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Quoted extra for service (thay call it special service-anyone knows what that means) in a massageshop is 20/25US$ for the whole works. Though here in Thailand most now smilingly reveal that all the better guys have left Khmer-land and moved to here, Thailand, Bangkok or Pattaya.

Hello (sawasdee khrap in local style), Ive just returned to BKK here, KrungThep, yesterday for about the 99th time or so. Some ideas: before: there are 2 dediciated fora like this one (one is now even married with this-haha), gayguides.com and sawasdee network, then find the fora. These have your general 1st time Qs about every month and answered-sometimes brusk as it repeats so often. Some ideas about your points: @1.BKK has 1000s of massageshops, in the touristy Silom neighborhood at least 100. Some of those have only male masseurs and some of these offer or expect that you come for not so much the massage but other things. You always pay the normal fee to the shop (about 5/600 bt for 1 hr of oil msg-thats what you ask for, normal Thai msg is dry and in a kind of hospital gown) and besides that you have to tip your masseur for his extra sevices-often discreetly in the room so others cannot see. Some of the dedicated m2m shops state MIN tips-mostly 1000 bt (about 30 EUR or 33 US$ today), it varies a bit what you can expect for that. The more touristy and renowned the place, the higher the tip. Thus reverse also holds: in suburban BKK are also many such places with local prices and service and no foreign language at all. There is an excellent blog about all that with more explication: linked in the sawasdee netwk forum and like ´m2m massage Bangkok/thailand´ by one of the moderators of the gayguides site this one is married to. It also has actual listings. NOTE; here in TH/Bkk places change VERY often, relocate, close down, buildings get torned down, etc. There are tons of listing sites that are much out of date. @2. this is a copycat of female such bars and these are copycats of the Japanese system: those workers in BARs (thus NOT sauna/shops etc.) must be ´barfined´ to get them out before closing time-mostly this is about 3/500 bt, roughly same price as a drink in these places would cost. You are also more or less expected to sit down first with the guy and offer him a drink (special prices may apply for that) and sometimes even to also ´thank´ the mamasan, who is an intermediate and can translate if so needed. Speaking english (angkrit) is not a special virtue of Thai so adapt to that. Tips for such offs in the Silom rea are now quoted to be mostly like 1500/2000 for short time and 2/3000 for overnight. If you have very specific wishes, make that clear and do not expect that anyone will agree to that-esp. bottoming for you. Also do NOT expect that all guys are gay by nature-the majority are gayforpay. Again the sites I mentioned before have all that info ad extenso. @3 Uber has been banned here, its called GRAB. Thats most often normal taxi grabbing a fixed ride-prices may even be higher as on the meter. No lack of taxi here-though they have a sign taxiMETER on top (and yes, I know enough Thai and customs to find one that will use it) you wil probably not find them working. At the mo I do not recall where that SL is, so no good idea about how far etc. DO realise that traffic is a general nightmare-to the extent that many taxiś also simply wont take you if they feel it will take too long. Try to get used to transit like BTS=skytrain and the like. @4. in THIS branch of bisnis, yes. Even if places accept Visa and the like, they will add 3-5% extra for the high fees attached. PS-on the fora you can also find many tips about current apps and hookup sites that work best-many claim they are also taking over the expensive bisnis model here. @5. tons, but as I dk you and no idea what you like-again those other sites have very detailed current reports. real SEXY men shows are rare though-its mostly ladyboys lip-synch to very old songs.

As to the insurance thing: surprised to see its included in ticket (I assume you mean the airline booking) and I guess its specific for those from USA due to general ban. Europeans are so accustomed to the idea its just normal to take out insurance (most have it as permanent besides all the other usual insurances) it would not even bother them. Except perhaps the Brits-they are those caught out the most often, seems to be result of believing that their NHS (national health medicare) is universal. So 1 CUC=exactly 1 EUR, also probably due to the US-ban (North Korea has the same type of exchange). What you mention as surprise was also pretty normal in the days of the red flags and hammer and sickle in East-Europe. Thanks anyway for this inside and insightful report, as you have a lot of other experience to compare with. For me it looks like even that Dominican republic has more to offer.

