PeterRS

With Singaore and the UK experiencing near record numbers of cases, I am surprised they are on the list. Also I heard this morning that there is now a new mutation of the Delta Variant which is accounting for 6% of new cases appearing in the UK. This is thought to be 10% - 15% more transmissible than the original Delta variant. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/21/the-delta-variant-has-a-mutation-what-we-know-so-far.html

I know - it all happened ten years ago and is probably forgotten by most. I only bring it up as last night I watched a Netflix mini-series "Room 2806: The Accusation". I am very late in watching it as it was produced in 2020. But I found it fascinating, with the memories I have of that scandal jogged by the four episodes featuring most of the people who actually participated in the events. To recap. Dominique Strauss Kahn (referred to by all as DSK) was the brilliant Chairman of the International Monetary Fund who had helped steer the world through the 2008 financial crisis. An economist turned Socialist politician, he was the leading candidate to win the 2012 French Presidential election by beating the hugely unpopular incumbent Nicholas Sarkosy who is now serving a second term in jail over financial irregularities re that 2012 campaign. It was known that Sarkosy's party was up to dirty tricks against DSK. Although based in Washington, DSK had spent a night in New York prior to having lunch with one of his daughters and then a flight to Paris. The following day he would be meeting the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In New York he stayed at the French-owned Sofitel. As a VVIP he was upgraded to the Presidential Suite on floor 28. Although the facts remain somewhat unclear and many internet sources are behind pay walls, there is enough information there to re-piece together much of the story. It is known that soon after arrival at the Sofitel he went out and spent several hours with a young lady. The following morning he made and received some calls on his 6 mobile phones. One was from a party worker in France to warn him about another dirty tricks campaign being mounted against him by Sarkosy's party. He then called his wife in Paris asking her to call for their house in the luxury Place des Voges area to be electronically surveilled for bugs the following morning. He then started to pack his small trolley bag. Before leaving his room, he took a shower, dressed and was at check out by 12:30. Floor map showing the Presidential Suite #2806 and another room #2820: from the New York Times The scandal that quickly erupted concerns a room service maid on the 28th floor that morning. The Sofitel's security logged every time a key card was used to enter, but not when a door opened without a card - e.g. on exit. The maid, Ms. Diallo claims she entered the room to clean it just after midday. She claims she saw the occupant's luggage in the hallway. But she did not leave. She continued into the large suite. Once in the bedroom she saw a naked DSK coming through the corridor from the bathroom. She then alleges that he assaulted her sexually, forcing her to the floor and then giving him oral sex. The deed done, he left the suite with his bags, checked out and had lunch with his daughter. He then took a taxi to JFK where he waited for the 4:10pm overnight flight to Paris. But he had forgotten one of his phones and assumed it was at the hotel. He called the hotel and they agreed to send it over to the Air France lounge in time for his flight. The maid took about an hour before reporting the incident. Hotel security called the police. No one had a clue where DSK might be, and had he seriously assaulted the maid, some assumed he had simply fled. As we know, he did not flee. He continued with his planned schedule and was taking the flight his assistant had booked for him some days earlier. Had he committed a crime it is surely unlikely he would have called the hotel to give it his location. The police proceeded to the airport, boarded the 747 and asked him to step off the plane. He was arrested and taken to a holding cell in Manhattan. After being held for a few days, he was remanded to the notorious Ryker's Island jail for two days before being given house arrest in a residence his rich wife had rented in Tribeca. So the man expected to be the next President of France had been utterly humiliated. But what soon became known was that DSK was not merely a brilliant economist and politician. He was a serial womaniser who would probably put Don Juan to shame. He gladly paid €1,500 a night for hookers here, there and everywhere, provided they were pretty and around their early 20s. (He was no Epstein with a thing for underage girls). He had taken part in naked sex orgies in France and the USA, and probably other countries as well. He seems to have sampled even more female flesh than Harvey Weinstein. Until then, though, he was not known for any form of violence. But no sooner had the news spread around France than two women claimed he had threatened them in their early 20s in the same manner. After a long drawn out "he did", "she said" case, it finally got to court. Remarkably the prosecution told the judge it was withdrawing its case because the evidence from the maid was not trustworthy. It turned out that some time after arrival in the USA, she had claimed she had been raped about 9 years earlier by multiple soldiers, her tears helping to convince those who heard the story. It was proved to be fake. She was found to have $60,000 in her bank account. She claimed to have a businessman boyfriend who had asked to use her account whilst he opened one in a new city in the mid-West(!!) The boyfriend turned out to be a drug pusher in jail. When being interrogated she said her English was not good enough and asked for an interpreter. Yet when the interpreter translated one sentence, the maid said in English "No, that's not what I said!" In a phone call with the man from his prison, she said words to the effect, "Don't worry. He has money. I know what I am doing." The maid claimed she entered the suite to clean in in preparation for the next guest. Yet I know of no luxury hotel where a maid is permitted to undertake a major cleaning of a Presidential suite until informed by the Head Housekeeper that the guest has checked out and the suite is free. As can be seen on the plan, this suite was very large. A guest in the bathroom would be extremely unlikely to hear a doorbell. When the maid saw DSK, why did she not rush out of the room? Almost certainly she could have done so before he reached her. Some sort of sexual encounter no doubt did take place. But was it consensual? Did money change hands? The floor plan above also highlights another strange fact (and this is not in the Netflix series). As far as I recall, Room #2820 had no guest the night before. Why therefore did the maid enter that room no less than three times between 10:30 and 11:30 am? Even more curious, why did she return to that room at 12:26 pm for less than a minute? I can fully understand that if she was indeed traumatised by what happened with DSK, she might have waited before reporting it. She was an immigrant and she had a good job that paid well. She did not want lose it. But what had she been doing in #2820? Had she left something there for later collection? We do not know and I do not believe this ever came up in the court proceedings. Whatever actually happened - a sexual assault by a known serial womaniser, an extortion attempt by a maid who knew exactly who was occupying that suite and exactly what she was doing, a combination of the two - we will now never know. Did anyone in France instigate what happened for political purposes? We do know that in a civil suit, the maid received a very generous settlement generally agreed to be $1.5 million. She now runs a restaurant. We do know that the scandal humiliated DSK, wrecked his Presidential hopes and any future political career. It also wrecked his marriage, but it was his third and he soon remarried. He has always stated he made a mistake, that the sex was consensual and he remains the aggrieved party. There were clearly faults on both sides. On the basis of everything I read 10 years ago and what I saw in the Netflix series, I do think DSK was set up in some way. Why and by whom, again I have no idea. I just do not trust the maid and I believe DSK was so arrogant he could - and still can - only believe he had been massively wronged. Sorry for the length. I am stuck at home again today and writing relieves the boredom!!

