macaroni21

@moistmango 2 more questions if you don't mind. When you reached moonlight after midnight, were you charged 250 baht or 400 baht for your entry/ drink? I saw a sign on the wall last month that said 250 baht if after midnight, probably because the show would have been over. But that sign was inside the bar, not outside, so people entering would not see it. Secondly, how many boys were left at that hour? I reckon ML begins the evening with 15 to 20 boys. So, knowing how many remain on site at midnight will give us an idea of the offing rate in a wet, low season month.

Thanks. It confirms what a Cambodian boy told me recently. He has to bus to the border every 2weeks. I thought I misheard, but evidently it's official. I wonder why the Cambodians and Burmese have the shortest periods....

Any idea where to find the list of 56 countries, for which visa exemption is extended from 30 to 45 days? If it includes Cambodia Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar, it would help our boys. These chaps currently have to do visa runs every 30 days. A real pain in the ass (and cost).

@moistmango Thanks. Looking forward to further reports in the following days. A bit of a shock to hear that Fresh Boys had no one within, but what time were you looking in? Your reference to the bit in Dream Boy about the "siamese twins" attached at a strategic part suggests that this was between 11 and 11:30 pm?

And they should be naked while caged.

I agree with @moistmango but do note that he said "minimum". It also depends on whether there was any agreement to reimburse the taxi ride to your hotel separately. If there wasn't, then it would not be unreasonable to be expecting 1,200 or so as minimum.

This is a very interesting tidbit. It so happens that in 2009 (no typo, really 2009), I reported: "They have one guy (name: Rot) who always does the fuck show. He’s the top. According to Yord whom I offed from Fresh Beach, Rot does it seven nights a week, sometimes twice a night. This, in addition to being part of the big cock parade. Few people on this earth have a curriculum vitae quite like it." This paragraph is from the section on Fresh Boys in https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2022/08/01/bangkok-gogo-bars-update-sept-2009/ Might it be possible that we're referring to the same guy??? If so, has he been in this line of work for 13 years?

And all this while, I was wondering why we're being morally policed by an ethnic minority of Myanmar, the Karens! I will continue using the word "boys". Trying too hard to avoid doing so renders our speech stilted and artificial. In any case, remember the sitcom "Golden Girls"? Those girls were way older than our boys.

Alrighty, for Olddaddy, here's the revived post about the erstwhile Bondi Guest House: https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2022/08/15/beachside-hotel-if-beachside-is-really-important-to-you/ Strangely, what I remember most about that one stay in that hotel was the great fuck that I had with a boy I brought back from Boyztown. 🤣 Never mind the filth... so long as the sex is good.

I am flatterred (insert deep japanese bow). My life was not so dramatic. Yes there was a long hiatus when I couldn't travel much because I had to care for aging parents, oddly enough, similar to the very topic being discussed here. After that issue resolved itself, I found myself working flat out with little free time until I had had enough and quit. I will resurrect my report on Bondi hotel on Dongtan beach just for kicks. The hotel's long gone.

Guilty as charged. Macaroni is Shameless mack. I am not only alive and kicking but whenever opportunities arise, happily testing the bedsprings of hotel beds.

Three years ago in July 2019, it was 1,000 baht for the house. See: https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2019/08/06/senso-still-good-after-ten-years/ So price increased 10 percent. The lad I had on that occasion didn't have massage skills either.

I walked through the area. It had a buzz, that's for sure. But what struck me was that in all the re-design, they still kept to the notion that the more concrete the better - very common idea throughout Thailand - resulting a a worse heat island than Bangkok already is. With the humidity (no breeze either) It wasn't pleasant at all. They should have designed for trees and green spaces. The other thing that struck me was the amount of noise, not just in Siam Square, but on the other side of Siam Station as well, i.e. the Siam Paragon, Siam Center side. Partly, it's the result of the events they put up but I'm sure there's also the reflection from all the concrete.

Very interesting intel. I can empathise with the poor leaseholder's decision. It sounds like one of those situations where the losses are smaller just paying the rent on unused space, compared to trying to open the business and losing money paying the rent plus bleeding red ink from operations. But what it means is that there is hope... though it is debatable how long it will take for Xi Jinping to change course. It only proves what I have said before. Lucky Boys was way too big a space. The business does not have the agility to adjust to circumstances that a smaller business would have.

