PeterRS

This is a lovely story. Some months ago there was a longer programme about Khun Ayu and his Akha Ama coffee innovations in the north of the country on Discovery Asia Channel. It showed that to get the beans to the market in Chiang Mai requires a rickety road trip of 4 hours. The tale is especially heartwarming when you know that Khun Ayu was told by his villager parents who had never had an education that he must go to school. He then walked 4 kms to and from school every day. He learned fluent Thai and English, got himself to University and became the first from the village to graduate. The villagers knew nothing about coffee but Khun Ayu learned about coffee, how it could be planted and harvested, and how he could improve not just the quality of life for the villages but also the quality of the coffee they produce. This is a different video in which Khun Ayu talks about his life, how he founded the coffee company, marketed the coffee and later the coffee shop in Chiang Mai. He is truly an inspiration.

What a load of rubbish! When you take the country as a whole the number of those engaged in the sex industry has to be a great deal more than 120,000! Then the suggestion that each earns 5000 baht per night must be utter nonsense. that is an equivalent of up to almost 2 million a year. For each guy and gal? Someone has been spouting a great deal of BS

I could get a group together but at 1,696.50 baht plus tips and transport for a few nibbles and a cup of tea, none of us is all that keen, even if wed love to meet you. Now if you are paying, just tell us the day and time!

I doubt it any of us could actually afford their prices! For info the Mandarin Oriental does not actually serve a High Tea! As you can see from the website, it serves traditional Afternoon Tea!! Bad example hehe https://www.mandarinoriental.com/bangkok/chao-phraya-river/fine-dining/tea-rooms/authors-lounge

Obviously there is indeed confusion even amongst travel writers. Although the title of the last article Jasper posts starts off Afternoon Tea in Bangkok, the sub heading mentions High Tea. Yet the article is mostly about Afternoon Tea! But in describing the Shangri La offering, it does appear this is more of a traditional High Tea because the article adds You will never find hot dishes served with Afternoon Tea. Obviously the hotel and restaurant management association needs to be educated on the differences between the two. I suspect quite a few English/western tourists will not consider going for High Tea if what they want is a traditional Afternoon Tea. Since Afternoon Tea is so traditional, I also wonder when the confusion with High Tea arose?

I have occasionally heard Afternoon Tea referred to as High Tea. Maybe its a class thing! Perhaps dear abang you should start visiting some of the better class of hotel and restaurant around Asia. None appears to use the term High Tea! Maybe its a Singapore thing - but not totally so http://www.ladyironchef.com/2016/01/singapore-afternoon-tea/

Just go to Moscow. It is eerily similar to the six architecturally similar piles erected by Stalin. Can not agree more. Missionaries encouraged by their western governments were amongst the first to follow the battleships during their centuries of global cultural imperialism. In Asia these so called men of God actively encouraged the opium trade. Damn them all!

Thais refusing corruption? Sorry a447a, thats rather like trying to convince me that the moon is made of cheese! Corruption is completely endemic in this country from the very top to the very bottom. Even the Anti Corruption Commission, a watchdog with rubber teeth, has admitted the rate of corruption on official government contracts has risen from between 10% to 15% in the 1990s to between 25% and 50% now! I agree that it is partly a cultural thing going back to the time when people asked others for favours and were then rewarded with small tokens on thanks. Now it is pure greed on a monster scale. Since governments are only in power for short periods of time, minsters and their cohorts aim to make as much extra corrupt income as they can from buying up land where they know a high speed train will be routed to more straightforward cash in hand - huge bundies of cash as discovered the home of the Permanent Secretary for Transport after he had reported a robbery to the police. What a dumbfuck! He stores something like 1 billion baht in his basement and calls the police over a robbery of some trinkets! Then theres the case of the present Deputy PM having a stash of expensive watches costing over 1.5 million US$ - on a military salary? Puhlease! It was only thanks to eagle-eyed reporters spotting all those watches in different photographs that the Corruption Commission is considering the Deputy PMs case. Will he suffer consequences? Thats probably a joke! And lest we forget, there is the malodorous stench arising from the case of the Red Bull heir who murdered a policeman six years ago and has avoided every court hearing since then. This spoiled brat worth billions is living it up around Europe and elsewhere but the government cannot get Interpol to find and arrest him, The reason given to the Thai media? They need to give Interpol an address. WTF! Thats utter nonsense. But of course money buys everything in this country.

