I need some history lessons about early Pattaya

[10tazione]

4 hours ago, Keithambrose said:

I must have missed them. Pre Internet,  finding things out was not so easy!

I guess surprise factor what to encounter was much more rewarding then than it is now due to all knowledge available on internet.

[Keithambrose]

Just now, 10tazione said:

I guess surprise factor what to encounter was much more rewarding then than it is now due to all knowledge available on internet.

Yes, indeed, though could be frustrating,  and sweaty, when tramping the streets, looking for action!

[bkkmfj2648]

2 hours ago, Londoner said:

but  Boyztown itself wasn't.  Jim Lumsden and his partners were its architects. And it grew quickly.

A VERY controversial article about the early days of Boyztown - I do not know if any of this was ever substantiated.

Since this thread is of the history of our beloved gay Pattaya....

https://www.andrew-drummond.news/caught-on-camera-but-who-gets-rich-ou/

[bkkmfj2648]

https://www.pattayamail.com/408/news.htm

After the above very old Pattaya Mail article opens - scroll down to the heading = Boyztown buzzes over “pink baht” scandal

Amazing history about some Boyztown happenings.

[macaroni21]

5 hours ago, Londoner said:

Michael Burchall writes about his first visit to Thailand in 1985. At least one bar, Gentleman's Club was operating then but  Boyztown itself wasn't. 

The name "Gentleman's Club" rings a bell, but since I didn't make my first visit until 1990 or so, it must have been around for many years from 1985 on. My vague recollection is that it was in the same Soi as where X-boys is now. But I may be mistaken.

I don't quite recall whether Boyztown was there on my first visit, but I am fairly sure it was by my second visit, probably around 1992, or at the latest by my third visit.

I remember clearly that I stayed in Flipper Lodge in Central Pattaya on my first visit. For my second visit and third visits I stayed at Natural Inn and Cockpit Hotel - not sure now which place was 2nd visit and which was 3rd visit. But I can confirm that by 1993 or so, Boyztown was in full swing.

My earliest memories of gay Pattaya (around 1990) do not have Boystown in them. Instead, the bars were in the Soi 2 area in North Pattaya. I have fond memories of the cavernous (aircraft hangar-like) Adam & Eve, and Nautilus bar.

Adam & Eve had gogo boys whom one could take out or could provide services in their upstairs rooms. It was where I had my first soapy massage (could have been my only soapy massage) lying on a ceramic tiled plinth. 

Nautilus had an aquarium and that was where I saw my first "underwater show" to the soundtrack of Richard Marx's Right Here Waiting For You. 

Sunnee Plaza might have been developing in that period - first half of the 1990s or mid 1990s - but I might not have noticed. By the time I noticed (late 1990s or early 2000s) it had a bad reputation for underaged boys, and I continued to stay away from it.

I can't put a finger on when Jomtien Complex became gay, maybe after 2000? Perhaps others can recall.

[vinapu]

2 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

https://www.pattayamail.com/408/news.htm

After the above very old Pattaya Mail article opens - scroll down to the heading = Boyztown buzzes over “pink baht” scandal

Amazing history about some Boyztown happenings.

and conforms that gays can fuck other gays not only literally but also figuratively. In short , the same mainstream does to their kind

[abidismaili]

3 hours ago, macaroni21 said:

The name "Gentleman's Club" rings a bell, but since I didn't make my first visit until 1990 or so, it must have been around for many years from 1985 on. My vague recollection is that it was in the same Soi as where X-boys is now. But I may be mistaken.

I don't quite recall whether Boyztown was there on my first visit, but I am fairly sure it was by my second visit, probably around 1992, or at the latest by my third visit.

I remember clearly that I stayed in Flipper Lodge in Central Pattaya on my first visit. For my second visit and third visits I stayed at Natural Inn and Cockpit Hotel - not sure now which place was 2nd visit and which was 3rd visit. But I can confirm that by 1993 or so, Boyztown was in full swing.

My earliest memories of gay Pattaya (around 1990) do not have Boystown in them. Instead, the bars were in the Soi 2 area in North Pattaya. I have fond memories of the cavernous (aircraft hangar-like) Adam & Eve, and Nautilus bar.

Adam & Eve had gogo boys whom one could take out or could provide services in their upstairs rooms. It was where I had my first soapy massage (could have been my only soapy massage) lying on a ceramic tiled plinth. 

Nautilus had an aquarium and that was where I saw my first "underwater show" to the soundtrack of Richard Marx's Right Here Waiting For You. 

Sunnee Plaza might have been developing in that period - first half of the 1990s or mid 1990s - but I might not have noticed. By the time I noticed (late 1990s or early 2000s) it had a bad reputation for underaged boys, and I continued to stay away from it.

