vinapu

no, I rather do my laundry

thank you for a link, I just finished watching it, great piece.

it looks that you landed safely as I noticed you are posting again, hope you had a good flight

great lecture , thank you. In few year we will see how his predictions will unfold

A bit late but Happy Holiday GoldMember and thank you for great report. I wonder how do you compare north and south part of country from tourist point of view, which is more interesting in your opinion? This is question often asked by a people who don't have a time to do a whole length of country and need to decide which half is more full

I don't walk with prostitutes either , with sex workers yes. Unless this is short hop from bar to hotel in the same block I always ask them if we go by taxi or walk, invariably if walk will take us through Patpong ie. Adonis to BBB Inn or Dreamboys to Om Yim thay always / 1 recall one exception only / opt for a walk hence my earlier comments.

I don't speak Thai , we conversed in English, he speaks quite a decent English and even knows word 'intestines" . I pay plenty attention to peoples reaction , not that I care much but out of curiosity. He suggested one day he will be my guide if I go to his home town of Khon Kaen so likely has some idea what is causing face loss and to what degree. If walking through Patpong and Silom and people watching is entertaining for me even after 9 trips there I assume so is for the boy from provincial backwater, may be he dreams about hiring one of girls working here way some are dreaming about hiring a boy from bar but they feel that off fee is too expensive for them ? I think you think too much as Thais say

for those staying in Silom are who want to sample Thai temple thare's huge Wat Hualampong , short stroll of few hundred meters from soi Twilight along Rama Rd away from Suriwong. Wat even has resident live cows. Temple grounds can be visited till late , I was there around midnight and still people were milling around..

what about if you are on your way to Patpong or soi Twilight? I wear my knee long shorts throughout the day which I spent either walking aimlessly through BKK streets or whoring around. When doing serious sightseeing like wats or museums I wear regular trousers, I hate jeans. In the evening if I'm going to place to pick up boy known to me already I wear shorts as well, if on hunting mission to unknown back to trousers

whatever it was, it was actually his idea to walk instead taking taxi which I offered so I left it to him to assess what is costing him dignity and what is not. Since you metioned Surawong is at center of prostitution I don't think being escorted by a farang of the same or opposite sex is causing big face loss. We are not talking Grand Palace or lobby of Oriental hotel here. My reading of situation was that he thought I'm losing face by way I was dressed, not him. It was not our first encounter and we get along great so I stick to my version although you may be correct. This was not a first time that boy preferred to walk, I think they are pretty bored confined in their bars or massage places so passing by busy Silom or Patpong in company of ugly but baht saturated farang may be entertaining for them.

good thing your brought it up, Cuba is a country where greenback is poor cousin to other currencies due to politics so either Euro or CAD are best bet

You may be right and if young enough you may even find if that's true in due time. Difference between now and Vietnam war is that Vietnamese did not orchestrate bringing New York Towers down so today's decisions are easier to justify when coffins start coming back home

I do not believe Americans got involved in Vietnam because of concern about inability of communists to deliver high living standards. Your argument about preventing nasty regimes to gain power is valid but in case if Vietnam they won and neither country nor world collapsed, even helped to get rid of even worse dictator Pol Pot by invading Cambodia. Nobody is disputing that communist regimes in some places were very nasty but so can be ones on the opposite side of fence / Somoza in NIcaragua or Truilllo in Dominican just to stay at the same time of history / Elected communist governments in some Indian states / Kerala, West Bengal / actually lasted quite a long time and Kerala is among best governed Indian states. I don't want to sound like defender of communist power just trying to make point that when Roosevelt described old Somoza as "SOB but our SOB " he was right. I agree that is appropriate to oppose military takeover by communists but I'd say is appropriate to oppose military takeover by anybody. Military is to defend country, not to put it's citizens in prisons and camps, any military, not just one with red star.

