reader

Like all of us, I was following his reports and was finding his adventure entertaining. we were actively corresponding with him, and some met up with him in Bangkok, and then the stunning news. My only takeaway is this. Don't sweat the small stuff and seize the day. Luker did and so and he did It among new friends.

Certainly the most functional one.

You have a capital idea there, Stevie, and I strongly encourage you invest all of your savings in developing the concept. You can begin right there in your home town where I'm sure the concept of available "young boys in go-go attire" being ordered up like pork chops will be warmly received.

I've had occasion to use this place twice over the years and agree that the service is very good and costs are very reasonable.

What works for me when I have indigestion: 1. If in a restaurant or bar, go directly to the bartender and ask for a glass of seltzer or ginger ale (NO ice). Then ask him to let you use his bottle of Angostura Bitters (frequently added to some mixed drinks such as Old Fashioned, Singapore Sling, Bloody Mary, Manhattan, Champagne cocktail, Pink Gin). Shake a generous amount into glass and stir. It will fizz and turn the color pink to beige. Drink immediately. Since language may be a problem, this is what the bottle looks like. 2. A teaspoon of baking SODA mixed with seltzer or ginger ale also does the trick. Add bitters to it, even better. Some airlines may also have a bottle of bitters in the galley. Reference from Wikipedia Angostura bitters are alleged to have restorative properties. It was reported to be a remedy for hiccups and is thought to be a cure for an upset stomach. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angostura_bitters

For all the Americans I know who fly to Thailand, it's a matter of preference for east Asians in an east Asian environment. Taking a boat would consume much time and taking a train or bus could easily prove more problematic. Think you'd probably get a similar reply from Canadians and other long-distance travelers. It is, after all, known as Amazing Thailand for good reason.

Sorry to hear about setbacks but glad to read that you're maintaining a positive attitude. Newbies tend to be shy in discussing with masseur what they expect and this can easily result in a less than satisfactory experience--even if you were speaking a common language. The manager at most places can be of help in advance to assure better outcome. As in so many things you'll be doing, it all begins with good communications.

From The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania (Nov. 10, 2017) Economists call it the ‘middle-income trap,’ and they say that it happens on every continent. Unheralded and unwanted, it occurs after a newly industrialized economy such as South Africa, Brazil, or Thailand fails to rise above what the World Bank defines as the ‘middle-income range.’ At this point, such a country’s wage rates have become too high for it to compete against low-wage, low-income nations, and yet that country lacks sufficient innovation and highly skilled personnel to compete effectively against the highest tiers of knowledge-intensive products from Japan, Germany and the U.S. And so, such countries commonly suffer from low investment, slow growth, limited industrial diversification and poor labor market conditions. Few countries are more concerned about this malady than Thailand, which has transformed itself over the past few decades from a low-income economy dominated by traditional agriculture into a significant player in electronics, automobiles and various agribusiness products. After Thailand’s per capita GDP rose from $682 in 1980, to $3,971 in 2002 and then $5,560 in 2012, the growth curve has flattened out, reaching $5,900 in 2016. Most famous as a tourist-friendly, sun-drenched destination, Thailand ranks second in the world in the export of hard disk drives; sixth in the export of rubber tires; seventh in the export of computer devices; and 12th in automotive exports. One of the five largest petrochemical and biofuels producers in Asia, Thailand is blessed with a rich biodiversity comprising over 13,500 species of plants, enabling it to become the world’s second largest exporter of sugar (8.2 million tons/year), and biggest exporter of tapioca. It has also become a major producer of personal, homecare and hygiene products for such multinationals as P&G (U.S.), Beiersdorf (Germany) and Kao (Japan). Yet despite all that progress, “Thai labor costs are not cheap and we are trapped in a middle-income sandwich,” says Bonggot Anuroj, deputy secretary general at The Board of Investment of Thailand. Because its wage rates have improved along with its standard of living, Thailand can no longer compete against such low-wage, low-income Asian producers as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. On the other hand, neither can Thailand compete against higher-wage Asian economies that are more innovative, such as Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. How to escape that trap? The plan appears to be to make deep government investments and offer incentives in infrastructure and other areas in the hopes of luring in more foreign investment that can then help spark higher economic growth through innovation. Continues at: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/can-thailand-escape-middle-income-trap/