I can't put a finger on when Jomtien Complex became gay, maybe after 2000? Perhaps others can recall.

In 1990 when you first visited where there massage shops with guys giving massage and happy ending?

Where the go go bars and beer bars more hidden? I mean was it less in your face the sex tourism ? For example in the old videos the girls wear normal clothes. Now they wear very revealing sexy clothes. So I can imagine in 1990 the sex tourism and bars for sex tourism were there of course, but not visible if you weren’t looking for it or knew already about it. Is this true ?
 

Now you can’t help but notice there is sex tourism going on. So all these families who go to Pattaya for a beach vacation they must notice it too. I wonder how they explain it to their kids. 

[forrestreid]

I dont have any memories of Pattaya before 2006 but I have a copy of Spartacus from 1980.

 

According to that, here was very few gay establishments in Pattaya in 1980, just three bars/nightclubs:

 

Byblos - Beside Orchid Lodge. Comments: no stars.

Tiffanys Bar – South Pattaya Road, near Siam Bayshore Hotel. Hours: 2000-0100. Comments: Three stars.

Tiffany’s Cabaret – same address as Tiffany’s bar. Hours: 2200-0100. Comments: Two stars.

 

I think the Tiffanys Bar was on what is now Walking Street

 

The restaurants mentioned were “Coral Reef Restaurant and Outrigger Bar”, “Dolf Riks ”, and “Nang Nual”.

All were in South South Pattaya Beach (Walking Street), and were mixed rather than gay. Dolf Riks was a Dutch-Indonesian who was a part of the gay scene in Pattaya in the Eighties.

 

 

[vinapu]

2 hours ago, abidismaili said:

Now they wear very revealing sexy clothes.

...... So all these families who go to Pattaya for a beach vacation they must notice it too. I wonder how they explain it to their kids. 

I 'd say that those ladies are so poor they can't afford decent clothes or that air conditioner must be broken

[macaroni21]

8 hours ago, abidismaili said:

In 1990 when you first visited where there massage shops with guys giving massage and happy ending?

I don't remember seeing massage shops in the 1990s. There must have been (with girls at least) but I probably wasn't paying attention. That said, I mention in my post above that I got a soapy massage from a boy in Adam & Eve, and the upstairs room was designed for massage. Soapy massages generally come with happy endings, as did mine.

However, I detect in your question that you may possibly be holding an opinion that currently guy massages are widely available in Pattaya - and that's why you're asking when did it all begin. I don't quite agree with this generalisation. Except for the shops in Jomtien Complex, sexy massage by guys is not obvious anywhere else in Pattaya. Yes, you can see straight-looking boys outside a few massage shops around the South Pattaya Road corner, but the front rooms of these shops have foot massage loungers. To the average straight tourist walking past, they may seem as no different from the shops along SIlom Road in Bangkok, which also has very straight looking guys sitting out in front of their foot massage parlours. They don't scream happy endings.The shops that do screem happy endings along Second Road are those with girls out front.

8 hours ago, abidismaili said:

Were the go go bars and beer bars more hidden? I mean was it less in your face the sex tourism ? For example in the old videos the girls wear normal clothes. Now they wear very revealing sexy clothes. So I can imagine in 1990 the sex tourism and bars for sex tourism were there of course, but not visible if you weren’t looking for it or knew already about it. Is this true ?

I don't think the gay gogo bars and open-front bars were more hidden. In the early 1990s, there was no internet information, and yet I could easily find Nautilus, Gentleman's Club and Adam & Eve (and probably a couple more that I have since forgotten) on my own just by walking the streets. Something about the frontages of these gogo bars must have signalled "gay" to me. 

As for girl gogo and open-front bars, when looking at the old videos, bear in mind two things: Firstly, they are almost all street scenes, and shot in the daytime. Even now, you don't see bar girls in skimpy bikinis on the streets in the day time with the rarest of exceptions. For technology reasons in those days, night scenes would have been difficult to film at night. Cameras would not be allowed inside the bars. So what you see in those old videos is probably not representative.

In this video showing still pictures from the 1960 to 1990 period, there is one photo at 2 minutes 42 seconds of a girl in a bikini on a stage. This indicates that indoors, even in the decades before I made my first visit, the scene was as raunchy as it is today.

My sense is that the street scene has gotten bolder over the years, but confined to just a few sex streets, such as Soi Buakow and Walking Street, with more girls in bikinis standing out front. But this is just the vaguest of impressions since I wouldn't have paid much attention, having no interest in the hetero bar scene.

8 hours ago, abidismaili said:

Now you can’t help but notice there is sex tourism going on. So all these families who go to Pattaya for a beach vacation they must notice it too. I wonder how they explain it to their kids. 

Actually, one can still have a family holiday in Pattaya withouth encountering much of the sex trade. Because we tend to frequent the gay sex parts of the city we may not realise there are huge parts of the urban sprawl that don't look X-rated. 

