Sin City vs Sin City

[TotallyOz]

I am currently in Las Vegas. I have always enjoyed Las Vegas and it is always referred to as Sin City. But, it does not even compare to Pattaya.

 

The boys here are charging 225 US for an hour and around 1,000 for overnight. The selection of boys are few and far between. Most of them work on the Internet. Years ago, there was an area of town to go and pick up on the street but that seems to have disappeared.

 

The new mall, the largest in Vegas is fantastic and I spent most of the day there yesterday. It has some of my favorite stores plus a wide variety of gay boys to chat with and talk to.

 

There are many gays in Vegas and they have several clubs and discos and they are much better than the old Hollywood but it is missing a bit of the charm.

 

I was in San Francisco last week and I will say I think it has more Asians there than Asia does and it is easy to pick up hot boys from the bars and from the Castro.

 

However, all in all, you guys in Pattaya have it made. Keep enjoying the great selection of boys and bars! You win when it comes to sin.

[TotallyOz]

Another comparison. Most of the movie theatres are in the casinos. You have to walk through all the eye candy of the slots to get to the theatre. In Pattaya, is the the same, you have to walk through all the eye candy of the hot guys cruising the malls or working the stores to get to the movie.

[Guest wowpow]

It is one of the great joys of travel to see the contrasts between places. I love to pay a short visit to Singapore - what a contrast to Thailand.

 

I have only been to Las Vegas once and I seem to remember it being hotter than I ever experienced in Thailand. We had great fun and I will never forget going to a gay bar where to barman gave us all complimentary cowboy cocksuckers - some sort of cocktail which seemed mainly Baileys Irish cream.

 

I had the biggest lobster ever at The Mirage -

 

Though I never tried it much gambling seems to be the big thing in Las Vegas and sex is just the icing on the cake. In Pattaya sex is the cake.

[TotallyOz]

I agree with you WowPow.

 

Tonight we saw Le Reve at the new Wynn hotel. It is a great show full of acrobats. Part of the way through, I thought of the Future Boys fuck show with them guys on the swings. If only the hotel had incorporated a bit of that into their show, perhaps it would have added a little flare.

 

I have enjoyed the city a great deal and had a lot of fun here. The shopping is great and the gay boys are everywhere. I just hate that in order to get to the shows, you have to walk through the slot machines and poker tables and I end up loosing more money than I spend in Thailand in a week in about 40 minutes.

[Guest BKKvisitor]

I don't enjoy traveling as I once did, nor do I enjoy the thrills of cities like San Francisco and New York. Both cities have gained a lot of gloss as property values soared but lost that wonderful bit of sleaze that I--and so many others of a certain age--found charming. The best example of the lost lure is the Times Square, midtown area. Does anyone remember the Adonis? If you do, I don't have to add another word.

 

San Francisco was so much younger then (as so was I!) and so beautiful in so many ways that no one wanted to leave. So they didn't and built a community. But that community has grayed but the city's physical beauty remains untarnished. Alas, I miss those honky tonk peeps and theaters along Market St. and other areas that visiting sailors found so alluring.

 

When I visit Bangkok it's like stepping back in time a generation or so. Thankfully it becomes so hot and humid for much of the year that I limit my visits to the cool season. Otherwise, I'd overdose.

 

We may complain about the "commercialness" of BKK and other parts of the LOS but (as Gaybutton and other note) Vegas is tops when it coms to those matters.

[Guest rainwalker]

Sodom-by-the-Sea? It’s not Pattaya, Thailand: Pattaya, where I’ll be living shortly, has a reputation of being a tourist town where waves of frugal Germans and Slavs and Middle-Easterners descend to frolic on the beaches during the day and then partake of more carnal pursuits at night in the myriad of beer bars, go-go bars, and discos that dot this once small town, now Thailand’s Number 1 beach resort, on the Gulf of Thailand, about a 2 hour drive from Bangkok.

 

People need an escape from respectability -- from the world of what we have to do into the world of what we would-like-to-do; from the world of duty that endureth forever into the world of joys that are permitted, if only for a nonce.

 

I’ve often called Pattaya “Sodom-by-the-Sea” and it is with delight that I can report that the seaside and sin have marched hand in hand before....

 

Witness Brooklyn's Coney Island.

 

On September 1, 1609, one day before he discovered Manhattan, Henry Hudson discovered Coney Island, a five-mile long waste of sand dunes, scrub grass and "coneys," the wild rabbits that gave the place its name.

 

By the last decade of the 19th century, there were more than three million New Yorkers. A million and a half of them lived in slums, more closely herded than the people of Calcutta or Bombay and Coney Island exploded with relief-seeking humanity. A quarter of a million people could be found there on summer Sundays and with the sun, and the sand, and the sea came the sin...

 

"Coney Island, our popular summer resort, has been a suburb of Sodom. Indeed, Sodom bore no comparison to this place for vileness. One cannot speak in public of the scenes which are daily enacted at that resort and by which young people of both sexes are polluted." [Reverend A.C. Dixon, The New York Post ]

 

 

By 1893, The New York Times declared that Coney Island had become "Sodom-by-the-Sea" and worried that its reputation would keep people away. That year, to keep a reform candidate out of office, Boss McKane, who ran the area, registered 6,218 voters -- 5,000 more than Coney's entire eligible voting population -- and on election day had his police beat and jail the state officials sent to keep him from rigging the polls. It was the boss's last victory. Two months later, McKane was on trial for election fraud, contempt of court, misuse of public funds and other charges.

 

The boardwalk at Coney Island, the Riegelmann Boardwalk, is 2.7 miles in length and runs along the Atlantic Ocean. It once stood fourteen feet above the beach and its construction involved 120,000 tons of stone, 7,700 cubic yards of reinforced concrete, and 3.6 million feet of timber and is bordered on one side by the beach along the Atlantic Ocean. On the other side of the boardwalk are the amusement parks. Many of its most famous parks no longer exist, but the boardwalk still hosts the Cyclone roller coaster and the Wonder Wheel Ferris Wheel, as well as the New York Aquarium just a short walk away. Between the parachute jump and the aquarium are several fast food eateries (including natch, a McDonalds), which serve items like cotton candy, pizza, and hot dogs. Nathan's, known for it’s hot dogs - (Rick and I had one each along with what seemed like a gallon of Root Beer) -, opened its doors in 1916 on Coney Island, and you can catch their annual hot dog eating contest overseen by the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE).

 

In the summer, you can also play various traditional fair games on the boardwalk as well as not so tradition ones, like "Shoot the Freak," a game in which you shoot a human subject with a paintball gun.

 

Unfortunately, Coney Island is more alive in its history than its current state.

[TotallyOz]

Rainwalker, I have to agree with your assessment of Coney Island. It is one of the best places in New York to photograph. It is full of life and culture. I have spent many a day there with my camera when I was in photography school and the images were stunning. The area has changed over the years since my first trip there almost 20 years ago but the area remains a place that someone who visits New York should visit.

 

Does anyone remember the Adonis?

 

Oh yes, a great fun place. Stella's and the Gaiety and Charlies. The TownHouse is still around I think, but the scene in NYC has changed so much over the years. I do miss the old days. The same is true for Amsterdam. I get there several times a year but now it is not the same. No fun boy bars or places to meet. Most areas are now going Internet. Prague is still fun and will not disappoint. However, I suggest a tour of Rio and Sao Paulo in Brazil. The saunas are HOT!