I hope another member can shed a bit more light on this. I seem to recall reading some months ago that the government was setting up another committee to look in more detail at retirement in Thailand for foreigners. The implication was that all the existing rules have been somewhat arbitrarily imposed over the years and it is time that a more up to date and stable financial system for retirement and reporting to Immigration be hammered out. If I am correct, I hope the government might invite one or two resident retirees at least to provide their views to the Committee as I am not convinced a group of Thai civil servants really has much clue about the needs of the retirement community.

“Some call it a circus, I actually call it a fiesta. It’s going to be very interesting, with lots of twists and turns.” So says Tony la Vina, Dean of the Ateneo School of Government in The Philippines. He's talking about next year's Presidential Election which so far has three front runners - the son of a dictator, a homophobic boxing legend, and a former actor who happens to be the present Mayor of Manila. Front runner is the lady who has failed to declare her candidacy, the daughter of the current President Duterte. She can still decide to become a last minute candidate, the same as her father did last time. The son of the murdering dictator Marcos is also named Ferdinand but goes by the nickname Bongbong (how many does he 'bong' I wonder??) He studied at Oxford University but failed to get a degree. With his family still immensely powerful, he has risen through the political heirarchy. He targets younger voters who have little knowledge of the crimes committed under his father's rule. He is a supporter of Duterte. This may have something to do with the fact that Duterte, as his predecessors had not, permitted his father's body to be given a hero's burial. The boxer, Manny Pacquiao, is as near an icon as you can get in the country. An evangelical Christian, he is against divorce, abortion and famously claimed that people in same sex relationships were "worse than animals". A defender of Duterte he even claimed that Duterte was anointed by God! If he is elected, I wonder what sort of civl rights monster he will turn out to be! The Mayor of Manila has a much less prominent persona. Born into a poor family, he is known for having launched a clean up Manila campaign. He is also anti-Duterte and said he is in favour of the International Criminal Court investigating his war on drugs which allegedly killed as many as 30,000. Perhaps the one serious candidate should be the present Vice President and former human rights lawyer Leni Robredo. She has also been very anti Duterte and especially of his cosying up to China. She is the daughter of a judge and an English Professor who previously worked for NGOs providing legal assistance to marginalised groups. But with the Filipino people as a whole in love with stars and personalities, the chances of her winning the election are surely small. Sadly! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/19/some-call-it-a-circus-ictators-son-boxing-icon-and-former-actor-vie-to-lead-philippines

