PeterRS

How many times have we hear this tale? Travelling wihthout appropriate medical insurance is madness considering how relatively cheap it is. Reading the small print on policies is also vital. I have never heard of an exclusion due to first travelling to India but, assuming the insurance company does not want a law suit on its hands, I assume this has to be stated somewhere in the policy. The Thai Bt. 300 travel tax is also typical Thai madness if its intention is primarily to "repair and renovate public monuments"! How much will be left to cover genuine accidents from people who failed to take out insurance? Not much, I expect. So what? A new 300 baht tax is not going to put off 99.999% of potential Russian or Chinese tourists IMHO. But it should exclusively be for medical and repatriation costs.

Ah! When you call yourself a King in a republic, some of even your most faithful supporters will surely start having second thoughts! I'm sure it's been said before, but I totally fail to understand how Americans have fallen - twice - for the lies of a trumped (sic) up almost failed businessman whose mentoring was all at the hands of the vile and digusting Roy Cohn, that scourge of gay men who turned out to be a closet gay and died of AIDS. Interesting that in a 2008 edition of the New Yorker magazine, Cohn's assciate and Trump's buddy Roger Stone whom he pardoned, claimed, "Roy was not gay. He was a man who liked having sex with men. Gays were weak, effeminate. He always seemed to have these young blond boys around . . . He was interested in power and poitics." Now there you have a Trumpism or two!

The only advice I'd offer is get rid of them fast! Although it's not quite the same situation, I had a Sydney-based friend who had to fly virtually weekly between Sydney and Melbourne. He preferred Ansett and had accumulated around 330,000 miles. Then in 2002 the airline went bust and with it the frequent flyer programme. He lost all his miles.

I hope you enjoyed it. I was there just before covid and used my last Marriott points to spend 5 nights at that beautiful hotel. Loved the trip. .

Anyone who has lived in Japan knows what earthquakes feel like as you experience them virtually every six weeks. All but a few are mild and only involve a gentle swaying. I was in a bad one in Kobe, though, which did a lot of destruction. Thankfully I was in a relatively new hotel which was structurally very sound. I have also felt several in Taipei, one resulting in a major jolt but litttle damage. The worst I experienced was in in 1989 in the little California town of Pacific Grove not too far from San Jose. I had arrived from Hong Kong that morning for an urgent meeting, hired a car and drove to Pacific Grove. Just as we completed our business around 5:00 pm, the whole wooden building shook, pictures fell off the walls - and instead of diving under desks the four of us just stood there, as if wondering 'what is happening'? By the time we realised it was an earthquake 30 seconds later, the shaking was over. But all the power in the town was out and the roads cracked. It was the worst earthquake in that area since the San Franisco quake in 1906. Part of the Bay bridge collapsed and fires broke out in one part of the city. I finally made it back to my hotel in Pacific Grove which was all in candlellight. Despite aftershocks, I was by then so tired I fell fast asleep. But getting back to SFO the following day for the midnight flight back to Hong Kong was a real problem.

Unlike @macaroni21 I have accumulated frequent flier miles ever since registering first with United in the late 1980s, and later due to company regulations on Northwest for trans Pacific. In Asia I joined Cathay Pacific's first programme named Passages introduced around 1990 which was a joint venture with Singapore Airlines and Malaysian. Then later its Asia Miles programme when it became one of the original seven One World carriers in 1999. Since then I have used miles for dozens of long haul freebie biz class trips from Asia to Europe, Australia and South America. Naturally it helped greatly when like me you have to fly regularly on company business in biz class as most of my several million miles resulting from business travel. As for the CNN report in the OP, British Airways has already changed its loyalty programme to howls of protests from existing top tier members in the media - and as evidenced by the number of websites on the subject. The number of points/miles/spending for free redemption miles and access to perks like lounges has been increased massively - and that is Massively with a capital M. Cathay Pacific is also in One World and I expect it will soon make yet another change to its loyalty programme. Some years ago pre-covid it changed its scheme. Before then I had flown BKK/Tokyo/Taipei/Bangkok for the same number of miles as BKK/Tokyo return. After the change, each sector is priced separately. When I checked the mileage required after the change, for the same route the required mileage was double. Unlike previous years, this year for the very first time I have finally found obtaining mileage tickets difficult. Some months ago I tried to book on Qatar for a long haul trip involving one change in Doha. I have used this carrier regularly for the same route, sometimes with cash on their regular special offers and several times using Asa Miles. When I gave the operator the entire month of March for a two week absence, no biz seats were available. He suggested calling a week later. I did, and this time extended the period to four months - any two week period between March 1 and June 30. All he could get me was one outward ticket. No return was available. I told him this is nonsense! Qatar have 5 daily flights out of BKK, one of which is an A380. They also have 2 daily flights to my onward destination. That all the mileage seats had already been 'sold' made no sense . . . . . . unless Qatar has started to do what Qantas did in the 2000s - open your mileage tickets a year in advance only to existing loyalty card members and wait till 5 or 6 months before the flights to make any remaining seats available to other One World carriers. But that's just a guess. Thankfully my long distance travel is now limited to one flight a year. Looking at a variety of videos on youtube, it seems the best way to obtain free miles in future will be (1) become an American citizen; (2) sign up for a credit card that immediately gives you 50,000+ miles on a certain carrier; (3) do all your spending on that card. But with the credit card and currency conversion charges if used abroad, I wonder: will that amount be worth the free ticket you get? I feel so incredibly lucky that I was able to maximise the benefits from initial mileage programmes whilst they lasted.