Reading the posts in this thread and others reporting on conditions on the ground in Bangkok and Pattaya, evidence is emerging that predict a strong high season in both locations. First, early reports of turn-away crowds at places like Dream Boy and Jupiter 2018 and some consistently good reports from readers about Screwboys. Second, as vinapu observes, BBB continues to roar as it did even in low season despite the high tariffs. Taken as a whole, this suggests that venues that established themselves as "brands" are leading the charge. Every one from veteran travelers to first-time visitors know the name brands before they arrive and seek them out. That these hot spots charge the highest prices has certainly not proven a deterrent. Actually, it's having the opposite effect. This is particularly true with punters from China who are accustomed to paying more for the best and aren't interested in being seen at second-tier establishments. Although some may bemoan the inflation, it's healthy if the industry is to sustain itself in light of escalating real estate prices and higher rents. It also attracts new and high-end talent. This doesn't mean those on tighter budgets still can't find value but they have to lower their expectations a bit. And that, too, is good for the industry in the long-run. Providing customers offerings at different price is at the heart of capitalism. That's why both Harrods and Walmart both make money, serving their corners of the market. For a few years now we've heard predictions of the end of places Soi Twilight, Sunee Plaza and others due to lack of attendance. We blamed on-line dating and poor management. And although it's true that both have had their effect, supply and demand appears to be winning the day. Perhaps Adam Smith had it right all along.

NOTE -- I post this not because I think there are many potential marathoners among the readers here but to alert those who may be in town that evening of the possibility of some of the expected 30,000 runners (many of whom will be from east Asian countries, I assume) may find way to the places we know so well to celebrate. Excerpted from The Nation Approximately 30,000 runners from all around the world are expected to join the first edition of the Amazing Thailand Marathon Bangkok presented by Toyota, which is set to take place on February 4, 2018. The event is being organised under a five-year agreement between IRONMAN, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and Thailand Tri-League. On Sunday, February 4, marathon runners will start their race at 2:30 a.m. from Rajamangala Stadium, while half-marathon and 10km participants will begin their day near the Democracy Monument at 5 a.m. and 6 a.m., respectively. The event will feature a unique city-centric course that will take runners past some of Bangkok’s amazing landmarks such as the Victory Monument, King Rama V Monument, and Rama VIII Bridge before heading to the finish line at the Democracy Monument. http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/Travel_log/30331013

I don't bring phone and and don't give out any contact info other than hotel I'm in at the time (if they came back to my room they already know it). If I want to repeat I know where to find them. Some wonder how I manage without a smartphone in my pocket and I always tell them the same thing: peacefully. In moment of weakness I gave email out to one guy on last trip. Luckily--so far--no money requests but periodic messages inquiring "when you come back." Since I prefer to keep that a surprise, it will remain that way.

I never said anything about "performing oral sex at a bar with a boy with many other clients at the same time." You, Boy69, said that. I said "Risks associated with oral comes up from time to time" and was referring to the subject of oral in general. Others may have discussed favorite venues. I find it disgusting that you jump to conclusions without knowing what you're talking about...but not particularly surprised. You sound a lot like another youngster who occasionally emerges here. Must be a coincidence.

Risks associated with oral comes up from time to time. In the end I think it comes down to this: I've traveled a long way to get there to do--among other things--just that. Odds are I'm more likely to get hit crossing Silom or Surawong than picking up a STD but I still do because I want to get to the other side. I have only one rule of thumb that applies when it comes to oral and buying fish: if I don't like the smell I go elsewhere.

Video feature from NHK Newsline https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/videos/20171107201653351/

Don't think I've experienced over exciting sex. It's all been pretty much just exciting. Must try harder.

From Bangkok Post Travellers using Don Mueang have been advised to spare additional time to go to the airport due to the construction of the bridge linking the compound. Immigration Bureau spokesman Pol Col Cherngron Rimphadee on Tuesday advised travellers to allow more time than usual, or around three hours, to get to the airport. The advisory came after traffic congestion on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road outside Don Mueang since the closure of the bridge on Monday for renovation. The bridge will be demolished and a new one will be built in a nearby location to end the traffic bottleneck on the area. https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1356387/don-mueang-users-warned-of-traffic-congestion