This morning CNN posted their usual graph of pollution in cities around Asia. I don't recall seeing a number higher than 5 before but that may be because I simply was not paying attention. Today CNN gave Bangkok a 6, higher even than the 5s in the usual heavily polluted cities like Delhi and Jakarta. Just from looking out of my window I can see that the air quality is not as good as recently, but it is nowhere near as bad as the dreadful pollution over the winter of 2019/20. Indeed the Real Time AQI index for Bangkok this morning is just "moderate" at 74. Delhi is an "unhealthy" 104. So where does CNN pick up its inaccurate information? It made me think of a day some years ago when I was sitting at the desk in a hotel room in Taipei. According to the BBC weather site, at that moment Taipei was enjoying a clear, warm and sunny day. As I looked outside my window, there was howling wind, lashing rain and leaves and tree branches being blown around everywhere. The city was in the middle of a quite major typhoon! So how did the BBC come up with the total opposite for its weather forecast? Since they can not get their information right, I wonder why they bother.

With pent up travel demand, SIA is launching an A380 service on the Singapore/Kuala Lumpur route for certain flights between November 4 and December 2. With SIA and certain other carriers like British Airways and Emirates reintroducing the A380 on long haul routes, flight deck crews first need short familiarisation flights. So BA has announced A380 flights to Madrid, Frankfurt and possibly other European destinations prior to deploying four of them on Los Angeles, Miami and Dubai routes.

I certainly read your posts prior to responding to them. If your discussion had been about Bangkok then, yes, I would call you irresponsible and stupid. But you claim in your original post that most of your promiscuous activities took/take place with sex workers in the USA and that you are probably based in the USA where sex workers will be vastly more aware of the risks of unprotected sex than is the case in Thailand and neighbouring countries. That being the case, I ask you again: why post this in the Gay Thailand forum when it should have been in The Beer Bar, unless you are intent on stirring up confusion and causing trouble? Then again, since you consider most members of this Board dinosaurs, why show your age by being one yourself by contributing? Best you find another Board where your preferences are more acceptable to the membership. This Board is doing just fine without trouble makers.

No, I did not. Had you read my post you have have noted that it referred specifically to Bangkok with a lesser reference to other countries in Asia. I assumed from your post that you do not live in Bangkok. If I am wrong, then why did you post this in the Gay Thailand forum rather than a more general one? Wherever you live, you can call me what you like. You will obviously do as you wish and I doubt if anyone on this Board would or could persuade you otherwise. But for you to suggest that those who do not use PrEP are dinosaurs is both stupid and more than somewhat ridiculous.

So much has been written about Oscan Wilde that we think we know most about his life. We know he was born in Dublin and spent most of his working life in London. Less well known (if at all), he spent more of the rest of his life in the Northern Irish town of Enniskillen than anywhere else. As a boarder at Portora Royal School he lived in the city between 1864 and 1871. "The Happy Prince" is the title of a lovely short story Wilde wrote in 1888. In essence it tells the simple tale of a poor town where a swallow sits on top of a statue, having missed the annual migration south with the rest of the swallows. The statue is of a young Prince who never knew sadness in his life for sorrow was not permitted in his castle. Seeing the poverty in the town from high on his plinth, the statue asks the swallow to strip off the gold leaf covering his body and give it to the poor. Now Enniskillen is marking Wilde's years of sojourn in the town. A new literary tourism project has mounted 150 gold-leaf sculpted swallows over 86 buildings in the town, including a butcher's shop, s florist, a jeweller and an optician. They follow a trail that leads from a new mural of The Happy Prince to Portora Castle. Two are particularly associated with Wilde the man. One is over a window in the local jail in remembrance of the time he spent in Reading Jail. The other is by the Victoria Cross Memorial in tribute to Wilde's elder son who was killed in action in World War 1. Enniskillen is also marking another famous literary personality who also boarded at Portora, Samuel Beckett. Neither writer had previously been celebrated by Enniskillen. Now it is hoped this town more noted for its position as a centre of what were called "The Troubes", the nationalist and religious conflict that scarred Northern Ireland between the 1960s and 1990s, will become better known for its literary giants. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/15/enniskillen-mounts-oscar-wilde-tribute-with-flight-of-gold-leaf-swallows

