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well-TIT-yes/no/maybe/sometimes. The barbeer (as its more commonly named) is -as I said before- shaped after same ditto for girls. They are open air small shacks that sell beer-and more, of course, what happens to be in the fridge donated by either Cola or Pepsi. Some do not even provide that most essential of Thai fun: the whiskey bottle (licensing and all that). Thats OZzie style BYO-maybe corkage fee. They tend to be clustered in masses in some patch of land, Thai style named''entertainment'' zone. There may/will be a TV showing football and the girls are very, very apt at playing silly games (like 3 in a row) to win a few more baht. As its the lowest investment possible (often there are a lot just waiting to be rented out-at the mo) they often are a kind of excuse for farang to stay longer in TH. In larger patches/clusters, there may be some central entertainment, like mud-wrestling, lady-muay-Thai, Thai dancing or whatever happens to be cheap and available and likely to attract punters. As so often with Thai gay venues, they are very close to str8 zones-so that punters may have an easy excuse to hide after. Replace girls by boys-tipically the most dumb just out of the ricefields Isan farmersons. Also a fair lot with the most despisable TH has to offer{ obnoxious katoeys, aka as ladyboy. There may or may not or may be a negotiable off-fee. that should be lower as in gogobars. PTY has the most-but also Phuket and recently, alas, ChMai-along Loy Kroh road has been transformed in a ditto zone. Just let that old boss Thaksin come back to clean that out in his hometown-and then clear out himself afters. A variation on this theme and a little more appealing to many farang are the Sunee style bars: open air, but in a house, a bit more cafe-style, there may even be a slice of food available (well-TIT-there is always some lady frying up flylice in a few mtrs), more games and aimed at socializing. I kind of liked them a lot-but its years ago since Ive been to PTY and many reprots suggest they have changed format to much more commercial. There may or may not be blaring music- if youve ever been into 1 real Thai venue, you know the lot. Karaoke-that other of monstrosities aimed at shrieking away farang, is also readily available. Once again I repeat what I said before: there are no licensing men or whomever who dole out permits and attach names of category. Its always blurred what is barbeer/hostbar/offbar or whatever. The tipical hi-so BKK bars like Telefone and Balcony would not be into that category, they squarely aim at farang-style and have a ready supply of MBs to assist lonely souls. Here in bigcity BKK the Sapan Kwai area has a few left (they close slowly and die out) of hostbars: like a gogobar, but no gogo. Boys can be taken off, sit in streetclothes or their fancy dress and the entertainment is again drink too muth and singasong like karaOK. One rule should by now also be quite obvious; Thai style venues have lower prices, for drinks, for off, for boytips, as those aimed at ignorant farang just visiting for1week and not knowing Thay prices anyway and coming with too big a wallet that they think needs to be empty when leaving. Many claim they in general offer better service too-but that again is service Thai style-for many a farang not quite to his liking. Oh-and again: this whole story, written now @ 7.30 in some BKK webshop, is still valid and can be read from the TMOT=The Men of Thailand series, before the www hit the world, explaining how it all works in TH.

So did you get that Tai lessonbook for grade Boh 3-or was that 4? that has about 200 Thai sayings/frases now to learn from? But hat is only Thai-often quite hard indeed to get the proper english transpation for that (me as non-native Engl do not know either). BTW: that word kwaam is very useful, as it is about the only way you can express abstract things in the Thai langauge. And yes-that indeed often leads to hilarious or very long expressions. In this respect Thai is simply a very undeveloped language (though I believe Chinese is even more so). For FH and his other thread about lying: in fact there is not realy a Thai word for lying-whoich probably also signifies a lot. What he described about that Thai student in nicely deceiting his farang benevolenter- is what the Thai call ''eat/speak strawberry''= with a sweet mouth hide the truth. Thats newstyle street slang Thai-never to be found in studybooks for the prathom grades.