Like Neyger and Vinapu, I travel at the back of the plane for leisure. I used to fly business class quite a bit but those were the days when others (company) paid the fare. I can appreciate the difference in service, but for me it all seems quite unnecessary. I'd rather spend the money on other things that are more important to me. It all seems quite unnecessary to me because I am lucky in a way. I am below average in height and I am able to keep my body mass index (BMI) under 25. So, an economy seat is OK for me. A premium economy would be plenty. One of the few blessings in life from being small-built. Other aspects discussed here are also unimportant to me. - Business class lounges? I don't want to sit while waiting to sit in the plane for the next several hours. I prefer to walk/explore the terminal, get some exercise while I can. - Nice food? I want to stay away from temptation to maintain my BMI. There's also the risk of bloating when air pressure is reduced at altitude, making sleep harder. - Drinks? Never really acquired a taste for that. I am no connoisseur of fine wines. A flatbed would be nice, I agree, but then I am able to sleep in a seat. I don't even own noise-cancellation earphones like Neyger. I have considered buying one, but my normal (wellpadded) earphones muffle cabin noise to a significant degree, and so far, they're good enough to help me sleep. Neyger's inflatable thing - I really don't know what to call it - is intriguing, but here's my question: How much huffing and puffing will it need to get inflated? In any case, I'm not sure that I would want to carry one more thing when my simple inflatable pillow seems good enough.

I was there last month. I was never directed to the service elevator, though I had previously read reports about that and was conscious of the possibility. However, I should add that the latest that I went back to Raya Hotel was probably around 11:30pm, at which hour I still used the front entrance and guest elevators. Perhaps those reports referred to the wee hours of the morning? Then again, nowhere did I see any signs put up by the hotel to alert guests that a detour might be required at some time in the night. So maybe it's no longer the case? By the way, my review of Raya was uploaded yesterday on my blog. https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2022/08/02/the-sequestered-fridge/

Last month, every trip I made between Jomtien and Pattaya, I used songtaews, and paid 10 baht each time, iincluding the time I went all the way to Terminal 21. On no occasion did I have to wait more than 3 minutes for a songtaew to come by. Likewise each time when I boarded a songtaew at South Pattaya Road x Second Road for the trip back to Jomtien, on no occasion did I have to wait more than 3 minutes for the vehicle to fill up with passengers and get going. I can't imagine why I would ever need to spend 60 baht or 100 baht.

They've dug up some 500 metres of Thappraya Road, starting from the South Pattaya Road junction towards Jomtien. It's normally a narrow two-lane road, but now there remains only one lane open to traffic. The authorities didn't see fit to turn that lane (temporarily) into a one-way street, diverting traffic away to other streets. Songtaews (what Gaybutton calls baht buses) crawl their way through this bottleneck, adding a further 20 minutes to what should normally be a 20 minute ride. I found it frustrating.

Yes! You reminded me! It was not the ambience I wanted, and to think they even made me pay for it. They should have been paying me.

You're not wrong. It was closed permanently. Then a Japanese buyer came along. I hope that poor sod is not a total fool, has deep pockets, has a proper business plan, and has the energy and willpower to make the plan happen. As someone who has an interest in business behaviour, I think it will make an interesting case study one way or another in the months/years to come.

Typo. 40-50 % female...

Physique-wise, you should be able to get someone like that from BoyzBoyzBoyz. However, nearly everyone has huge tattoos, so you need to adjust your criteria. BoyzBoyzBoyz audience is now maybe 40-50 female, so it can be hard to get a boy's attention. Alternatively, similar boys *may* be found at A-bomb on the Soi next to Boyztown. But fewer boys available there. As for massage, Paradise (same Soi as A-bomb, I think) may be your best bet but I didn't look closely, so not too sure. There's also Scandic massage in the Boyztown Soi, but the few times I have tried years ago, the service was hopeless and a waste of money. For your preferences, forget Jomtien. Stay in/ near Boyztown. Forget Sunnee. It's on life support. Even then, barely.

Once again, I find myself in admiration of the way Numazu expresses his thoughts, when he wrote in his 12 July 2022 post (in page 1 of thread: Bangkok Trip Report 2022: The wait is over. What was I waiting for?): He gave me an idea then, but it's taken me a while to get it done. In addition to creating a new map of the area showing gogo bars and massage parlours that are open post-Covid, I have also retrieved some old posts that illustrate what Numazu was saying about the contrast between what there is in Patpong 2 and what there was in Soi Twilight. As with most of the my reports, I record the prices too, and some might find it interesting to see what prices were 13 or 14 years ago when Soi Twilight was in its heyday. www.shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog The specific post with the new map: https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2022/08/01/memory-lane-and-a-new-silom-surawong-map-july-2022/

I have put up a new map at https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2022/08/01/memory-lane-and-a-new-silom-surawong-map-july-2022/ You will need to scroll down to the bottom of the post to see it. Hope it's useful to you.

Thanks @fedssocr Haha, I had tried searching for various word combinations except "Man".