Queer as Folk and being quite amazed that it was shown on a regular TV channel, albeit very late in the evening. Hunnam was then drop dead gorgeous! I read that casting of that character had proved extremely difficult and he was only discovered a few weeks prior to commencement of filmlng. I am sure half the gays in the UK were drooling at that first fully naked gay sex scene between Hunnam as a raw 15 year old (he was 18 at the time of filming) and the older, experienced Aiden.

Do you know why Kaohsiung was stripped of the right? Was it stripped or did Washington just pip it at the post? (I have no idea - merely asking!) I have been a few times. I agree it's a pleasant city and it does have its own annual Pride Paade with tens of thousands participating. But it does not have a lot of very active gay venues. As it's not at present regarded as a major gay centre, I do question whether it would actually rival such an entrenched and huge event as the Sydney Pride. I agree thouands would descend on the city from around Asia - but from elsewhere? Just curious.

Both Soi13in and Hans are in the centre. I am sure, like Bangkok, there will be other saunas in other parts of the city with a goodly number of twinks. You are correct on two counts. I have not yet been to Soi13in. That's partly a result of lack of time and partly a concern I had when it opened that I would be too far above the average age. I understood the owner of that sauna had previously run Rainbow sauna (very close to where Hans now is located) which I did visit on a couple of occasions. Some of the guys there definitely had an attitude against older foreigners which made it feel somewhat uncomfortable. Next time I'll look forward to a visit. As for my Mandarin skill, it is very basic. Not really enough to hold a conversation.

Am I right in thinking last year it started from close to Samyan MRT station? My own view is that if a Parade is going to be a regular annual event, the starting point - and preferably the route - has to be the same each year. In Taipei with one exception the Parade has always started near the Presidential Office Building close to New Park. I recall only one year when it was switched to an open space close to Taipei 101. That did not prove popular and so the start was moved back. Even though numbers most recently were around 200,000, there was still room for almost all the marchers. Wherever it is located, there should be room for hoped for expansion of numbers in future years.

I made 2 trips to South America from Asia - one to Brazil and the second to Argentina, Chile and Peru. Both were wonderful although neither would have been possible financially had I not had a ton of air miles for business class. Both required 2 overnight flights there and back. I believe it can now be done with much better connections. Rather than fly through Europe I would probably go via Sydney or Auckland. I wish I could return as I loved almost everything on those trips. But with my now having few air miles to use, like @zombie it would be impossible, no matter how much I would love to do so. Getting back to the topic, though, I have also found air fares to Europe from Bangkok have risen quite dramatically. Inevitably, when combined with high inflation rates and massive losses from years of covid, this has to have an effect on numbers travelling long distances to Thailand. On the other hand, during my regular travels in Asia I come across so many younger guys who have first or return trips to Thailand planned. But in general these guys do not replace the slowly disappearing expats and visitors from Australia and the west as their nightlife interests are mostly different. Massages with HEs, saunas with their friends to meet other Asian guys and dancing at clubs like DJ station seem much higher on their wish lists.

I have no doubt this is correct. But will not most of the airport workers - and I stress 'most' - be travelling relatively early in the morning and then returning relatively late in the afternon or evening? This will tend to coincide with rush hour for passengers and so trains are invariably full. The local airport train as opposed to the ditched non-stop express was always intended also for local travellers who would be travelling between stations. No idea how many of these there will be but I always see a lot getting on and off at Ramkhamhaeng. However, my point is merely that they pay a good deal less for such distances than those travelling on the Skytrain and MRT.

From my understanding, the majority of local travellers are not so much those working at the airport. Quite a number embark and disembark at the interediate stations especially Ramkhamheang.

I stand rightly corrected, thank you. Dandolo was elected Doge at the age of 72 when already aged and blind. He was 84 when he led the Fourth Crusade and looted Constantinople. He died there the following year and was buried in Hagia Sophia. His tomb was subsequently destroyed by the Ottomans.

The original airport express had no stops between Makkasan and the airport as far as I recall. The intention had always been to make Makkasan an in-town terminal similar to Hong Kong and some other cities. But only Thai and 1 or 2 other airlines were ever interested. So Makkasan became a huge white elephant and the original non-stop express discontinued. Another reason was the trains on the express service were always breaking down and requiring maintenance! I agree about the iocal fares having to be reasonable. But I believe they are actually too low, the more so when you compare them with those for the Skytrain and the MRT. Travel 8 stations on the Skytrain and this costs 47 bahtI have no idea of the distance covered by 8 Skytrain stations, but looking at a map it seems Phaya Thai to Ramkhamhaeng on the airport train is very roughly the same distance as Saphan Taksin to Phaya Thai on the BTS. The Skytrain costs 47 baht. The maximum on the airport train is 17 baht. Surely the airport train is too cheap!

I really wonder why you suggest that. Taipei started its Gay Pride Parades in 2003. It did not pass a law permitting gay marriage until 2019 in which year 200,000 attended the Pride Parade. Which comes first? There is absolutely no doubt that the develpment of the Taipei Pride Parades, each of which had a different social message about inclusion and education, helped in a major way to overcome the prejudices held by those with anti-gay feelings on the island.