Not so welcome were the hoards of Chinese tourists. Ten years or so ago, one of the year's most popular movies in China was mostly filmed in Chiang Mai. In terms of box office, it came second only to Avatar in Chinese cinemas. Before then, the number of Chinese tourists in Chiang Mai was numbered in their thousands. Thereafter it was one milion+. Following that success, the popularity of Thai TV soap operas in China continued the trend. Just before covid, Chiang Mai airport recorded 1.79 million Chinese visitors. Although killed by covid and Chinese travel retrictions, the numbers are slowly on the way up, now joined by almost similar numbers of South Koreans. Not sure which I'd prefer - the small number of sexpats who used to make the city home or the huge regular influx of new tourists, some of whose numbers are reported to have sparked resentment among the local population.

When there was the earhquake of Aceh Province that ked to the tsunami in December 2004, the building swung violently and had to be quickly evacuated!

Thanks to @tm_nyc for alerting me to Shamlessmacktwo's blog. I used to be an avid reader but for whatever reason it has had a place on my bookmark list unread. Re Chiang Mai, love his comment that "once upon a time there was a colony of expat retirees!" On my last visit just over 5 years ago, there were clearly some who seemed fixtures at the newer bar location in the smallish Chareon Prathet Soi 6 virtually opposite Le Meridien and to the left across the main road. But not nearly as many as would be seen years before - both bars and customers. I happen to know two retired couples (one of two expats and one of an expat and his Thai partner) in CNX, but they just have no interest any more in the local gay scene. Whereas before they would take me to this bar or that bar, now they tell me the scene is all but dead. Also love the photos of the curtains at Circle Pub. They remind me of two similar sets of drapes. One in cinemas in the west of the 1970s or thereabouts which would slowly rise and fall before and after the main feature. The other of more interest here was the bar at the end of the little soi in Bangkok to the left and down from Mango Tree restauraht. It is the soi where I believe Super A still exerts some sort of charm (although what I fail to understand given its seediness when I visited pre-covid). I believe its name was Super Lex. Quite a large bar with lots of tables and a square stage. What I remember most, though, were those draped curtains around the stage - exactly as in Shamelssmacktwo's photos! Photo taken (without permission - apologies) from Shamelessmacktwo's blog - https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2025/02/03/watching-curtains/ Unlike some, though, I have always enjoyed CNX and just wandering around still find new things to do and see - with the occasional eye candy giving me more than a once-over glance. Ouside of the city there is much to see, including the lovely Doi Inthanon National park. Within the city on the oppposite side of the river, there used to be a lovely shop selling Thai handicrafts made by one of the local hilltribes. Over the years I have purchased eight exquisitely beautiful fabric table/bed runners and a quite lovely three-part fabric folding screen which nicely separates the kitchenette area from the living room. I hope Sop Moei Arts is stil going.

I wonder if the fact that I enjoyed sauna-going for much of my career lies in the fact that I came from a country where individuals could still be thrown in jail for gay sex. No, not England where the law changed in 1967! I felt I was missing quite a lot in my late teens/early 20s. Then suddenly I had a job requiring travel within Europe and this whole new world of naked men seeking sex in saunas opened up. It additionally had an element of excitement - who might be waiting around the next corner, as it were? I agree that with age one's own attractiveness to many is diminished. I have not been in a Bangkok sauna for many years but until quite recently I still occasionally ventured into one when in other parts of Asia (never elsewhere). There is defintely a group of young Asians with a primary interest in being with older westerners, although I have never tried to work out the reason. And as long as I have been prepared just to hang around looking at eye candy, most times good things have happened!