NONE of these have ''off'' boys-as told above, and certainly not their staff. They all have (Dicks the least) MB-s = money boys=freelancers. Mostly very sweet mouthed, even a tad educated and very, very well used into manipulating farang. Barbeer in fact IMHO does not exist in BKK. That is tipically PTY -style-again some copycat of the girly bisnis. Off-fees may or may not be payable-or are negotiable and are a little lower as in real gogo and the boys-well most do it on the side and are happy with about anyhting they can get. PS: Note the various threads recently that in PTY there seems to be a real shortage of boys willing to ''work'' there. And 1 more time: WHY is it so hard for you all to think that there are no really set rules, regulations, tariffs, etc on all that. Think by the whim of the moment-as opportunistic as one can get, set a rule and waive it next day-this is TH and it all is part of how TH usually works.

This is TH and in case you had not learnt so: ANYthing here is possible-at a price. Some of the shops offer this as a kind of ''off-fee'' Some of the boys suggest it by themselves-or after a short hint and are happy to give you their mobuynr.. MOst are quite happy to forfeit the fee for the massage-as mostly they get nothing from it from the shops (only the tips they keep). In NORMAL Thai msg shops, masseuses (males are less as 20%) get a hourly rate or more likely-part of the fee you pay (hovers around 40/50 bt/hr=nearly double the usual Thai hourly wage for low skilled work)-but then they do not have to provide for all the oils, towels, etc.

Ach mein lieber-I hope you did not post this also on any of the 3 boards-so werde ich hier nur mal antworten. 1.Yes this is very normal. Also because only very, very recently there now is the possibility to take your nr on to when you change provider for mobuy. You very well know this is not EUR/DE style and ueberreguliert hier. Plus you still have to pay for that. Fones get lost, borrowed, stolen, or brought to the moneylender (if it is a costly new style smartie) and you have no money or recourse to get a new one-with new nr. 2.RKH is by far TH's most big uni (I have to come there at least weekly this time and its soooooo far) and has well over 100.000 studnets-though at least half of them only do it by mail. It was once set up as an alternative for poor people living too far from BKK and still to get some education. 3.the daily/monthly money: yes this is also very common. For long time you need to cough up the rent-commit for at least 3 or 6 month, pay a deposit-doubtful if you ever get that back. By now you must know that living by the day (wie das auf DE heisst weiss ich nicht-we say'' from hand to mouth) is the norm-not by the week or month. But here in BKK it quite easy to find aprtmts/conmdo's like you describe for much less as 200 bt/D. My very best friend for an awful long time lived in one like that-in Huay Kwang-and paid less as 3000/.MO+electr etc. Till the whole block got emptied out and completely renovated and made modern-and he could not afford the new rent. PS-what you now did is called thread jacking-and is considered not polite. make a new thread for a new topic-that also garantees more response and not just from people who incidentally pass by.

this time I for once still give you the benefit of the doubt-looks a lot like trolling or ''try to be ooooooooosoooooooo funny.! 1.Learn the very basics of this country. Isan is the North East of Thaild-where they speak a dialect, very similar to Lao(tian) and grow/eat sticky rice. As it is the poorest region of Thaild, it is notorous for sending their girls-oh, and yes, also a few of their farmerssons- to BKK to gain more money-mostly by hooking on to anyone who looks remotely intersted in their extra services. ANY normal guidenbook has this info-do not bother too much with that old style thing called reading? 2.no-I follow this and other gay-Thai boards (in the off chance you are a genuine newby: sawasdee-gay-thailand, by far the liveliest and sauciest, and also gaybuttonthai and gaytingtong=-merely a self-incensing onlylookatme near dead site) and anyone has ome other opnion. And-if you hads just the slightest of life experience wyou would also have known that anyting in life is relative: goes for c-ksize-and also very variable, nr1 may be small, nr 2 medium and n3 XL-and you wont know till in private how this one knowns how to use (much more imprtant as size anyway) 3.same-plus that real taxi's only exist in BKK and to a shameful total-rip-off system in Phuket. As there are well over 100.000 taximeters in BKK-anyting this world and TH provides will also be found among them. I mostly travel by bus-all over BKK and must admit that on the most unlikeliest of times and lines, special encounters, squeezing and feelies can also be found there. But that does not mean you should jump into any pasing bus........ 4.most of the real gogoboys are married or have a moreorless steady longtime relation with-shht!- a Thai girl-some even have kids. Often those girls also work as gogo. For most though there is no ''choice'' they simply jump into any chance that may pass by. The more ''steady '' relationsships the better-those are the stupid farang withthemoneytoomuth who are even that dumb to send mail-checks every month or so. There is a whole subgroup in TH living of that. In fact ''gay''ness is in these aspects just a copycat of how Thai girls work-in fact 99,99% of Thai are unable to think of themselves-they only copycat from others. But also shhtt!! that does not mean they would be unable to give a man ultimate pleasure and seem to be the utmost loving and caring people this world has to offer. Thats also dumb farang thinking. 5.this Q made me think you are trolling. Mostly sold here in BKK is rice-meals.

