PeterRS

I have been told I am big - infrequently! But I once met a Japanese boy from an app who claimed to be medium. We arranged to meet in the coffee shop in my hotel so that either of us could call off if we did not like the other. He turned out to be quite gorgeous, exactly as described and we were soon in my room. As we embraced, I was suprised. I told him that what I was feeling was certainly not medium. Nor was it large. It was extra large. I soon discovered I was right! Over six months we met several times. What joy!

Two issues strike me from that damning account. and In other words, Tesco's auditing process and its holier than thou attitude is just a sham. Profts are profits and damn be those who suffer as a result! Shame on them.

Totally agree. I thought it was a fantastic game with some beautiful football. I go one further back than @vinapu as I recall some of the matches in 1966. Whoever would have believed that North Korea had a team in those finals and they beat Italy! The top scorer in that tournament was the immaculate Portuguese, Eusebio. Finals have traditionally been pretty drab affairs as neither team wants to lose. Last night Argentina took to the pitch and dominated as though determined to win. Could the French have come back without Mbappe? Messi crowned his career and will retire from international football a Club and national hero. Celebrating his 24th birthday tomorrow, Mbappe is unquesionably the hero of the future.

When the World Cup was awared to Qatar back in 2010, few could believe what sort of madness had overtake FIFA. Since then, we have finally had proof about FIFA being the supremely corrupt body we always suspected it was. The World Cup has always been a huge event with matches covering stadia in several cities around the host countries. Tiny Qatar was neither known as a soccer nation not did it have any decent soccer stadia. No probem parrotted FIFA. Qatar had promised to build stadia with special air conditioning systems to counter the horrendous summer heat. As we know, that was never going to work and FIFA did a unique about turn by changing the timing of the tournament to November/December. Then there were Qatar's strict Muslim prohibition against gays, dress for women etc. etc. How much Qatar ended up bribing FIFA officials will probably never be known. We do know that many of those on the bidding committee who voted for Qatar have ben charged with corruption or are in jail. We know, too, that the heads of FIFA had to resign and are also charged with corruption on a large scale. Yet, whatever happened in the past, it does seem to me that holding the World Cup in a new and very small part of the world seems to have been not only effective but hugely effective. Teams and supporters have for the first time not have to fly to different cities between matches. The success of Morocco, despite coming in fourth overall, has been exhilarating, the passion of its army of supporters spreading to others. The last-minute alcohol ban in stadia has been a very big plus with very few arrests. British fans in particular have traditionally seen more than a large amount of loutish and drunken behaviour at all soccer tournaments. At this World Cup it seems their behaviour has been exemplary. That surely is one lesson FIFA must learn for future World Cups. But while the tournament has been a success, FIFA and the Qatar government can and must put some icing on their cake by finally admitting the large number of migrant worker deaths in building the World Cup infrastructure and providing suitable compensation to the familiies. If not, in the fullness of time, it is this disgrace that will forever tarnish the legacy of Qatar 2022.

This could be no more accurate! As I said in another post quite recently, I regard social media as "unsocial media". I have a young Thai friend. He is intelligent, cute, has just graduated from university, speaks reaosnable English and has started his first job. He desperately wants to meet and fall in love with a foreigner. It has nothing (or very little) to do with cash or moving to a foreign country. He just wants the love and companionship of another human being. He happens to be a friend of my partner and we have met up quite often. A few weeks ago he had met a foreigner about whom he was becoming crazy. So the four of us went for dinner one night. This young man hardly spoke to his 'crush' during dinner, spending most of his time texting and staring at his phone. Afterwards, I told him quite firmly that when he was out with a foreigner the mobile phone stayed firmly in his pocket. He also had to learn the basics of starting conversations and making his foreigner friends feel he was at least interested in them - and not only in bed.

I visited Luang Prabang before the bridges were built. It is a glorious town (it seems too small to be a city) and well worth a visit. Just walking around there seemed to be quite a few gay guys when I was there. Sitting by the river late one afternoon, a cute young guy wandered over to my table and said his equally cute young friend fancied me! Sadly I was leaving for Bangkok in 30 minutes.

I'm not a facebook member, but when I try to open that link I get a message about being protected from a malicious site. But the event looks very interesting.

Thanks for spotting that. They're below the flight path and a few miles from the airport. Missed approaches will generally be much closer to the runways.

Along with all the nighclubs which burn to the ground killing dozens because the owners lock emergency exits and pay no attention to fire regulations!

Thats' a very one-sided comment. I have friends who live virtually above the flight path in Stanmore. I assume you think all those folk in that area are perfectly happy having noisy jets roaring just above their apartments overnight. You call them do-gooders! That's rich given that Australia has really stringent noise pollution levels. Staying with my friends I find the first flights coming in at around 6:00 am bad enough. If you consider these pople selfish, how do you expect them to move, given the enormous house prices in Sydney? WHy not move the parties elsewhere? And instead of adding on to existing airports that have been in use for many decades, why not build new airports away from urban centres like Tokyo, Osaka, Singaore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Beijing and a host of other cities?

Great conversation that will turn out to be, I don't think!

i absolutely loathe loud noise and steer clear of such places. If you wear ear plugs, how can you converse with the boys?

Could not agree more. It seems customer are coming much more for the shows which are much cheaper and very amateur versions of the popular professional boy cabaret shows like Tiffany's and Simon.