Seems to be a general Brazil thing-have heard radio reports (like about special obsessions in some other faraway countries) and that was all about the females. Apparently Brazil has the highest ratio of beauty-clinics to inhabitants in the world. Agree with eur-man: those I´ve seen life were in Spain saunaś and they did not look that terrific or so, nor were the very few I spent some time with so terrific compared to other experiences. But then perhaps those who are considered too ugly in local Brazil eyes take their faith in own hand and try elsewhere.

Only the largest city of HaadYai has recognised gay places-bars,sauna and the like, the rest is ´all on app´ . Gay life/contacts do exist, but better be a little discreet further on in muslim/malay/yawi areas. Quite some time now since I have seen any recent reviews/reports about even HYai, but assume most places will still be there. They mainly aim visiting Malays. One of the sweetest and most likeable guys Ive met (in BKK though) hailed from there and he adored me after we discovered we could communicate in malay/yawi (his local dialect). Be aware that beyond HYai any visitor from whereever will be very uncommon-the few who travel only pass by.

About everywhere in non-touristy BKK stand watermahcines, whcih deliver assumed treated /ozoned water from the mains for 1 bt/ltr or 5 bt/5 ltr, one can see kids carryng these flasks to/fro home. Most foodcoruts Thai style (STETTFood!!) also dispense free drinking water-but some do not provide cups.

Its outsourced-like so many countries do now, and cost a lot more, but I think for US its always the reciproke of what US charges itself-used to be132US$. And, at least for me, (NON US) a lot of useless hollabaloo, even more as fl-rob says or what TH asks to see and receive in print. Main aim is to sift out those of perhaps former Chinese ancestry as potential unrestmakers. Thus also this means calling embassy is pretty useless. AND often non-Thai are either simply refused or sent through so many loopholes they simply quit it. IN the end it turned out for me to be much easier in HongKong, pay double and you can even get same or early nextday service. But that was only for single tourist visit.

Wrong thinking, and yes, its not allowed-as are several other things that surprises foreigners. Applies to more asean countries too. For most barguys is also a big no-no, just ask if/what they think of ''sadiht'' as is the common expression for that.

Sawasdee phimai, or selamat tahun baru for the Or. poster. Happy Nw Yr for all the rest. First: not all Chinese, luckily, come from mainland China. Many more come as tourists from Malaysia, Taiwan or SIN-they will speekee the ingriss, in a slightly different way as most Thai (guys), lah! Mainland Chinese visiting gay bars are as such still a fairly rare fenomenon, and as they seem to do with HTLs and places-to-eat, they all seem to stick to the same places. Modern China all works on apps-on their very own non-google versions, weibo and alipay to pay and the like. So thats what they know. In the area where I mostly stay a surprising nr of Thai in the ´hospitality´ industry deal with non-Thai speaking tourists since many yrs and are also well versed with many who do not even or hardly speekee the ankrit-think of many italians, Russki or Spanish. Also quite a large nr of those Thai are of former Chinese descent and can at least master one Chinese dialect-mostly Cantonnese or Fuzhou or Fuxian. That helps with HKGers and those from there. State-ruled mandarin is quite rare though, but not impossible to find. n the past i was often surprised at how well and how many of the guys could speak Japanese, but as the tourists from there this seems waning.

Yes and no-depends on what tips they receive, and these may very well be from competitors facing declining bisnis. Most raids in the more distant past were for drugs includsing sometimes custoimers-as mgb above also writes for SIN. This may of course also very well apply to str8 places. In the days of yore it was a common sight in the well known Thai gutter Press (Thai Rath and the like) to see pix of bargirls all trying to hide their faces being paraded out of such bars-more likely out of the patpong area. That they specifically aim for foreign workers is a bit of a new thing, but then its always Burmese/Khmer they find, quite logically, and in this m2m also now the VNese. I highly doubt though if the nr of such foreign ladies is as big in the str8 bisnis, Burmese are certainly not known for that at all.

And as I dont come there that often: a fairly big beer ´garden´ in concrete is running at the corner of Satorn and Narathiwat, close by King Power Mahanakorn Seeing glass and the BRT and BTS stops, but its Federbrau, the probably least known among Thai beers. Ground level in front of old WTC is now a giant foodpark, mostly aiming Chinese and asean foodbloggers. Also remarkable how once empty dead sidesois like Satorn 10 with the short time Niagara HTL (was there more as a few times long ago) now blossomed to life and are now full of hypertrendy places-that are thus also destined to die pretty soon once that hype is over. They call that bustling in tipical touristy brochures.