AirAsia has just announced new flights direct from BKK to ChongChing-with promosyen fares starting @ 1500 THB now. They specifically mentioned this Chinese Swiss Alps imitation as easy to get onward to.

could you make it more easy to vote for venues that are not listed? or is it just a way to see which of your advertisers get the highest discount? But congratulations with the 1 year milestone being reached and all the best with this 2nd year!

wat too much IMHO. But he asked for massageshops-that amount should cover the whole thing, inc. the tip for the masseur. Well-Hero and Albury are both still there-though most likely your old masseurs will have moved on. Practice has not changed a bit: you step in, make a choice for what type of assage and which one(reception should be able to help and tell what the boys are up to) and then the thing starts. After you pay the fee for massage to desk-no tip needed, and tip your masseur-they have mostly ''minimum'' or suggested tips on their menu. For the Thai the minimum is omitted-thats simply the amount to pay. Albury can be viewed on a site named thaimassageboy-click on pricelist and you see the basics-its a paid ad list, and you subscribe to see more of the boys. Albury is linked to JEY spa-also on that site, a bit further on in Sukhumvit, Emporium/Japantown, which is more quiet, cheaper, very well kept and has a smaller but same style choice of boys. Tawan is not my liking at all-overblown superego's with plastic bodies, who are often reported to be total duds in private beds. They had their 25th anniversary a week ago or so.

Yes-that is certainly right. But this needs too much time and too much trouble in a language that is not my first to explain. Mostly agree what Bob wrote above. In fact the story as FH wrote down at the start did not really look very strange or lying to me-yet another case of TITs=This is Thailand (or TIC=China, or TIV=Vietnam, etc. would be even more TIM=Myanmar-better to make a giant lie as to ever say no there). More the wrong but understandable expectations of the much older farang. And sitting down and talking it all out? Duuuhhh-bwaaahhh-thats about the last thing that would happen here or have any success. There are no relations based as ''equal'' here- its always the phee and the nong=older and younger. Also, 1 more time: do not expect that Thai have ''original' thought-=they parrot one another. Ditto about the ''no liars'' on GR-that basically means people who do not even turn up-2-3 hrs later means nothing-he still is there. You can only say you have lived enough time in Th if you know those stories and what the ''real (in farang thinking) '' meaning of it is. BTW dear khun FH: how long do you live here in BKK? Do you still make discoveries in that field?

NOK has said to return to DMK asap. Th-Oreint,t he other main user,, has made no announcement yet.Then there are a very few tiny airlines with prop-planes to minor Thai towns who were banned from BKK/swampy- I guess they will also return asap, but their lines are of no real use for most of you-unless that special visit to boy specials home seems to frightening with a 7 hr bus ride.

time again for some more info about how it works: those racing in the main streets are just a tiny fraction of those motocys. In BKK here around 70-80.000 ONLY do work in the very same soi-sometimes not more as a few 100 mtrs or sometimes kms long. Like in Suan Plu. Most of you seem simple to have no idea how suburban BKK looks like, works or functions-thats why I refer to that Silom ghetto cocoon isolated thinking. Yes-they also pay high sums for those orange vests- but not 100/150/day-so that grand total is just wishful thinking for some boysinbrown.. Phuket is most notorious for its gaint ripoffs and unbelievable transpo mafia (aiming at the tourist who takes it to be forced to cough up anyway) There is near always a shield hanging out with fares- used to be from 5 bt, but thats too low now (but hey-buses cost from 6,50 bt for as long as you can manage to go in them). For around 1km-and brought to your housedoor from the pak soi=mouth of the soi, its about 10-12 bt now. I still not quite get it at how it works in the morning, when everyone wants to go from home to the main road.