[macaroni21]

Here's another video with a good time stamp 1990 -1991. 

This accords with what I remember of Pattaya in my first few visits in the first half ot the 1990s. It was already pretty urbanised and the main streets quite congested. The sex trade (mostly hetero) was easy to spot. Again, there are hardly any night scenes in this compilation, but a vibrant night life was definitely to be found.

[abidismaili]

Yes the girl based massage shops are far more present. But SomJit near Tukcom (there is another gay only one nearby) and as you say the massage shops in Jomtien Complex are gay only. The ones near the corner of second road and south road that have ladies and boys in front of the shop, these boys are happy to give you a happy ending. Even when they are straight looking. 
 

I must say that since Covid the massage shops near that corner are less now than before Covid. Some massage shops there have finished operating. For gay massage I now mainly use Jomtien Complex and SomJit. 

[abidismaili]

10 hours ago, forrestreid said:

I dont have any memories of Pattaya before 2006 but I have a copy of Spartacus from 1980.

 

According to that, here was very few gay establishments in Pattaya in 1980, just three bars/nightclubs:

 

Byblos - Beside Orchid Lodge. Comments: no stars.

Tiffanys Bar – South Pattaya Road, near Siam Bayshore Hotel. Hours: 2000-0100. Comments: Three stars.

Tiffany’s Cabaret – same address as Tiffany’s bar. Hours: 2200-0100. Comments: Two stars.

 

I think the Tiffanys Bar was on what is now Walking Street

 

The restaurants mentioned were “Coral Reef Restaurant and Outrigger Bar”, “Dolf Riks ”, and “Nang Nual”.

All were in South South Pattaya Beach (Walking Street), and were mixed rather than gay. Dolf Riks was a Dutch-Indonesian who was a part of the gay scene in Pattaya in the Eighties.

 

 

I wonder what Spartacus means with a gay restaurant. I am sure you can’t off the waiter there or chef. I guess it just means it happens to have a gay owner ? But then why doesn’t it list the 7-11’s owned by a gay owner or the suit case shop owned by a gay owner?

From your post it’s clear I think the real gay sex tourism must have started late 80s or early 90s. If in 1980 there was almost nothing to report about in Spartacus 

[Keithambrose]

2 hours ago, abidismaili said:

I wonder what Spartacus means with a gay restaurant. I am sure you can’t off the waiter there or chef. I guess it just means it happens to have a gay owner ? But then why doesn’t it list the 7-11’s owned by a gay owner or the suit case shop owned by a gay owner?

From your post it’s clear I think the real gay sex tourism must have started late 80s or early 90s. If in 1980 there was almost nothing to report about in Spartacus 

I'd forgotten about Spartacus! Pre Internet it was one of the few ways to find gay areas. Perhaps I used that for Bangkok,  I can't remember!

[Londoner]

In 1995, there were two designated gay massage places, as I recall. The one I tried was in North Pattaya and was called "Nobody Massage" if memory serves. One of the ways that Pattaya improved over the years was by providing opportunities for afternoon sanuk. I used to hate waiting until 2100 for the go go bars to open.

[vinapu]

3 hours ago, abidismaili said:

Yes the girl based massage shops are far more present. But SomJit near Tukcom (there is another gay only one nearby) and as you say the massage shops in Jomtien Complex are gay only. The ones near the corner of second road and south road that have ladies and boys in front of the shop, these boys are happy to give you a happy ending. Even when they are straight looking. 
 

I must say that since Covid the massage shops near that corner are less now than before Covid. Some massage shops there have finished operating. For gay massage I now mainly use Jomtien Complex and SomJit. 

don't forget about Paradise in the same soi ABomb is and freelancers, some quite attractive in the Boyztown soi

[abidismaili]

36 minutes ago, Londoner said:

In 1995, there were two designated gay massage places, as I recall. The one I tried was in North Pattaya and was called "Nobody Massage" if memory serves. One of the ways that Pattaya improved over the years was by providing opportunities for afternoon sanuk. I used to hate waiting until 2100 for the go go bars to open.

I had to use Google to search what sanuk means. It means “fun”. So I assume you mean with your post that you were happy with the gay massage places coming into being,  so you didn’t have to wait for to bars to open ? 

[Keithambrose]

3 hours ago, abidismaili said:

I had to use Google to search what sanuk means. It means “fun”. So I assume you mean with your post that you were happy with the gay massage places coming into being,  so you didn’t have to wait for to bars to open ? 

Afternoon sex was the (only?) advantage of the Golden Cock, in Bangkok!

[siriusBE]

New episode about BKK history from Bangkok Pat (Sorry, I know the thread is about Pattatya):

I miss the Pantip