Londoner

Two weeks ago, the Hotmale host bars were active; I met a very nice Cambodian guy there. Banana bar had a few hosts too...it's been a long time since it had more than a few. I was only there one night but, as far as I could see, there was little change to what I'd seen four months ago. I can't comment on the go go bars. The loss of Dicks was very sad. It was a good place to watch the world go by. The Jomtien Dicks, on the other hand, was still going strong last week and I had an excellent dinner there.

Each trip, I ask the same question; a regular -one of whom has been reliable and still handsome performer for ten years- or take a chance on a newbie who may or may not be a star. I'm in Pattaya at the moment and have relied on my three regulars. However, the one chance I took has turned out to be a star and- assuming he stays here-has joined the ranks of the regulars! How lucky we are....in a week's time, back in chilly London, I shall be thinking about this with a tear in my eye!

I use Planet Romeo....the Classic version when I'm at home, the other one here in Thailand. But I must add a cautionary note. In August 1996 I made that first life-changing visit to Pattaya. I was so overwhelmed,I booked another trip for October. In my dreams I had a list of three guys whom I was determined to meet. To my horror , all three had "gone home" on my return. And as my visits grew in number, I became aware that the go go community is transitory. Some stay to make a career (meeting the "right " falang) but many others are here in Pattaya for six months or a year before returning home. So my advice is, don't expect your favoured guys to be around on your next visit or even to answer your messages. You may be disappointed.

The curious thing about fundamentalism is that in whatever religion it gains a foothold, the results are very similar. Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu,even some of the wilder extremes of Buddhism. Anti-women, anti-gay, repressive socially, oppressive politically and aggressive militarily. My experience in Palestine is that the fundamentalism in Occupied Palestine is predomiantlyJewish. It is Jewish women who tend to be subservient and closeted while Palestinian women are defiant and politically- motivated. In the schools, it is usually the young girls who are the most articulate and politically aware; the boys tend to be the ones who are involved in confronting the settlers and Occupation Army. You don't see women with full-face veils and in the larger towns, the dress of girls tends to be t-shirts and jeans. Very different to the settlement women....not that you often see them anyway! Islamic countries were the ones where gay sexuality was tolerated and, in some cases, culturally -celebrated, right up to the middle of the 20th century. Wilde and Gide in North Africa, Burroughs and Orton in Tangiers for example....while in Medieval Islam there was a literary culture that celebrated gay love in poetry and song.For centuries, European gay men went to Islamic countries to escape oppression. A personal memory. In 2009 my boyfriend was seriously ill in hospital. My Muslim Palestinian friend made a special journey to Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to pray for him. I joked that my boyfriend was the first gay , Buddhist Thai to have had special prayers said for him in the third most holy site in Islam in nearly one thousand years! And in case you're wondering, Allah answered the prayer!

Krabi is certainly worth a visit and boat-trips to many beautiful islands- those which haven't yet been closed by the government- are enjoyable. But be aware of the crowds, predominantly young Chinese on my last two trips. Aonang has little going for it in the evenings other than restaurants...and those are not that good in my view So, for me, Krabi is sun , sea and sleep. Heaven help you if you hit a bad period of weather as we did a few years ago. Air Asia offer amazing deals from Dom Muang airport. It is , of course, nowhere near as good a location as Swampy , nor are its facilities as good. But it's a lot better than it was a few years ago. Return flights at about 2500 bht if you book early.

I can understand Paborn's perspective; those of us who live in the west depend on the perceptions of others. And "the others"- the media, the politicians, the economic elite- have their own fish to fry. Remember that Islamic nations were colonised and brutalised for political and economic gain for two hundred years and, now allegedly independent, they are seen as a threat to the colonial-settler enterprise of Israel....with which the west is closely allied. We have have tied our colours to the mast for too long, the mast being colonialism, what Edward Said calls orientalism and now Zionism- three ideologies that require fear and loathing of "the other".In this case, Islam. And when our mistakes result in blow-back- as in Iraq, Syria and most obviously Palestine- we refuse to consider how we are responsible for the catastrophes that inevitably follow. My perspective is certainly very different to that of most people in the west; I have spent too long in Occupied Palestine to be blind to the realities of of living under a foreign and malicious occupying army. And of course, it was my own country, the UK,that ran away when Palestine was invaded in 1948, leaving the very people the UN had asked us to protect to be slaughtered or exiled.And their descendants colonised.

That strikes a chord. My first visit to Thailand in 1996 changed my life. I'd lived as a straight man for forty plus years and the bars of Pattaya opened my eyes to what I'd missed. Subsequent visits to other parts of the country where sex was not involved confirmed that Thailand is special in many, many ways. After nine years and thirty or more trips, I met my boyfriend and fell in love... the only boyfriend in my life. I owe the people of Thailand so much..

Agreed. It's odd how Muslims are held to account for every deviation from the Koran while it is accepted that Jews, Christians, Hindus and even some Buddhists are given leeway to retain their faith alongside their sexuality. Buddhists? yes....those of us who have boyfriends who are involved in DMC will know what I'm talking about. That's why I regard it as Islamophobic.

I counted four that have closed recently in the Silom/Surawong area. Any explanation?

This thread illustrates very nicely how some governments have a vested interest in encouraging ignorance and Islamophobia. Cui bono?

Thanks witty....we must have posted almost simultaneously!