Ok, call me a scared dinosaur!. But I do not live in the USA and have not had sex in the USA for several decades. But I have had a lot of sex in Thailand, even unprotected sex prior to the realisation that HIV had spread to the country around the mid 1980s. Thereafter it has been condoms. Why? Because I feel that some of those (perhaps many) who are promiscuous and believe that they are fully protected with PrEP fail to realise two facts that I outlined in the "Donations from LGBT Too Risky" thread in this part of the forum. The first is that 31% of MSM in Bangkok are HIV+. The second is - "in 2016 only 45% of youngsters in the 15-24 age grouping had "adequate knowledge" of how to prevent HIV. Almost certainly as a result new sexually transmitted infections continue to rise in this group." So anyone deciding to go bareback in Bangkok has to realise there is a very good chance the boy he is with will be infected, and that the younger the boy the more likely it is that he may still not know how HIV is spread. PrEP is very safe - but not 100% safe. Although Thais covered under the universal medical scheme can get PrEP free from the Red Cross, some boys will not be too shy to do so. Also, to be fully effective a 7-day course is recommended. A young Thai MB in desperate need of cash in these times of covid19, may assume just starting the medication on the day they have sex is sufficient. Then what if that cute boy on the app is from a neighbouring country? Will he know any more a Thai? So in my view it remains exceedingly selfish to have sex in Thailand without using condoms, given such facts. Condoms like the Sagamo 001 made in Japan are about the thinnest at 0.018 mm thick. They feel as though you are not in fact using a condom. To protect oneself with PrEP yet possibly leave the one you are with open to infection is not dinosaur thinking. It is being understanding that your partner may not have a clue what PrEP really is.

Apologies. I took your post to mean the opposite!!!

"Is being developed?" That means it may be ready by January 1st! Of which year I can not be sure!

Ah, but I did not say that. I merely wrote "There is however a decent list of a dozen wines by the glass." For their quality, those listed wines may not be overpriced. But I think they are indeed overpriced compared to wines offered by the glass in some other high end restaurants of roughly similar quality. But I suppose it's horses for courses.

Considered the Oscars of Fine Dining, the World's 50 Best Restaurant List has been announced. I know many take these lists with a large pinch of salt, but this one does seem to be especially valid. (Actually the list is not truly the best of the best since some which previously came top of the list have been withdrawn and will be included in a new Best of the Best list). The top two restaurants are both in Copenhagen. The others are spread around many countries. In Asia, the best is Singapore's Odette, one of two from the city state. Two places lower sees a Cantonese restaurant in Hong Kong's Soho district, The Chairman, which is the highest climber from the last list. Tokyo has three and Shanghai one. Bangkok has one run by German twins, Suhring in Yen Akat Soi 3 (not far from Sathorn). Suhring has set menus at 3,500 baht and 5,000 baht. But then you have to add in wines, tax and service. There is a very extensive wine list consisting mostly of German wines and few bottles under 2,000 baht. There is however a decent list of a dozen wines by the glass. It's all naturally expensive. There are other considerably less expensive restaurants that i believe offer better value. But for those with cash to splash, Suhring might be worth a try. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-50-best-restaurants-2021/index.html https://restaurantsuhring.com

