macaroni21

To add to my "torture", the driver assigned to me is very good looking. But I see a wedding band on his finger.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm back for work. Am currently in neither Bangkok or Pattaya but in the boondocks for a project inspection. I may get a few days R&R in Bangkok at the end of the trip if inspection goes well and it frees up some time. Keeping fingers and penis crossed.

We should not see ourselves as representative. Our kind of travelling, to put it bluntly, is to feed an 'addiction' so naturally, we travel repeatedly and frequently. For most others, Thailand is not worth visiting for more than once in 3, 4 or 5 years. So, the fear, as expressed in the cited article, that once the pent-up demand is satiated, there will be a 'refractory period' ( to borrow an analogy we are familiar with) before enough demand builds up to visit Thailand again is quite plausible. Yet, it is also fair to say much depends on China's policies, depth of recession, etc.

Got into Suvarnabhumi yesterday afternoon around 2 pm. Amazing. Hardly any queue at immigration, at most 2 or 3 persons. In my lane, I walked straight up to the booth. The majority of the passport counters were manned, but not 100%. Luggage collection wasn't too bad. Had to wait about 15-20 minutes, which is average or above average for most airports.

Paying off the police doesn't make the extra hours legal.

You're kind of confirming what I thought you meant. The trouble is that both your "outright gay" and "normal" definitions contain two conditions each. What if one condition applies and the other does not apply? Let me describe the scenarios and you try to work them out: Senso and Arena might be your first ("oh, please God, no!") type. The boys line up in front of you and you choose one of them. I think they will have a minimum tip though I haven't been to either since Covid. However the outside of the shop is quite discrete, and no boys are hanging out front (though in Arena's case, they might be one or two outside on the balcony taking a smoke). But in Senso's case - as I recall, though other posters may update us - there s a rainbow flag out front. So, are these two "outright gay" places, by your definition? KK Massage and Sawatdee Massage do not have boys sitting out front. Nor do they even have boys lining up in front of you, or behind one-way mirrors, inside the shop. Nonetheless, you're expected to choose your masseur (from photos) and there is a minimum tip. Does this make them "outright gay"? Green Massage on Surawong and Paradis on Silom both have boys (and almost always boys) sitting out front. They may hail you as you walk past ("You want massage, sir?"). They kind of self-select rather than you choose the masseur and the price board does not indicate any minimum tip. However, both are on busy streets with lots of passers-by, and anyone seeing a male customer go into a shop with a male service provider will easily draw the conclusion that the customer is gay. (heterosexual customers generally choose shops with women masseuses out front).Not just passers-by, they usually would have other customers getting a foot massage in the downstairs lounge who have nothing better to do than to eye and judge every other customer walking in. In other words, the sexual orientation of the customer is actually much more visible to the public in such a shop as opposed to, say, Arena or Senso. The masseur may or may not do anything erotic inside the massage room. If they do choose to provide extra services, they may enter into a price negotiation with you inside the room halfway through the massage since no minimum tip was indicated by management. Some of us dislike such interruption. In any case, because of the constraints of three-quarter height partitions in some establishments, leading to loss of auditory privacy, they may not want to do insertive sex. Would Green and Pradis be "outright gay" places or "normal" places by your reckoning? (also, they almost never have in-room showers). Olivia Massage on both Surawong and Silom have a mix of men and women sitting out front. They therefore do not look like exclusively gay male establishments. However, it becomes even more starkly obvious that even when women are available out front, the customer is still walking in with a male service provider. "Aha, that's a gay bloke". Both are on busy streets with foot massage lounges on the ground floor. All the other issues I mentioned above (negotiation in situ, lack of auditory privacy, no in-room showers) also apply here. So - "outright gay" or "normal"? In short, why not use an app, and make sure the hotel does not have a joiner fee policy. But wait, the people in the lobby will see you having a male visitor....

@young11, your repeated use of the terms "outright gay" and "normal" is a source of confusion here (especially as you are likely applying meanings to those terms which are not clear to others in this forum) and, more importantly, a stumbling block for yourself. For example, I get the feeling that when you say "gay" you actually mean the act of homosex and you're not using the word to mean sexual orientation, gender presentation or identity. By that measure your use of the term "normal" implies a massage place that has no sexual offerings on its advertised menu, nor any hint/scent of sex, e.g. a five star hotel's in-house spa? Is your aversion to "outright gay" places because you don't want to be seen walking into a massage shop that has homosex vibes? If you could rephrase your questions or comments without using those terms, it might be clearer. Bear in mind the possibility though that your imagined ideal may not exist as a business in Thailand. As with so many facets of commerce, if there isn't enough demand for a certain type/profile of business, it simply won't be viable for one to exist.