sometimes bringing boy into conversation is impossible, farangs speak their languages and boy speaks Thai only. Yet we don't want to cut conversation short just to be polite. Solution I found for this dilemma when by chance I met a friend on Suriwong was to give boy 300 or 400 baht and ask him to wander though Patpong market. I finished up being bored as my friend left for other assignments and I was left waiting good half an hour for boy to show up. Of course he did not buy anything which I commended as smart move , money not spent is money earned. Those irrational thoughts went through my mind few times too although I never overnighted more than one boy , after all we are letting in complete stranger and they were reports of theft by the boys but so far it happened to others , not me thanks God so I'm not paranoid about this , possibly even too trusting but I don't want to poison my holidays by this type of worries. In fact in my travels I'm much more suspicious of motives of other travelers than boys and hotel personnel. Favorite trick by new friends met on the road seems to suggest to go for a dinner to restaurant and after meal and drinks are consumed they shockingly notice that wallet forgotten in the room or is just empty. Of course they will repay money next morning when it happens they forgot about it and are gone, happened to me at least 3 times in this century. What is more interesting and possibly coincidental in all three cases those people were from some rich , small west European country without access to the sea.

You are right and at times even hotels on busy streets / Om Yim , BBB Inn / are surprisingly quiet. For me worst noise offenders are actually not a streets but adjacent bars and discos so this is what I would be looking for when picking up location although I found Cafe Royale / Boyztow3n / and Pavillion Place / right above Screwboys / quiet as well likely to a room position facing walls in the back.

Great article but it looks is in electronic version only since I received my printed copy today and there's no such piece, possibly it'll appear in next week's issue. This fragment from the article is particularly chilling: "The result is that 0.1% of Thais own half the nation’s assets, a concentration of wealth that makes America’s mind-bogglingly unequal wealth distribution (where 0.1% of citizens own 22%) look like a socialist dream come true". Such ratios are ones who given reason to rise for PolPot and the like monsters and ensure that they were popular in some sectors of population despite all atrocities, mystery many of us in the West seem not to understand..

Nirish, you always see full half of glass leaving to others worry about empty half. Nothing wrong about boys talking with each other. If two farangs pick up boy for a threesome they will be talking and poor boy will be wondering what they are talking about. Often we see such a scene in restaurants , two farangs in lively discussion and bored to death Thai beside them

perfect, precise , informative and yet entertaining trip report, I'm salivating waiting for the next installment

I like first boy from post #28. Safe trip firecat and enjoy your flight is something like that can be said about 22 hrs ordeal

USA was and is friendly with much more nasty regimes than both Cuba and Vietnam. No politician there has balls big enough to admit that whole embargo is absurd and always was and just to finish it off with stoke of pen. Some Americans still are industrious to go to Cuba through Canada which is well connected to island. Cubans will not stamp America passport so no trace of contact with such a powerful enemy will be left in Uncle Sam's documents. As for thousands Americans killed for nothing in Vietnam is easy to agree but still question of what they were doing there seems not to be answered almost 40 years after fall of Saigon / 25.04.1975/.

and it is , I realized that to my surprise when escorting my boy from Arena to BBB through semi-deserted soi 6 and he told me to tuck my shirt inside my shorts as apparently I looked funny in shirt being too long . I agree with Bob above that sometimes is good if concerned person will not be to shy to tell us that we look stupid in what we wear. And no, I'm not a dresser but if we are in somebody's company way we dress reflects on them a bit , whether we like it or not.

I rather have noisy motorcycles at 4 than curfews

2 a.m. closing has the same moral overtones like 1 a.m. closing of bars in soi Twilight. you are free to wander at night , curfew was short lived and lasted maybe 2-3 weeks after the coup in May. Speaking about night wandering, one of my little joys is to watch how Patpong night market folds down at night, quite a spectacle with all those half naked, sweaty, muscled bodies working hard. And you may still catch some Soi Twilight and soi 6 go-go's still hanging around so you may land a body warmer without off fee. Bangkok is very safe city but at night take usual precautions and don't take short cuts through dark alleys as you may disrupt sleep of homeless parked there for a night sometimes.

clearly I'm beaten 1:3 here so I better shut up, LOL Funny thing , I did not even notice tattoo on Diesel boy and is not a first time I miss that. I guess it's because my father was tattooed / moderately / so always tattoo seems natural for me. Not that I like tattoos but kind of overlook them

4 hands can be fun if boys are comfortable with each other and manage to coordinate massage, I tried it and liked it but had good luck with the boys by picking up one and letting him to pick up his helper. 6 hands is overkill IMHO unless one is orgy lover. Still nothing in my book beats one on one encounters.