I suppose we tend to place most great writers, poets, composers and others who have handed down to us works of great beauty on a kind of pedestal. We think of them more for their traditional works than themselves as people and conveniently forget about any less savoury works they may have penned. Anyone who has seen the play or the movie "Amadeus" by Peter Schaffer will know that our ideal of Mozart as a precious, intelligent and delicate composer of some of the most divine and gorgeous music ever written is quite wrong. He was a man with youthful desires and frequently mixed with common folk. Amongst the works he has left for posterity is a series of six pornographic canons (a canon being a work where a short melody will eventually be repeated by a series of other voices). The best known is this one which best translates as "Lick my Ass". A similar one starts "Lick My Ass Nicely, Lick it Nice and Clean". In another, the last four lines in the expurgated edition are "Very gently, sleep resting well, Good night! Have sweet dreams, Until the morning breaks!" The text that Mozart wrote is actually "Good night, good night, Shit in your bed and make it burst; Good night, sleep tight, And stick your ass to your mouth." More scatalogical and certainly not outright pornographic as is Auden's poem, but then the times were very different. When then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher saw "Amadeus" at the National Theatre, she was not happy at its depiction of Mozart. She said to the director. Peter Hall, "In her best headmistress style, she gave me a severe wigging for putting on a play that depicted Mozart as a scatological imp with a love of four-letter words. It was inconceivable, she said, that a man who wrote such exquisite and elegant music could be so foul-mouthed. I said that Mozart's letters proved he was just that: he had an extraordinarily infantile sense of humour ... "I don't think you heard what I said", replied the Prime Minister. "He couldn't have been like that". That was the end of any discussion.

I am singling out for comment these items from that article. The avert site below dated 7 August 2020 confirms that the number of new infections of HIV among the general population is indeed declining in Thailand. That figure is impressive - a fall of 59% between 2010 and 2018. This represents the steepest decline in the Asia Pacific region. Sadly, though, it reconfirms that the number of MSM already infected with HIV in Bangkok is 29% whereas it is between 12% and 15% in the country as a whole. But, and I believe this is important, those figures come from two different time periods. The country as a whole is from 2018; that for MSM in Bangkok from 2015. The Bangkok figures has constantly been repeated on all manner of sites ever since then, including this one. Has there really been no change in the number since then? As referred to below, the number seems to have increased, albeit only slightly. Some years ago, another sad statistic was the much higher increase in the rate of HIV infections among young people in the 18-21 age range. Equally, condom use in this age group is low, despite the launch in 2016 of a three year programme to increase condom awareness and to issue 40 million free condoms annually amongst this age group. Part of the reason may be that while sex eduction courses in schools are now common, 'sensitive' subjects like abortion and MSM are often omitted from that part of the curriculum. The site points out that in 2016 only 45% of youngsters in the 15-24 age grouping had "adequate knowledge" of how to prevent HIV. Almost certainly as a result new sexually transmitted infections continue to rise in this group. This seems to be borne out by comments in gay forums about the lack of condom use in the gay saunas primarily targeted at Thais on the outskirts of the Bangkok. Avert suggests that more testing and more education is vital to bring the numbers down. A more detailed site hivhub titled "Thailand Ending AIDS" is dated 2018 and covers the period 1 October 2016 to 30 September 2017. It relates to what was then the current situation and how Thailand could meet its target of ending AIDS by 2030. This states the rate of HIV amongst MSM in Bangkok as slightly higher at 30.2%. This report stresses a number of issues relating to how figures are poorly collated between several agencies, the need for a much larger outreach programme for young people, and the need for many more at risk people to be tested, especially MSM, which happens to be the lowest level for testing and finding out the result (only 54.6%). It adds that many Thais are having their first sexual experiences at an earlier age. 3% claimed to have started at age 13. Although this number is relatively small, it adds that the number of those having sex under 15 is increasing. I apologise that this post veers off the main topic about blood transfusions. In general I agree that the overall situation in Thailand, particularly as outlined in the two reports below, remains too uncertain. I don't mind not being able to donate blood. I donate to the Red Cross instead. That means I am still doing something. Others will certainly disagree with my view. https://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-around-world/asia-pacific/thailand https://hivhub.ddc.moph.go.th/Download/Report/APR/2018/EN_GAM 2018.pdf

I suspect many of us have been more or less in the same boat. I do sincerely hope you will consider writing more about your past experiences, especially all the many thoughts that must have been flowing through your mind during all those years of silence.