Trick is-have done that quite a few times)-if you fly regularly into TH, like I do and maybe some other long intercontinental flights-stick to 1 airlinegroup and get their Freq flyer cards with status-like on TH gold or LH/STAR (also UAL -silver. Gives you lounge access, often the better wider seats and every now and then an upgrade-if they are short of seats, you are nr 1 to upgrade. Often they also do special deals for that group-THai often does. Best site for that is flyertalk.com Re IKEA: yes, its true-but maybe also has to do with how SAS=the Scandinvian works with prcing. Plus that f.e. domestic Scandinavian, there is hardly any bisnis cl. left-most are eco only now.

Yes-I know how skytrax works-and I have also studied uni level statistics, incl. SPSS and all that. That nr of comments is FAR too low for any serious rating. Given the way most Chinese bisnis operate, I bet most are the 50 cts paid for, for what the Chinese hackers and bloggers etc are so famous for. Plus: if their appraisals only come from Chinese-I also loose any trust in them-people who may never have been into any other airline. Then I rather read independent traveller ratings in non-english-and compare them with other airls I know. In the end you must have noted we have a kind of different view on many things (mainland)Chinese: I admire the progress they make, but . maybe being formed that in TH, also am perhaps too quick to suspect cheating, deceit and the tipical chinese way of doing bisnis (make a monopoly and oust out all competition-just like the CN govmt also operates). Unless they can finally convince me its different now. And I think I do have my own experience there-lately 3 longer trips, al on my own, with the basic means like trains, guesthss etc-not a a pampered 5* all-taken care off deceiting weshowyouonly whatwewanttoshow- trip.

Agree-I went through the trouble of registering, asking permission to gain access-as the wordpress site wroks and never got a reply. For me this was about the only one to check for if some new one had appeared-and I dreaded his excusions into Manilla! Those bodytypecodes I have never understood, but his descriptions were great. I guesses part of possible probs might have been the open access for comment-sure to get the Russky or likes like GB suffers from. For me the German Chris (he also ran a site named chriskoln) who was the writer of GBT (christian-take note-I think he was also associated to gaythailand.DE) from the carnavalesque city of K"oln was a little bit too much into pretty pictures-of guys not really my type. And frankly: Thai cannot write- or at least in the way most westerners would approve of. Beside the english thats maybe also a diff. with Malays (as there are also zero/zil Thai blogs written in Thai about the subject). The best you can get from them are some funny comments in Thai fora about bar and massageboys.

first post was when I went back to ERUR-on TK, on Xmas. Came back to BKK last week, on Oman (code WY), from LHR). Have flown on at least 30 airlines Eur-SEA, so think can compare, incl all other Gulf airlines, like EK and EY and QR. WY is not that much better-in eco (I pay myself-and mostly go for cheap)-, bar 1 thing; their Stewardesses (yes, I know thats an old-fashioned word), as they are all THAI or Phillippino! So I see their name, speak some flattering Thai with them and get the very best of attention-thats my trick. PLane from LHR was less as half-full, so grabbed a 4-across row to sleep and lay down, great! With so few pax, speedy service too. However, I saw no strong alco, just wine/beer (for those so inclined). Good and ample meals. the minus is also: the 3 hr wait in transit in a small and devoid of about anything airport (they have just staretd building a brand new airterminal), bus in+out there. But thats with all those Gulf airlines-QR about the worst in that respect. Omanis' are less blas'e and spoilt as their Gulfneighbors-smile and even work themselves. Times of WY are not great: left LON same time as several direct flights (EVA-etc) and arr BKK some 5-6 hrs later as those. Even worse FROm BKK here-late march: dep BKK 6,20/.30 or so-arr LON by 17.00. And not daily. They seem better for various LON-India connections.

Hainan is a very strange entry here and should be removed ASAP-if just for the average Chinese stdd they peruse-with hostesses that are hardly able to pronounce a single word correctly in english. As such financial problems do not relate to standd of onboard service.