Back on topic, V Club 7 mentioned by the OP was originally the legendary V Club situated in its own premises on Soi Aree. Here it had a large number of masseurs, a few who featured in the gay photo magazines you could commonly pick up on Silom. Some others were strikingly handsome models in more upmarket magazines. I rarely had any dud massages in V Club. If you told the mamasan what you wished for afters, hed point out the ones you should select. Quite a few years later Chakran was opened by the same owners as V Club. In its early years it was very welcoming of farang although I never saw many around. Then as rents started to spiral on Aree, I suppose it was natural that the two were merged. This was a shame as I believe both suffered and the model boys gradually drifted off.

I wonder when the distinction between High Tea and Afternoon Tea got lost. I believe High Tea is more of a Scottish term. It refers back to a meal taken immediately after a worker got home in the early evening and involves a cooked dish plus strong tea, bread and perhaps a cake or two. I believe abang is referring to the traditional Afternoon Tea which was much more the preserve of the upper classes and served in the middle of the afternoon. It is this which is served in many of the better hotels. This consists of lighter fare with fresh tea, freshly made scones (always with clotted cream and most often with fresh strawberry or rosehip jam), a variety of finger sandwiches which will always include one with thinly sliced cucumber, and a variety of small savouries and cakes. If waistline and cholesterol levels are of no great importance, it can be a very satisfying experience!

It will never happen in our lifetimes. One reason why Singapore has so little corruption is that official salaries are set at an incredibly high level. There is therefore no need to become involved in corruption. The Prime Minster earns about 1.7 million US$ - more than four times the salary of the US President. A Cabinet Minister earns $830,000 and a lowly MP a minimum of $150,000. Even in the Police, the average salary is $47,500. Then compare that with Thailand. Waste of time. Thailand can never reach that level of salary unless oil or gold is found in considerable quantities.

What a strange post from Christianpfc. Does it matter what the objectives of any blogsite are? If it gets readers it ,must be worth the trouble Im sure it takes to get one up and running. Christianpfcs own blogsite has a lot of valuable information but it also has a ton of little personal details of no interest to most travellers who restrict their Thai vacations to the main cities and islands. Asiaguys is a mix of travel, stories and photos. Are the stories fact? Are they fiction? A mix of the two? Does it matter?

I have no idea how complicated or otherwise blogs are to manage. But Id have thought one interesting article per week interspersed with a good quality boy pic photo every 2 or 3 days, you will revive the blog quite quickly. Your site breathes quality. Please keep that going with the photos rather than just re-posting pics from the average tumblr site.

For a time your blog made for good reading with some great articles and even better guy photos being posted very regularly. When the Winter Olympics were happening recently, I remembered a cheeky little piece you had run about cute athletes! Sometimes you had three new articles a week I think. Then after a year or so, new articles seemed to disappear. Surely it would have been better to have spaced them out with more cute guy pics to whet appetites between them? So can I make one suggestion? Unless a blog has new content being posted regularly, it simply cannot hold readers. I know you have a few writers. Cant they be persuaded to write more? You also pick up some of the best tumblr pics. Post one every day or every two days to keep readers looking at the site between articles. If this forum had no new content every day, it would die. I hope you can continue with your blog and wish you luck.

Not sure what his qualifications are but I know one Thai who was raped by an uncle at age 14 and caught HIV as a result. He has been on medication ever since. He passed all his college and university exams but could not get the job he really wanted because of the requirement of a medical check up. But not all jobs require that. He is now a receptionist at a first-class hotel making good money. Unlike your friend though he never tells any of his co workers or even long-time friends. He has only revealed his status to a couple of others and to his partner. I am sure it must be difficult keeping it all secret. But given the stigma here I would suggest your friend keeps his status extremely confidential other than to a support group and a most trusted friend.

Maybe time for some - ummm - bananas to celebrate? Have a great birthday

That is correct. Sorry for the misinformation. Until last week the hotel had notice of its closing in April on its website. Now that has disappeared but other sites say it is postponed to January 5 next year.