I came from a different household. My mother went to Church but I was never sure how much it was out of religious conviction. My father attended, but only for baptisms, marriages and deaths. My siblings and I first came under my mother's influence and so we occupied a pew - thankfully near the back. My poor sister was tone deaf and sang everything about a fourth lower in pitch. As if that was not bad enough, there was an ageing spinster soprano in the choir - she must have been a member for a good 50 years - and her somewhat screeching tone did little to help the choir achieve a degree of unanimity of tone. Lying in bed last night, I recalled the sermons. In these, I don't think I ever really understood what the minister was talking about. And that got me thinking about a satirical sketch involving a minister and a similar type of sermon. This was delivered by Alan Bennett, one of Britain's foremost playwrights and novelists, when he and three other members of the famous Cambridge Footlights Revue presented a satirical show for the prestigious Edinburgh Festival in 1960. All were to become famous in their later show business careers. The others were Pater Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore. Alan Bennett's minister is obviously now dated, but much of it remains hilarious and is so typical of what i remember and what I failed to understand in those far off days in Church. The show was named Beyond The Fringe, the reference being to the huge Fringe Festival of all sorts of shows and events that surrounded the items in the main international Festival. Although planned to run for two weeks, it became a sensation. It had long annual runs in a London Theatre and then on Broadway. It is credited with starting a satire boom that leaned heavily on ridiculing authority and the establishment. It was to lead to a relaxation of comedy guidelines on public television and thereafter to the creation of such series as Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Christianity in Asia has been alive - and mostly well - since the early 16th century. When the Spanish conquered The Philippines, Catholic missionaries were not far behind. The Portuguese had earlier established settlements in Goa and Malacca. Arriving in the tiny enclave of Macau. they negotiated with the Chinese Emperor to be allowed a trading post. They were given a lease on the small enclave of Macao, a lease that continued till 1999. Using Macao as a base, the diocese of Macao spread far and wide to Japan, Vietnam and perhaps surprisingly China itself. Unlike most of the colonial traders, the missionaries took their job very seriously. They learned the languages of the countries and sought souls for God by showing the indigenous populations the errors of their heathen ways. Chiang Kai Shek's extremely powerful wife came from the very Catholic Soong family. To marry her, Chiang had to convert to Catholicism but rarely followed its commandments! That the Soongs were Christian goes back to a Jesuit priest named Matteo Ricci. Based in Macao, he was the first westerner ever allowed to enter Beijing's Forbidden City in 1601. The Emperor created him an adviser because he wanted Ricci's knowledge of astronomy and the sciences. He had already learned how to speak, read and write classical Chinese. While at Court and on his earlier travels around the country he had several major Christian converts. If a foreigner died in China, Court rules insisted his remains had to be transferred back to Macao. In Ricci's case, the Emperor agreed to his being buried in Beijing. With Chiang and his wife being Catholics, no doubt some of the 2 million who followed them to Taiwan were also Christian. Some were also Christian missionaries. These formed the basis of Chiang's Kuomintang political Party. Studies show that even with the island's small number of Christians, that number continues to diminish today. Perhaps one reason is that the majority Protestant religion (twice as many as the number of Catholics), which was introduced to the island by Dutch colonisers during their brief rule in the 17th century, continues to ban the deep rooted cultural significance of ancestor worship. Inevitably, this severlaly limits the numbers prepared to join that branch of the Church.

The south building in the photo is not Terminal 2. It is the Satellite Terminal for Terminal 1 and work started at least 3 years ago. The Satellite is primarily for use by TG and Bangkok Airways aircraft. Nothing has yet been decided about the location and design of Terminal 2 which was the subject of all the controversy a few years ago.

I am surprised by your comment about the number of religious people in Taiwan. Official statistics suggest the exact opposite, assuming you mean Christians! Only 3.9% of Taiwanese are Christian compared to 35.3% being Buddhists and 33.2% being Taoists. I have sen many Buddhist temples and a lot of young people there. Many of the Christian community seem to live outside Taipei. Despite their small number, they mounted a major campaign against the proposal to introduce gay marriage. Thankfully for my Taiwan friends, only one of whom professes to be a Christian, they failed. In my many visits, I think I have visited almost 20 temples (some of which are very beautiful) but only one church and it is close to the hotel I normally stay at. b The one country in Asia that totally floored me as I first flew into its major airport after dark was South Korea. I simply could not get over the number of red neon crosses affixed to so many buildings. That was the old airport Kimpo. Not sure if the same can be seen nowadays from Incheon. I was soon to realise that South Korea Christianity had more practising Christians than many allegedly Christian countries -around . Buddhists make up 35%.

From the little I know of TotallyOz and his previous postings, he knows South America extremely well and would clearly be happy in Brazil and Argentina. Importantly there is an abundance of sex in Brazil - not so sure about Argentina, but I assume so. Similarly in Spain, at least in the main cities and with the apps probably everywhere. On the other hand, if the primary reason for leaving Thailand is the government's treatment of foreigners, I'm pretty sure there will be quite a number of other reasons why the governments of those three countries would end up leaving him with similar sorts of feelings for one reason or another over the long run. But then a home base is not a lifetime base. Any of those countries could make a thoroughly enjoyable base for a few years, after which a longing for Thailand and the boys here may well re-emerge. In fact, I'd put money on it LOL!