Any evidence of fundamentalist Islam in that area? the violence in the region isn't religious but nationalistic. It's about land and national identity. There are pockets of Islamism in Indonesia and perhaps some of the remote Philippine islands but not in Thailand. To my knowledge , anyway. I've spent too long in Muslim communities in Africa and the Middle East not to be suspicious of some of the generalisations I read in the western media.

I wish z909 had posted his Vietienne story before! I was there three months ago and saw only massage places with female masseurs. I know one gay mb in Pattaya from Vientienne; he told me that he had worked as a masseur there but that any sexual activity was forbidden. I guess that z209 was either lucky....or has a lot more nerve than me.!

My apologies if this has been discussed before. Can anyone offer advice about the massage joints in Surawong, close to the Tarntawan Hotel? Two at least now seem to be male-only. Are these guys available for offing to my hotel room for massage and the usual extras? Is there a bar-fine?

Thanks for that. But one question remains unanswered;. Regulars at Thai saunas know that, occasionally, a good-looking young guy will initiate sex with an older falang. It has even happened a few times in London saunas when I've met Asian guys. Very occasionally, sadly! I find such encounters more enjoyable than commercial ones because the choice is his, not mine. There are plenty of studies explaining cultural issues which lead some ( a few?) Asians to prefer sex with older men. I wonder if a447a frequents Thai saunas? If he were to meet such guys as I have, would he appreciate, even prefer, such encounters? Or is the commercial aspect an end in itself?

I'm fascinated by a447a's posts so I hope he can help me with this. I ask in the spirit of genuine enquiry, not wishing to offend but bewildered and intrigued by some responses to sexual activity. When one of of us posts about enjoying sex with a guy who is ostentatiously not gay and achieves erection/orgasm by looking at straight porn (or, as in a447a's report) thinking about his wife back home...is this in itself erotic for the falang? If the guy was gay and enjoyed what he was doing, would it detract from the falang's pleasure? There are of course, young Thai men who actually enjoy sex with older guys- I've met a number of them In Babylon, Sansuk and House of Male over they years. If a447 were to offered the services of one such guy in a massage parlour would he prefer to choose someone different?

The apps may have done the bars no favours but they have given me, at least, the opportunity to enjoy myself in the afternoons. And they have certainly increased the earning-potential of MBs!

I started visiting Pattaya in the late 90s and quickly fell in love with it....or rather its inhabitants. However, the go-go bars didn't open until 2100 and there were not the huge numbers of massage parlours that here are now. Nor of malls with a/c (Royal Garden had just opened its lower floors). And no Sansuk of course. I've never been a fan of Pattaya's beaches but was happy to spend a couple of hours at Jomtien if only because, in those days, the MBs would wander up and down the channels between the deck -chairs and there was always the possibility of a chat. Or more. The truth is that the hours between about 1600 and 1900 were boring. Apart from a meal and then a Singha in Cocobanana (later Panorama), I'd sit around my hotel room awaiting the magic moment when the go-go started.

I wasn't referring to your post, Paborn. And I was certainly not intending to be rude.The difference of opinion concerning the meaning of "twink" is long-standing. I'm not sure that many straight guys would welcome the term being applied to them! and for me, a twink is gay. But so what? I agree that there's room for both Nice and Winners in Sunee and there's even more room for these different perceptions of a word.

Only a couple of years ago, Ni e Boys would include femme guys amongst its staff. Often, they'd be the only ones actually dancing. And I remember there being twinks (yes, gay ones) three or four years back. Now it seems that all the guys there are of the same type. With Winners offering a very different crew, I suppose it's a case of niche marketing. Is this a good thing? I'm not sure.

I recognise the appeal of Nice Boys- it's certainly vibrant and the gays (not dancers....dancing is a thing of the past) are having a whale of a time. However, the tattoos are a turn-off for me as is the absence of anyone who doesn't appear to be aggressively (in the nicest way) straight. But even more disconcerting was that, on my visit in June, the guys were all transfixed by their mobiles and were watching straight porn. I usually manage to visit Sunee once or twice when I'm in Pattaya and have found Winners more to my taste. I prefer gay dancers...in fact I prefer "dancers" rather than standers.But it is a good thing that punters have a choice in Sunee.

I've had the same experience as Travellerdave . Part of the problem is that many guys use photos taken for Facebook or LINE for their friends; these photos may show them pulling silly faces or acting the fool. And on other occasions, I see photos which are believed by the guy to make them look sexy but appear slightly comical to me. What appeals to me- and what a guy, particularly a newbie thinks will engage my attention- are often very different. For one thing, a warm smile melts my heart while a fierce, provocative stare at the camera does nothing for me.

I was interested by a447a's comment about the guy he fancied "acting femme". My experience is that it is not unusual for otherwise straight-acting guys to behave like this in a bar. Once they have their client, they revert to their more natural style. While on show, they play the perceived role of a gogo dancer, at least in a bar like Hotmail. I suspect that in some of the other bars that cater for muscle-guys, the gay plays it straight.....but of that I have personal experience.

Caveat emptor. Remember that our visitors take chances too. And not just with photos....I must confess to not having changed my profile age for three years! And there are also safety issues for them to consider, particularly visiting homes and apartments. The advice on checking all the photos is good; indeed, I'm suspicious of any profile that only shows one photo. My reaction to the advice to use other sites to back-up hornet et al is that for my age group, the struggle to master even the most straightforward technology is such that the prospect of further adventures into an alien world is unwelcome.

Planet Romeo and hornet will result in many offers....but not many will be from the under 45s.