Excerpted from NYTimes Thai soldiers in South Vietnam. Credit National Archives of Thailand By Richard A. Ruth, associate professor of history at the United States Naval Academy and the author of “In Buddha’s Company: Thai Soldiers in the Vietnam War.” Fifty years ago last month, the first Thai volunteer soldiers, a regiment-size unit called the Queen’s Cobras, were sent off to Bien Hoa in South Vietnam to fight alongside the Americans as part of the so-called Free World Forces. Eventually some 40,000 Thai soldiers and sailors would serve. While the Vietnam War is remembered rightly as a tragedy in both the United States and Vietnam, the same cannot be said for Thailand. There the war is described by participants, military histories and official monuments in largely upbeat terms. In the early 2000s, I interviewed more than 60 Thai Vietnam War veterans from that original group and its successor, a division-size unit known as the Black Panthers. They repeatedly stressed the experiential and material gains the war had given them. They talked about how their service had successfully blocked the spread of communism to Thailand. They marveled at how much Thailand had changed during the war years. And while they acknowledged the war’s terrible toll on people throughout Southeast Asia, including some of their fellow soldiers, they mostly talked about how the war had helped them and their nation. What really struck me, though, was the pride they took in their self-image as Buddhist soldiers. “Thai Buddha, No. 1!” I heard that phrase, originally blurted out in pidgin by American servicemen upon meeting Thai soldiers, time after time in my interviews. Most Thai combat soldiers wore numerous Buddhist amulets into battle. The more devout wore dozens in crisscrossing strings around their torsos. These Thai troops harbored great faith in the amulets’ protective power, saying the charms could bend the path of enemy bullets around their bodies or throw up a force field to blunt the blast of an anti-personnel mine. They took the Americans’ enthusiasm for this prodigious display as evidence of the Buddhist amulets’ superiority over similar Christian charms such as a cross or a St. Christopher medal. And they happily shared their amulets with any American who asked for one. During the first years of their commitment, from 1967 to 1969, a time when the American public was turning rapidly against the war, the Thai press carried laudatory reports of the Thai troops’ great battlefield successes. Thailand’s king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, brought gifts to the first wounded volunteers repatriated to Thai hospitals. And the monarch, enormously popular during this period, oversaw the first military funerals at palace-sponsored Buddhist temples. Thailand hosted seven air bases that launched American military aircraft daily on missions to strike strategic targets in Laos, North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The United States funded the rapid expansion of a naval base and port facilities that brought war-related supplies into the region. At the height of the war, some 50,000 American military personnel were stationed throughout Thailand. Thai entrepreneurs, many with connections to the government, built scores of new hotels, restaurants and bars to serve the waves of free-spending American G.I.s visiting on R&R. The G.I.s added $111 million to the Thai economy. At the war’s end, Thailand kept all of this military equipment and infrastructure. The Buddhist kingdom saw itself rapidly modernized thanks to the war. The “mercenary” tag has done little to harm the soldiers’ reputation at home. Thailand’s official memorials to its Vietnam War veterans laud battlefield success, military professionalism and honor. The Thai Vietnam War Veterans Memorial in Kanchanaburi evokes the more famous World War II-era monument in Bangkok called Victory Monument. Its bas-relief images show well-armed Thai troops defeating ragtag Viet Cong guerrillas. The Royal Thai Army counts the Vietnam War as one of its proudest moments of the 20th century. The dioramas and displays in the official National Memorial Museum outside Bangkok show Thai troops killing their communist foes in arrangements that stress the successful defense of Thailand. Less evident today is the terrible cost that Thailand paid for its involvement in the war. In addition to the 351 killed in action and the 1,351 wounded in Vietnam, Thailand sent volunteer troops to Laos in the so-called Secret War, many of whom fought and died under terrible conditions. The Vietnam War and the presence of American military personnel played a role in inciting episodes of political violence in the mid-1970s, notably the horrific massacres of student demonstrators by troops, police officers and vigilante gangs in 1973 and 1976. Bangkok’s notorious red-light districts catering to Western sex tourists trace their origins to the R&R visits by American troops. Some of these soldiers left behind unacknowledged offspring from short-term relationships with Thai women; many of these children were raised in poverty and ostracization. But these events — and especially their connection to the war — are largely elided from Thailand’s official memorials and histories. In that same period that Vietnam suffered, Thailand saw foreign investment soar. American-built highways now linked rural areas to Bangkok and regional capitals. The rice-growing countryside added factories and processing plants in a spate of rapid industrialization. The former R&R infrastructure left over from the war became the basis of a world-famous tourist industry that has grown enormously since the mid-1970s; this year foreign tourists are expected to add nearly $50 billion to the Thai economy. For all of the downsides that Thailand found in being America’s ally in a losing effort, it can legitimately claim, as it does in its monuments, command histories and veterans’ memories, that it came out of the Vietnam War a winner. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/opinion/thailand-vietnam-war.html

If you check Christianpfc's blog you find several first-hand reports on the place. Use the search function here you'll pull up comments about it.

For a place that's said to be falling apart, SN sure attracts a lot of readers. I scan the posts there periodically and find some of the banter entertaining as I do the occasional trip reports and other info. To me it's sort of like reading a newspaper: I don't read every article but I find enough to make it worthwhile.