Make it lah at the end, this is the ultimate sign of aseanness from our southern neighbours, Malaysia and Singy.AND it means something different as this Thai khrap. But nice to read you enjoy yourself, also nice to see that the 3 cheap but not so cheerful bars have finally taken the chance to renovate. Did you not all take a deep and intense look at all those massageshopguys you need to passby to get there? GC=golden cock (kuoy thong in Thai) is with telefone the only gay place still in same place since 30 yrs, Tawan has moved round the corner, superA was relocated at least 3 times in that period. On the corner with that sushi restrt beside GC now was once a gay sauna.

so do not believe all those cadinot movies are still the way it goes on there. For better behaved and a tad more honest (but not 100%) maghreb guys go to France.

For btb certainly and many have own sites and/or advertise in the gay magazines you can find at the gay places. One expressly tells in his site he has worked as a male sex-provider but is not spanish. When I find the time Iĺl try to give the links for it here later on. Try a google yourself, it should turn up at least 5.

2 updates: In FI that ToF even got its own postage stamps with those well-known pix on them. S Peter now has a special completely online visa regime allowing short visits for westerners without all the nasty complex procedures one has to endure for a total Rus visa. It was already possible to visit it visafree whilst on a cruiseship during its stay. Rus visa simply reflect what the Russki themselves have to endure to gain entry in your country, its strictly titfortat, plus extra punishment if your country says nasty words about mother Rossye.

A similar site is people.com which says/claims it only does freelancers. But there you even have to buy points to see a little more revealing pix. There is a way to see max 2 or 3 boys4u guys for free, incl, contact details (which will not necessarily lead to a real contact of course) but you need a dutch tel. nr for that and willing to give it and expect loads of ads then on it. As 99% of tourists stay in the 3 big cities, hunqz/former romeo will do there for those wanting short-time company. Those US-sites like rentmen may hold some of the very same guys but at much higher prices. There are a few shoot-offs of b4y, but these hold the very same guys but more selected to certain tastes and prices. AMSterdam still has 1 ´house with boys´ remaining, but the general reports of the last yrs are such that it seems better to simply give it a miss. Its one remaining gay sauna also seems to get mostly not that favourable comments now, its very close to Central station. Sadly, but its the way it is.

BUT also realise, be aware that a cluster of such saunaś, including this one, charges discriminating much higher entry to anyone >40 or 50, up to 2000 THB. Its at least R3, saunamania, Macho (in Thonburi side, near PATA) and the odd more. However, they also seem to offer on a weekly rotation a sensational real sexy guy show with hands on etc. For those not familair with BKK etc and its options: for less as that 2000 you can get an oil-massage plus a more entertaining close encounter with the guy in a private room in a massageplace. Nearly as you can see on VDOś like guysgocrazy (search for it on gaymaletube).

From other sources: Thai immi/customs is to start screening all luggage, thus also from farang/tourists, by having them at least put it through the X-ray as per 1/1/20=63. Also that idiot card to fill out, system 1950ies, is to be scrapped and to go digital. MY and SIN have already switched to it, so it seems possible in ASEAN. One major reason: it seems they have now 3 or 4 warehouses full of those cards and are not willing to build/hire another one just for this silly thing. The tipical Thai does not care about il/legal or not, I hear that word in fact only from USAers. For Thai it mostly is perceived as yet another way of the nasty rattabaan=govmt. to suck money out of pleasure seeking people by those BiBs with too tight brown shirts. Quite another topic the very first time for me for a Lao (really from there) guy in a msg shop, both stark naked as he was walking around the table with a strong and very willing member all the time and kept on talking in incomprehensible Lao about how much fun he got here in BKK what he could not get @ home. One of the guys Iĺl never forget. Many years ago.