Take a look at the development plans already agreed for more than a kilometre of Rama 4. Bangkok may not need more malls and 5 star hotels but that's what will go up. To make way for that lot the Dust Thani will close in mid-April. The huge area occupied by the old night market on the corner of Rama 4 and Witayu has finally been closed off and seems ready for construction vehicles. The Rama 4/Soi Twilight block is all old low rise buildings ripe for the wreckers ball. It may not close as stated in May or even later this year. But my view is there is zero chance of it taking years. One reason I have stated before why I feel moving Twilight to a totally different area will never work is the lack of mass. Twilight works because it is near Silom Soi 4, DJ Station and the other venues on Soi 2, and within a short cab ride of Babylon etc. I dont think it matters where the relocation would be. Even if it is right next to a BTS or MRT station, I cannot see it thriving in virtual isolation. Take away the Chinese tour groups and it is already suffering from a severe lack of customers. Are those few regulars seriously going to hop between Soi 4 and another location a few BTS stations away? I doubt it. Then there are the government designated 'entertainment' districts. It would have to be located one of those. Sorry I dont know where they are.

There seem to be lots of little sois in the Silom area that could become the future Soi Twilghts. The problem as I see it is that the Center of the city is becoming much more built up and the rest must eventually become a target for developers. We already know that huge chunks of Rama 4 from the Sam Yan to Klong Toey MRT stations are due for massive redevelopment over the next few years. Sathorn is already built up. The chances are that lower Silom could be next. So even if a soi could be found at reasonable rents, what guarantee would bar owners have that that soi will not next on the list for demolition. It even makes me wonder what is the future for Soi 4. All I know is that the owners live in the house behind the gates at the end of the soi. Obviously they must be making good money in rentals at present. But at what point do they say the developers money is too good and well well out?

In Bangkok Silom Soi 4 seems to be thriving.

Cathay Pacific has the same problems as many of the older established carriers in Asia. Like SIA it built its long-haul international reputation by offering far better service and plane interiors when it entered into competition on routes previously served by airlines like BA, UA and Northwest. With lower costs it had lower fares. As one of its former Chairmen lamented some years ago, it was making such good profits it overdid its in flight offerings for example giving business class passengers wines that it cannot now afford to offer in first. Despite reining in costs regularly as Hong Kong became a far more expensive base from which to operate, it has never been able to generate anywhere like the profits of the 1980s and 90s. So just as Cathay was once the upstart cheaper competitor, now it is the Gulf and Chinese airlines with their lower cost base that can offer much cheaper fares. The business class offerings on the Gulf carriers seem unbeatable. Over the Pacific few Chinese carriers can yet compete on service, seating and journey length. But when the business fare difference is less than half, many companies now insist their executives take the longer journey. And it was at the front of the planes that Cathay used to make most of its profits.

Welcome back. Always nice to see a Singaporean here.

Excellent report. Very many thanks. Just one question. On some on the list you mention an HJ . With some spas you mention a higher tip for extra services after. Is it reasonable to assume that where you dont mention this, extra services beyond an HJ are indeed available? Thanks again.

I fail to understand how 10 bidders can voluntarily pull out of a tender leaving just one to get the contract. Naturally it is a Chinese company! In answer to NIrishguys question, perhaps 489 is a lucky number in Chinese thinking!

Baseball has actually had a few very fine Japanese baseball players. The Seattle Mariners signed "Ichiro" Suzuki when he was a sensation in Japan around 2000. He was also extremely good looking and featured at least once on a Time magazine cover. Pity the looks have gone! He remained with the Mariners until about 4 years ago. Then there was the pitcher Hideo Nomo who I think was the first of the Japanese contingent to have a full contract in the USA. He did not have Ichiros looks but I remember his pitching a no hitter for the LA Dodgers around 20 years ago at Denvers Coors Field, a ground notoriously difficult for pitchers. Totally agree. Some of the Chinese divers and Japanese skaters (Yuzuru Hanyu who won gold at the last Winter Olympics is aggressively cute) and gymnasts are amongst the best looking of them all.