@young11, in Thailand, the western notion of gay/straight is not often a useful way to navigate many issues. In massage places, that may not be the most helpful way to read the shop's offerings. Instead, try to see things this way: if a massage place offers you, without asking, a selection of masseurs to choose from, you can assume that at least soft sex (handjob) will be an expected finish. Insertive sex will depend on the chosen masseur. If the shop does not, by default, offer you a selection, then it's much more dependent on the guy. The shop may operate a kind of rotation system, so the guy assigned to you may not even want to do soft sex. But boundaries are often blurred. Even if a shop normally operates by rotation, you may still (sometimes) ask for a particular masseur. Or, the masseur in such a shop, even if assigned by rotation, may prove very willing, in the room, to provide the full works - though you should be careful not to 'out' him to his colleagues. Gay or straight? Don't even ask. Thais use different concepts. In fact, few countries in the world adopt western concepts.

Indeed, by the time the bars are supposed to close, I should be in bed, either slumbering or enjoying the company of someone. I am no party animal.

Interesting that at 2 min 15 secs, visitors are advised to image their passports and visas onto their phones. This seems to be good enough instead of having to carry passports with us all the time. Not sure where this "advice" comes from or whether it's authoritative.

Besides the mystery, as Reader pointed out, of the purpose of the flight, these other things stood out to me: 1. It was not a commerical flight and so probably had a light payload - easy to fly further this way. 2. Not a successful aircraft type, abandoned by Thai Airways ten years ago in 2012.

Any chance of a map? 🤪

I agree with pong2, vinapu and gerefan change at Suvarnabhumi airport only what you need to get through your first 12 hours. Thereafter whether in Bkk or Pattaya, look out for exchange kiosks (not banks). Super rich is almost always good. In Pattaya TT Exchange is the one I usually visit. Don't fret too much about getting the absolute best rate. The differences aren't that significant in the larger scheme of things.

I know this place. Call it what you wish, but the food is very good. It used to call itself Flying Vegetables Restaurant - for good reason!

The OP, Alkis, joined on July 3, last visited on August 30 and haven't been back since. In the time, he made 2 posts, the above opener and another about Delhi. I doubt if the starting post was even a serious question, given the lack of follow-up interest.

But there are some members of this forum here (wink wink) who'd chastise us for discriminatory ideas each time we wish for gogo bars to be exclusively gay male. We should flagellate ourselves for even entertaining the idea that women shouldn't be allowed in.

Agree 100%

I don't know why I keep giving Scandic a try every few years or so, but perhaps it's because they're bigger guys. However I always end up feeling it was a waste of money. Their massage skills are nil and the Afters always seem mechanical and rushed.

I don't know what class of room you booked, but I found it somewhat small and cramped. Moreover, the window was minimal and the room never seemed bright enough. The bathroom, particularly the shower stall, was nice though.

@PeterRS Thanks. Maybe I think too much, but even the Danshi Gakuen symbols leave room for mislunderstanding. Take the example of Harusuke above. He has a black disc that shows two persons in doggie-style. One person is white (the bottom) and the other person is only outlined (the top). Does the white refer to the sex-worker, or the client? I have a vague feeling that the order by which the discs are presented is always top and bottom, not bottom and top, and so Harusuke's first disc (which is faded out) indicates a topping position, while the second disc indicates a bottoming position. But I'm still scratching my head which one is white and which one is outlined? As an aside, this reminds of something an acquaintance (who is some sort of linguist) told me. He said East Asian languages tend to be contextual whereas European languages tend to be mechanistic. By that he meant - I hope I got his meaning right - that one needs to understand context before deriving meaning from what is being communicated, whereas in European languages, one is trained to be very precise and draw meanng from the words and their inflections alone. I may be using an overly-Europeanistic approach to these symbols??? But I can't help it.....

One hour is their service target? That's a very low bar.

My understanding is that "high season" came out of the larger number of visitors from Europe and North America escaping their winters. Many were retired even then, and were able to spend three months, mostly in Pattaya. It's similar to how flights from Russia are resuming for the next 3 - 4 months. It really has nothing to do with choosing to go during the busier or costlier period. The arrow of causation is the other way around. Winter in Europe >> more visitors to Thailand >> higher prices and busier places. Living in Australia, you may be able to count yourself lucky in that you do not have a long, damp or cold winter to escape from. Those of us like me who still have to work cannot afford to spend three whole months on vacation. We pop into Thailand for relatively short visits of perhaps 2 weeks at various times of the year. I have never really "participated" in High Season - at least not in the sense of being part of a migratory community.

@Keithambrose if you can, could you fill us in on what these terms and symbols mean on the King of College website? - What's the difference between "top" and "top (anal sex)"? - What's the difference between "bottom" and "bottom (anal sex)"? - What is "3 thumbs"? - What do the symbols circle, triangle and X mean?

And then there are sois numbered Soi 3/2 or 3/4. A friend once asked me why an address could be on *either* Soi 3 or Soi 4. He interpreted the slash as an option.