Burma=MYanm, has never been ''closed''=was there, as a normal individual tourist, visa arranged here in BKK, flying AirAsia a few yrs ago. But various parts of the country are off limit. Recent reports from travellerfora suggest there is already a boom of visitors-making the few accom's very precious to get in now. Have also been to Lhasa/Tibet (flying in from CHina and going overland to Nepal) some 20 yrs ago-the brief period when it was really moreorless 'free'' to enter. Effectively Tibet is now more restricted as MYanm ever was-only chaperoned guided tours, only approved (chinese owned) HTLs etc. With the big chance to get terribly mountain-sick. IF you really want to have a glimpse of how those Buddists from there live, go to Bhutan (also only guided and extremely expensive) or the parts in India/Nepal, like Ladakh.

There are no 100% set rules for that anywhere: just look at how the SDwiss are also partly suffering now due to the fera for (our) Euro and the transfer of far too much money to that valuta-so that its now even so overpriced that their HTLs and skiing etc are only open to the superrich. Compared to TH, Indo etc when I travelled in China i did not found it extremely cheap-in fact TH is cheaper. Thus that Baht (to which all of you are ever complaining about being too highly valued) is also undervalued? Come on-its only that USA that keeps on moaning about the rate of the CNY. Must mean something-even lower prices in Walmart? (which is BTW the biggest and even best retailer in CN-with shops that are far superior to those in that USA). Parrots- anyone who just repeats things from his local newsppr without thinking. IMHO the main culprit is not the rate, but the astronomous amounts of money going at breakneck speed around this world en threatening any valuta deemed to be too weak or whatever in a few seconds. THAT has to be curtailed- bring in an even higher tax as proposed by now (tobin tax or so). No-thats not your precious pension investent-thats just crooks and Chinese type unscurpulous money-gain chasers. A weird sprout off of the free capitalism.

as above: Kasikorn is always mentioned as being most easy to open bank and BKK-Bk the most difficult. In fact I would rather advise you to go to proper forum on thaivisa.com- its so often asked there is likely in the FAQ there. There are so many responders, that even minor difference between consul A and B can be found. Yes, you have been many times in TH so you must have noted that there are not really set 100% ''rules'' here (nor pricelists for services and all that)- there are indeed differences between embassies. consuls and countries. It may be baffling or bewildering, but thats how it goes. From what I know, you CAN arange the whole process to get that precious visa (provided you qualify for it-age, BANK account and money in it-which does at start not have to be a TH bank!-) in your homecountry. It will be easier if you have hold previous visa-as you do. But when setteld in TYH, you have to visit immigration to get it registered or so and thus finally taken up. IF your capitals are not enough to qualify, then the next best option is the 3x90 day visa and ''visaruns'' in between.

for my 25 satang worth: I have always had the impression (never used it) that this dating part was not particular to this site, GT, but kind of borrowed/lent in from another of the many GR-lookalike sites. Seems to me many of the guys p[osting on it hardly seem to have any interest in Thai boys. Perhaps the new software of GT clashes a bit with the software on that board?

this is Thailand-and remains THailand, so what will happen is unpredictable: expect the unexpected! Thats what makes all these ever repeat visits interesting all the time. Change for both good and worse-and unable to predict what will be what. What WILL remain are the ever moaning expats, bus+car+van+train crashes, delays in having any major public work finished, a few more corruption scandals, a few more o-so Thai ''discoveries'' that remain very Thai and unknown to this wide world and a full repeat of always the same questions on any forum, be it just tourist-tripadvsior and the like- or on the more dedicated like this one- the best incentive to get repetetive behaviour.

thanks for the report-or at least the efforts to write it all down. after perhaps having read too much of them- what it appears to me-not been into PTY since many yrs-is that reports hardly have any value for next month-boys change so frequently or maybe the bars change their crew every month or so-that any report tends to have hardly any value. Except that old standby BBB which stillhas the same crew as in 1999 or so. Yes-it is also by now commony known that most PTY-boys pretty soon after they come there also come into the GR network to drum up more custom. And prices have gone up too-again!

in these Qs its often very handy/informative to tell your original nationality! Why? Even though I am not a permanent expat, I see that different nations have quite diff. ideas about to insure or not-USAers tend to shun it. I also (have to) read lots of those expat-forums to keep up with Thai things etc and I would rec you to ask on the one for your nation, but even Thaivisa would do. The best site for my origin has even ads for insurance done- in TH, by people from the same origin. They know best the difference with ''