You can still do it, drink beer (hopefully for you not to muth) in the open air and even in that Centran (was WTC) bulding-but then up on one of its towers. But Thai beer simply is not good. When they came to TH when the beermarket finally opened TIGER also had parts of it, but I think its also now part of one of worlds beergiants. As is Phillippine San Miguel

Oh, this newsppr. parrotting emotional blackmail about what they claim to be poor people as utter victims of faceless burocrats. The Thai have an enormous talent to throw in their own glasses. Those pesky vendors have spoilt it for themselves by the way they think they can rule and take whatever space they can lay their greedy hands on and leave the garbage for which they refuse to pay lying around for the rats and roaches. Just to stingy to pay the odd extra baht to settle themselves in the plenty empty spaces sitting all around all the areas mentioned. And it takes 1000s of baht to simply please the brown boys to have the ´right´ to claim footpath-space along Silom-they very well know the principle of asking more for spots with good revenue. Alas-that money wont be refunded for the expired rest of time bought. In essence it boils down to moving the carts a few meters. Thus: there are no POOR vendors there. In TH its always about baht when it comes to protests, be it in a friendly way by misleading journalists (though in this case its a 100 times rcycled issue) or by sometimes blocking cityhall or district offices of the BMA. Sadly it also seems that the once flourishing foodcourts run by the many hypermarkets are also on the way down-many are half empty, prices are higher and it often just does not taste well. So after all maybe the CP/centran etc groups are all after it bu crunching the vendors and then offering them space for a stall in those courts. Good stuff for further investigating by NYT (or more likely buying it from a source on the spot): the cruel big capitalists again strike the poor grassroots people! It wont even remotely concern to the orange haired nice lady here at the end of the soi who runs a khao tham seng (made to order in the wok) stall selling fly lice for 40 bt and merrily showing her grandchild with it and how much he has grown again. She does not even bother making a pricelist.

Yin dee ton rap=welcome, or selamat datang disini. So thats from today, hari ini. Hope we may read your entertaining report about the Lao experience after its set and done.

Wow, 10 days ago already and noone answered. Cannot give any rec from myself, but you will be spoilt for choice, that is, at least in the touristy parts of BKK-big city. Prices vary (a lot) and do not reflect any better experience-as with about anything here in TH. They reflect nicer and shinier and thus more costly surroundings. But I´ve seen many with advertised prices in roughly the 3-700 Thb range for such parts. IF the place advertises in gay media or so, add a few 100 extra just for this and do not expect anything better treatment, but more handsome guys to do the job. FRankly, I think its just as massage: its just a lotteree and you dont knwo what you get untill its done. It might be an awfully long ago well-trained (and thus likely beyond prime years) older lady or someone fresh on the job without a clue what to do. (I once was surprised that whithin a down market Thai ex-dept.store turned into a shopping paradise some 20 kms away from Silom, there was such a shop also advertsing ´bum crack´ in its pricelist with brazil wax for I think it was 300 bt.

You have been here already as your reviews on that other site shows, so the answer is mostly for anyone contemplating: NO, bars do not specialise in such things, this is not Japan. Most have a mix of what they have found their clients tend to like or the last years simply what the market is able do deliver-and that nr shrinks and shrinks. Many of the new guys come from Cambodia or Burma-and many of them do not even speak Thai but most passable to good english. Guys shaved down there are pretty rare here in Thailand.

Its very occasinal and not normal at all-when someone again thinks there has to be equality in that exposing behind windows thing. And then its mostly for show to the press etc and wont last even a day. Though there still-and only in AMS-remains a kind of house with guys ready for you, it has shrunk a lot the last years and I would guess 99% of trade is done via www-and not so much via rentmen or hunqz. As also linked above boys4u is the site. It also has several other sitenames that link into it, one being like jongensvoor50euro. Would be useful to open a thread here about those national sites. Like also f.e. sleepyboy for UK/GB or spritzjungs for Germany.

Yes, its true there can/will be a big difference between yes/not logged in as member to hunqz/planetrom. BTW-the classic version of the members only site is to close down soon now, as was announced. As for original topic: highly doubt that many of these guys move for holiday. I rather guess that that sudden swell is by some normal tourists taking the chance to perhaps make some money on the side. Unless you go as far as to check if same names do move. Besides that-hunqz in not very populair or even well known among many other countries, it remains firmly german/german speaking. Most Euro countries have their own kind of national sites for that. Could be useful to open a thread listing these.