I get through on fast track having reached the age when this can be done without flying at the front and of the aircraft. When exiting, there is no officer and no stamp in the passport. Since the passport has to be scanned before the machine takes the face pic and lets you through, I assume the passport details can - or should - be recorded somewhere. It all reminds me of one of the reasons for the new machines being introduced. It was discovered only 2 or 3 years ago that most of the information on the paper entry immigration forms had never been processed. A gazillion of them were merely sitting rotting in a large warehouse! What really pisses me off, though, is that returning to Bangkok I still have to pass an officer who does check all my details and inputs into a computer. Yet since I own my apartment, under the law I then have to do a manual telephone report on an Immigration website within 36 hours of arrival to inform someone of my address. Given that after all but just one arrival at BKK, I am always at the same address - the exception was a quarantine hotel during covid - this seems another typically pointless piece of Thai bureaucracy!

Sorry to disagree but I find a view that is nothing but flat ground with some sparkling lights dotted everywhere quite boring - and quite expensive! How many can go on to afford dinner at Vertigo, I wonder? Just a personal view LOL

I hope someone from Chiang Mai gives his thoughts. Mine go back to one year in particular - 2009. Two events occurred that year. The first was that in February a Gay Pride Parade in Chiang Mai was interrupted by hooligan local demonstrators when fights broke out. The police put a stop to the Parade and none took place for quite a number of years thereafter. But it illustrated a depth of anti-gay feeling among some of the city's inhabitants that had not previously been visible. Perhaps initially less important was the opening of what was billed as Chiang's Mai's first gay resort hotel, the Lanna Lavender. The owner, Jay Gregson, had bought an existing 110 room hotel at the northwest by the city wall. It opened with great fanfare near the end of 2009. As the gay public was informed, the rooms had all been upgraded, there were outdoor patios with dining areas above the third floor and another up on the roof (11th floor?) plus the swimming pool had a massage spa attached and there were always boys in attendance. In the basement was a huge entertainment venue for a "Power Boys" twice nightly show. I only went once with friends when we had dinner on the third floor patio. The ambience was pleasant, the food was fine but the service lousy. When the bill arrived, we sent it back because it was wrong. The seond time it was brought, we sent it back again - again wrong. Not a great omen. That said, though, we then went down to see the cabaret. It had well over 120 fixed seats of which around only 14 were occupied. Not a gogo show, merely cabaret but polished and very well performed with some cute guys taking part. We felt it was considerably better than most Bangkok bar shows of that time! We chatted to one of the boys afterwards. He told us that many of the performers were from the nearby University making some extra money. In the right location and with a far smaller number of rooms for the transient gay tourist population. plus a lot more attention to getting the detail right, perhaps the Lanna Lavender would have worked. Sadly it was all but a disaster! Massively too big, only a few of the rooms had actually been upgraded by the time it opened and the remainder were poor. There were endless complaints by those in the 'ordinary' rooms, most of whom had quickly to be upgraded. Clearly the initial financial investment in the facilities had not matched the extensive PR - it had been billed as "a gay man's utopia". The end result ought therefore have been obvious relatively quickly. The owner sadly committed suicide the following January, Power Boys closed two months later, and I believe it was not long before the hotel closed its doors for the last time. Its closing was certainly nowhere near the end of the gay scene. But it gave the lie to Chiang Mai being a popular gay destination with the guarantee of a goodly number of regular gay tourists. I don't believe it ever was, even though it had some really excellent gay venues and remains a great destination today for general tourism. Unfortunately I also believe that unlike those visiting Bangkok and Pattaya, too many gay tourists enjoyed their first visits but just failed to return.