Utterly fascinating. After what you have been through you deserve a pleasant (and gay) retirement.

FIrst let me make it perfectly clear. This is not a God-loving or a God-bashing post. Many of us belong to religions and worship God or Buddha or Allah - even a few are still believers in Ahura Mazda, the God of the world's oldest monotheistic religion, Zoroastrianism. More, this post is about the influence of a belief in God and sporting prowess. One of the 'sports' I would run a mile to avoid is boxing. I noted though that over the week-end there was a heavyweight championship match in Las Vegas won by an Englishman appropriately named Fury. When thanking all those who had helped him in the run up to the fight, he praised God for helping him during the fight and to win. This got me thinking. It was not that many years ago that the US was overcome with 'Linsanity'. A tall, handsome Taiwanese American basketball player named Jeremy Lin, he was the first of his nationality to play for an American NBA team. Based in San Francisco, off the field he was popular with the area's Asian community; on the field he achieved little, He moved around teams who kept him for a few months and then dropped him. In 2012 he finally achieved a run of games with the New York Nicks and became a sensation, called by the New York Times the team's most popular player in a decade. Then his form tailed off and he was let go. He wandered around several NBA teams and got virtually nowhere. Now he plays for the Beijing Ducks in the Chinese Basketball League. He has stated that anti-Chinese-American slurs affected his performance. Yet Yao Ming, a Chinese who had been a huge star a few years before Lin, was idolised in the USA and was elected into the US Basketball Hall of Fame. The point is that Lin was another who dedicated all his victories to the glory of God. Clearly a committed Christian, he has said he plans to become a Christian missionary when he retires. So my thought is: when was it that athletes started praising God for their victories and successes? I can remember watching the French Tennis Open Championship Final in 1989 when Michael Chang, another Taiwanese-American, became the youngest ever player at age 17 to win a Grand Slam. In his acceptance speech, he announced to the crowd that he thanked "the Lord Jesus Christ," adding "it was God's purpose for him." The reason, apparently, was that his win had come shortly after the Tiananmen massacre in Beijing and it was to provide comfort for all Chinese! Thereafter, whenever he won any tournament, God was thanked. I have no doubt he was sincere in that belief, but it drew the ire of several fellow professionals. One, by far to become the better tennis player Andre Agassi, wrote in his autobiography, that he was physically sick hearing that comment (adding that he might have been high on ice at the time!) Reportedly he shouted at the TV set, "Then why didn't God just stop the freakin' massacre!" He then makes what I consider an extremely appropriate point. Why on earth would God choose to favour Chang over his opponent who lost? The same can be said of Lin, Fury and others. In fairness to Chang, he and his family were always devoted Christians. As far as Michael was concerned, he was so committed this meant abstinence from sex until he got married. (I wonder if that included masturbation!) "It was part of my Christian faith and part of my promise to my future wife." Considering he did not get married until he was 36, I'd have thought his life must have got more than slightly frustrating at times. Now, if only I had a belief in God, would that have made me a better tennis player? Could I have won a Grand Slam? Sorry, Michael, I know the answer and sadly it does not accord with your views! https://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/inspiringathletes/2013/09/a-conversation-with-tennis-legend-michael-chang.html

Hard for me to advise given that I have only visited each country twice and for considerably shorter than 2 months. Although I would be happy to visit Brazil and Argentina again several times, as a European I love Spain, its people, its food, its amazing history, its art and architecture etc. Not being into western guys, I did not get much from Spain's gay life - apart from a totally unexpected meeting with a stunning young Asian guy from Singapore and one from Guangzhou in Barcelona! But there were Asians on the apps and so I know I would not starve! I would choose Spain partly because of the huge variety of other amazing countries I could get to in little more than an hour or two. From the little French villages, to the chateaux on the Loire, to the amazing Renaissance hill towns in Italy and the joys of its art in the main cities, Germany's Romantic Road - even the pubs and Cathedrals in England. Extend the flight by another couple of hours and the glories of Russia (forget Putin and his homophobic laws for a few weeks) and then go up beyond the Arctic Circle to see the Northern Lights (a trip when I met up with a young Asian couple travelling around by car!).