From South China Morning Post Cantonese colleagues call him dai lo, meaning “big brother”. A golden statue of the ancient Chinese god Guan Yu stands tall on his office desk. No expat lives as a local like Timothy Worrall – the youngest serving foreign police officer in Hong Kong. Worrall is proud to call the city home, and it is the place he plans to retire. “Where else can you go for siu yeh [late night meals] and wonton min [wonton noodles] at 11pm?” says the 44-year-old British superintendent from the force’s small boat division. He is expected to be the last foreign officer to retire from Hong Kong’s police force, 10 years from now – a milestone that will mark the end of the era of expatriate officers in the 173-year history of the force. “I was born in Hong Kong. But after going to boarding school and university in the UK, I applied from the UK to join the Hong Kong force in 1994,” Worrall says. “I was very lucky to get in as overseas recruitment was ending.” Today, Worrall has fulfilled his dream and has worked for all the police units he had targeted. Over the years he has been involved in many high-profile police operations, from dealing with the disturbances in 1996 at the Whitehead refugee detention centre, to repatriation of refugees to Vietnam, chasing smugglers in the dark of night, and even going to sea in a typhoon. He has also hosted the police force’s English television programme, Police Report. When Hong Kong transformed from a British colony to a Chinese special administrative region in 1997, the younger Worrall was working in the Emergency Unit. When the clock struck midnight on July 1, he removed his silver Royal Hong Kong Police badges, which featured opium boats in Victoria Harbour, and attached the shiny insignia of the new Hong Kong, before getting straight back on patrol. Continues with pics and video http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2118472/no-change-1997-its-still-about-providing-best-service-says

Spoiler warning -- This isn't about sex. I post this because it reminded me that Bangkok--like most major cities--offers some wonderful opportunities to step back into the past in deserted and often hard to access locations. Christian has taken us to many of them around Thailand on his blog and I've found all a source of fascination. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea. But for the more adventuresome, it can be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Excerpted from CNN Ah, porn. Few words come with as many pre-loaded connotations and assumptions -- the promise of titillation, the thrill of taboo, the inherent air of seediness. Think poverty porn. Think food porn. Think good-old fashioned porn-porn. So what are we to make of "ruin porn", the work of photographers and artists who aim to communicate the romantic frisson -- as they see it -- of run-down buildings? The allure of ruin remains prominent in tourism and popular culture, including abandoned amusement parks such as Sydney's Magic Kingdom park, Germany's Cold War-era Spreepark, and Japan's Takakanonuma Greenland in the Fukushima district. Photographers who capture these sites have a name: "urban explorers", and many keep diaries of their discoveries on social media platforms. These images represent not only economic failure, but ideological failure, representing a break with modernized conceptions of cultural innocence and everyday enjoyment. Ruins appear to confront society's faith in anthropological endurance. Decaying buildings signify the inevitable process of history, to which we, too, will eventually succumb. Essentially, 'ruin porn' is a kind of time travel to the future within the present. http://www.cnn.com/style/article/what-ruin-porn-tells-us-about-ruins-and-porn/index.html

From Gulf Times DOHA - Qatar Airways will launch direct flights to Pattaya, its fifth route to Thailand, due to increasing customer demand, it was announced. The new four times a week service, which starts on January 28, 2018, is in addition to the airline’s existing flights to Bangkok, Krabi, Phuket and soon to be launched, Chiang Mai. Qatar Airways will operate a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, with 22 seats in Business Class and 232 seats in Economy Class on flights between Doha and U-Tapao Rayong Pattaya International Airport, on its winter schedule. http://www.gulf-times.com/story/569184/Qatar-Airways-launches-new-flights-to-Pattaya

At my age, their "use by date" seems to somehow coincide with my departure date.

Sailors on liberty are ripe for cruising if you follow some simple rules. Remember, these guys have been living at sea in close quarters and crave relief when ashore. The average age for the lowest four enlisted grades is between 19 and 20 in the US Navy and that probably is the same elsewhere. They appreciate the luxury of some time in a hotel room. Cruising sailors 101: 1. Look for sailor unaccompanied by mates. 2. Invite him for a drink 3. Repair to your room 4. Repeat until you run out of sailors or money.

Nineteen navies will send ships to Pattaya to participate in the International Fleet Review Nov. 13-22. Activities will feature l and and sea events, including a fleet review regatta on Nov. 17 in Pattaya Bay. The event will be held in conjunction Air Race 1 World Cup Thailand 2017 from November 17 to 19, at U-Tapao International Airport located on the Royal Thai Navy Base in Sattahip, Chon Buri province. Additional information http://aseanifr2017.com/