Compared to what gay life in Chiang Mai was like even a dozen years ago, it is now virtually on its last legs for western tourists. True, there is still a cluster of bars in the smallish soi close to Le Meridien Hotel. When we had a look into them immediately pre-covid in November 2019 the patrons seemed mostly old-time regulars and some boys checking their phones. We did not stay for a drink in any. Adam's Apple is still on the go as I believe are the two gay saunas. And somewhere there will still be gay massage venues. But if you take a look at this Chiang Mai site, near the bottom of the page you will see a list of many gay venues that used to give the city its gay attraction. Almost all of them are closed - 2 Brothers . Adam's Apple . Akha . Attitude Magazine Thailand . Barocco . Bird of Paradise . Black Door . Blues Club . Bon Tong Productions . Chang Puek . Christmas . Circle Pub . Classic House . Club one Seven . Coffee . Coffee Boy . Common Massage . Cream Bar . Cruise Bar . CU Bar . Darling Wine Bar . David Crisp . Diamond House . Eve . Flower Festival . Food . Free Guy Club . Friendship Bar . g-star . Garden Bar . Gay Pride . Gay Soi 6 . Glass Onion . Golden Oldies . grand-arena . Halloween . heaven-massage . His Club . House of Male . in Memorium . jacky bar . LGBT . Lotus Hotel . Loy Kratong . Mandagay . Mandalay Bar . Mango Bar . Mansfield Place . Marn Mai Massage . Marspa . Maya . New My Way . New Year . Night Bazaar . Nimmanhaeminda . Note . One 2 Come . Orion Bar . ozeed . Pandee . Paradise Massage . Pedophiles . Pee Mai Tai . Phuket Pride . Pizza . PJs Place . Powerboys . Poy Sang Long . Quick Guide . Quiz Night . Radchada Cafe . Radchada Garden Cafe . Ram Bar . Relax . Sabaidee Santitham . Santitham . Santitham Guest House . Sarcasm . Secrets Bar . See Man Pub . Shan State . Shan State Earthquake . Sleaze Alley . Soho Bar . soho-lounge . Songkran . soulmates-retreat . Spirt House . Thai Puan . The Edge . The Peak . The Pub . The Wall Massage . Valentines . Victory Massage . Visakha Bucha . Warnings . What happened to . Yaa Baa . Yokka Dok https://www.gay-in-chiangmai.com On the other hand it is still a very beautiful city to visit and I am sure the apps will have some attractions.

Forgot to add pics from Petra which I just found with a couple at the end from Mt. Nebo where Moses is supposed to have climbed to die nearer to his God and one of the Roman Amphitheatre in Amman. Again I don't know why the pics are small but easy to increase the size by clicking on them. Also a few other destinations.

I can remember walking through London in the 1970s seeing gorgeous posters in travel agent windows with lots of purple advertising THAI. They looked so enticing! But The THAI we know today started as a joint venture with SAS. I know there was a domestic carrier which was eventually merged with THAI in the late 1980s. I expect this must have been the one run by the Air Force. I wonder if there is any less efficient airline in Asia? Having purchased its ten A340s primarily for the New York, LAX and some European routes, it could only make money with huge business class cabins. And they did not sell. So use of the aircraft ceased ten years after the first one was received and most of the aircraft basically left to rot. I understand 3 are at Don Mueang and 6 at U-Tapao. The 4-engine A340 died as an attractive plane ages ago. Similarly with its fleet of six A380s. Instead fo flying them off to dry desert locations in Australia or the USA when covid hit, THAI's management left them at BKK - slowly rotting. There was a post here a few months back that while many other airlines have reactivied their A380s, the cost of total maintenance and refurbishment of the THAI fleet is vastly too high. I believe they are on the market for just US$30 million each. After endless management changes and debt restructuring, THAI just cannot get it right!

I need here to apologise. My original response was slightly more personal. After posting I felt it was overly delicate and a little unfair. So obviously after you had read it I deleted the part to which you have responded. Just so that your reply does not appear somewhat strange. My fault!

I have no doubt at all you are correct. The only point that I was trying to make and backed up by @macaroni21's comment is that Thais used to make up a large majority of the punters during the period we were discussing - at least 65-70%. That surely cannot be the case now - or are we wrong?

Looking back via the Search Engine, I see a post made on December 29 2013 by @firecat69 referring to the recent closure of two bars - Solid and Heartbeat. So Solid probably must have closed its doors that summer and your estimates of the content of present day brown envelopes might be a little higher. Heartbeat was an unusual twink/femboy bar on the opposite side of Suriwong from Twilight and on the right side at the end of a one-way soi down Suriwong but before you got to Patpong 2. In the centre was a large dancing space. On the right side it had 4 or 5 semi-closed plush banquettes where the boys were always happy for a bit of gentle hanky panky. It was a lousy location unless you needed a place to park a car. I think it lasted little more than 18 months.

I only made two visits to Tawan but enjoyed neither, only because I am not in the slightest interested in muscle. Although I did have friends who loved that bar. On the few occasions we visited Jupiter it always seemed to be full. Again, though, the entertainment was not for me. The fact that Thais have all but disappeared from the bars is no doubt one reason for their problems. Another little anecdote. I used to visit Tops market on the ground floor in Central Chidlom weekly. There was one aggressively beautiful cashier and I'd always aim for his line. I would always smile at him, but rarely had any recognition back. One afternoon the boy doing the packing having clearly seen lust in my eyes lent over and asked, "Do you want him?" I was so shocked by the question that instead of saying "Of course" or some such approval, I just clammed up, paid my bill and left. Afterwards I kicked myelf for being so stupid. A few weeks later I was in one of the Twilight bars when i happened to see this lovely boy in the audience. I was about to go up to him when I noticed that he was with a big, considerably fat and much older Thai who was paying their bill before they left. Again I kicked myself. But I never saw him again. One of the many who got away!