I agree. In all my years of visiting and then lliving in Bangkok, I have never been influenced by anything a mamasan has told me about tips. It's my decision, and since I never discussed in advance with the boys it was always what I decided. I always gave more than what I later read was the minimum. But then virtually always i had a great time. Sad to say i also know someone who did the same. Even more sadly he lived in Bangkok. He would regularly visit one bar and the boys knew not only that sitting with him would result in just one drink, one 20 baht note (occasionally 2) and no off. Very rarely he would arrange for one boy to visit him at his home on the outskirts of the city when he'd tip the lowest possible amount of around 1,000 baht and not pay for transport. It was hugely embarrassing and several people pointed this out to him. But he never changed.

Great photos! Many thanks @12is12 and @vinapu

They have to be called tips because in Thailand the provision of sexual services at a fee is illegal. A reality of which a few may still not be aware. I see your point - but do not fully agree with the comparisons. At a restaurant the bill for your food and drinks already includes wages for all the staff. Many waiters hope for something extra in the form of a tip but have no guarantee. And clearly no waiter is in a position to negotiate a tip. But most will still be earning a liveable wage. If they find it's not, then they move on to another restaurant or elsewhere. I do not know what basic wage, if any, the boys get from working in the various types of bar. But I'm pretty sure that it does not compare to most other service businesses as it will be far from a liveable amount. So they are not only expected to generate income for the bar from inflated drinks prices and off fees, they have to earn their own "tips" on top. I also have no doubt that most of the boys discuss what tips they get from customers and this leads to a minimum expectation. But like the waiter, they have no guarantee. Whatever a boy may ask for, it's a negotiable amount dependant on quite a number of factors. As you write, it is merely an "expected" amount but to a considerable extent it is dependent on all the various aspects of supply and demand. Same now with the apps. I do agree that the situation was different 30 - 40 years ago though. In those times all the boys westerners came across in the gogo and host bars were Thais from very poor upcountry families. There were no mobile phones and fancy clothes so much of what they "earned" went back to their families. "Tips" were very much dependent on a boy's attractiveness to customers and how well he performed during the off. In my experience "tips" were never discussed in advance and I can recall only one occasion (of many!) when a boy asked for a bit more than offered. My comments are based almost exclusively on Bangkok because I have little experience of offs in Pattaya.

Isn't that the point? What someone tips is their choice. Naturally everyone - be they rich or poor or more likely somewhere in between - has their own priorities, desires and limitations. If my friend A is happy tipping 1,500 and friend B 3,000, that's entirely a matter for them in my view - not me. If both are happy with the outcome, why should we on this Board keep on all but challenging those who tip higher or lower than we might do? I've read posts about this from guys who say that the offs need to earn a living and X amount is too low, just as I have (much more frequently) other posts from guys who write a larger tip distorts the market! But isn't that precisely what it is? A market. A market for services. And as with all offering services, pricing is dependent on the market. I understand that newbies do like to have some information. But so much has been quite regularly posted, finding it by taking a few minutes of time on the Search engine is surely not an unreasonable request! Or could there be a separate thread limited to discussions on tips and offs?

Thanks for posting the photos. It is beautiful and obviously informative.

I cannot understand why people who have taken bribes for whatever reason then decide to keep large quantities of the cash in theiir homes. It reminds me of the Thai senior civil servant in the Transport Ministry who some years ago summoned the police because there had been a burglary in his house and 18 million baht stolen. Once inside, the police were alleged to have discovered roughly 1 billion baht in cash in the basement. The civil servant was transferred to an inactive post in the Prime Minister's office! Last I heard the case was being investigated by the National Anti-Corruption Commission which had demanded that the Attorney General confiscate 65 million baht of the civil servant's stash.

Better hope that Bali's Governor does not change to a more strict individual.

As one who loves attending hot springs in Japan and Taiwan, I have always meant to try the Yunomori Spa on Suk Soi 26. So far I have never done so but hope to change that very soon. The baths area is segregated and entrance is 550 baht. Not cheap for those used to gay sauanas and looking for sex. But Taiwanese friends of mine went there at the end of last month and very much enjoyed the facilities. On a week-end afternoon they told me there were probably around 80 guys there, most young and virtually all seemingly gay. Better still all were naked!! As with all such spas, absolutely no hanky panky is permitted. But rules can't dictate what eyes are seeing or contacts made! I see that a second Yunomori has opened on Sathorn Soi 10 just round from the W Hotel. https://www.yunomorionsen.com/sathorn/gallery/ https://www.yunomorionsen.com/sathorn/contact/

There have been quite a number of posts in the last couple of years or more about boys from the apps not looking like their photos. Suggestions have been made that a 'live' chat should be requested, even if it is only for a few seconds when the guy speaks little English. Apart from one occasion, I always asked to meet first outside my apartment, usually in a coffee shop close by. That worked well apart from one time when we met at Coffee Society (near the top of Silom - but it died some years ago) and it was obvious the guy was a good dozen years older than he claimed. I paid for his coffee, we had a small chat and I left alone. It was less the fact that he was much older than he stated and much more than he did not look remotely cute!! 👎

I think this is a geat idea - in principle. My concern is that the entrance in the photo has no cover. To incorporate one would require the sides to be more than a little higher. During heavy monsoon rains, a considerable amount of water is going to pour down directly on to those escalators. I have no idea where it will drain to, but I hope there is no chance some will find its way to the wiring or power sources. Or could it lead to a build-up of water on the walkways? Hopefully someone has considered that and incoorpated solutions. It reminds me of the time when the first lines of Taipei's then relatively new subway system had recently opened. Its entrances were not high enough to stop flooding from very severe typhoons and the system had to be closed down for some time. Entrances were then all elevated allowing for several steps up from sidewalks.

I fully realise that coffee has its fans of which I am one. But I cannot imagine trying out different coffees or providers of coffee on a beach! As we constantly see in these forums, it takes all sorts . . .

I have tried to work out the attraction for locals and visitors of having 60 coffee bars on one patch of beach. I can't!