I'm sorry I cannot substantiate anything re Pattaya. But the demarcation lines between the army and the police have been around for many decades. When Thaksin became Prime Minister in 2001, he had at one time been a senior police officer. He was therefore heavily guarded by the police. Years earlier I had hoped to do some business dealings with a well-known businessman named Sondhi Limthongkul. He was a Thai media mogul whose empire included The Manager monthly magazine in Thailand and the Asia-wide Manager Magazine run out of Hong Kong. At the time he propogated anti-army views in his publications. As a result he had a police bodyguard all the time. He told me about the distinct division between the two forces and neither liked the other. It appears that after bankruptcy during the 1997 Asian Economic Crisis, he eventually switched allegiances. Neither helped him when he was then jailed for fraud and insulting the monarchy!

Let's be clear about one thing. The scam centres are huge. It is estimated that at least 250,000 innocent people, mostly but not exclusively from Asia, have been trafficked into Myanmar and now man these burgeoning scam centres. The United States Institute for Peace estimates people from 60 different countries are involved. Further, that same organisation estimates that by the end of 2023 the centres had made profits of US$64 billion! Covid19 and the loss of so many jobs and household incomes were a huge boon to the traffickers who suddenly had a huge supply of willing targets hoping to make decent money by coming to jobs in Thailand. For it is Bangkok which is the first stop for those being trafficked. Freeing 1,000 or more is not even a drop in the bucket, for we can be sure that in the days since the report a week ago, they have already been replaced. We must also realise that it is not just the Chinese at the centre of this racket. Many certainly are, but ironically they are protected by certain Karen rebel groups - those same militias who are supposed to be fighting against the forces of the military junta. It is one of the horrible ironies of the eight decades old civil war in Myanmar that while many rebel militias are fighting and dying for freedom and independence, others are also fighting their fellow citizens. There is no rule of law around the huge city of Shwe Kokko which was just fields until 2017. Allegedly just another regular city, the locals all know precisely what is going on and that it is the scam centres which rent the high rise buildings. Even more ironically it was only in 2019 when Cambodia banned on-line casino gambling that the Chinese crime syndicates moved most of their operations into Myanmar big time. Shwe Kokko under construction: photo Observervoice

As one who rarely visited Pattaya, I recall just one when inadvertently my friends and I found ourselves in a bar with underaged boys. Frankly we found it sickening and quickly exited. Although that memory is hazy, I think it was around 2000. At that time, assuming my year is approximately correct, having looked into quite a few other bars before settling in one, we noticed no other catering to that diseased market. By our next visit perhaps 2, 3 or even 4 years later, that bar had gone and others like Krazy Dragon opened (that's all I remember of that second trip)! But the point of my post is that the rest of Sunee still seemed quite busy despite the crackdown. In fact, was it not still busy around 2010? I'm merely curious to find out if indeed most consider it was the police crackdown which was the spark which led to the start of Sunee's demise? I recall a number of threads in which the death knell for Bangkok's gogo bars has been sounded. I know more recent members are sick and tired of those who talk of how different the bars are from the "good old" days and I will not go down that path. Besides, apart from having to find the toilet in Banana Bar when having drinks outside with another member quite recently, I have not been inside a bar for years. I merely want to make a point about tea money. Years ago I was a regular with a good friend on Sundays at Solid Bar which some will recall was just down from Mango Tree restaurant. It was a simple bar compared to those on Twilight. When it closed after a few years, one of the mamasans opened a tiny beer bar on Twilight slightly further into the soi from Dick's and on the same side. We'd sometimes chat to him over a drink and he'd give us the latest updates on some of the soi's goings on. At one point he brought up the issue of tea money. In that year, he told us that gogo bars paid Bt. 160,000 per month; beer bars Bt. 40,000. My guess is that this was about 8 years ago. Whether the rate varied according to high/lpw seasons we did not ask. But we were surprised how high the amounts were. Here again I believe @macaroni21 hits the proverbial nail on the head. When the younger Asian gay tourists started to come to Bangkok in quite large numbers, the majority came primarily for massages after which they and their friends (many came in small groups) would head off either to a gogo bar but only to watch the show before ending up in DJ Station or another club to dance the rest of their night away. Offing a gogo boy was not on the agenda for most. I had also noticed on a couple of websites located in other Asian countries, when considering Thailand a large majority of the posters wanted information of the best massage places and the best masseurs. Information about gogo bars was far from a priority. Maybe things have changed, but if you do combine a large percentage of Asian tourists together with straight tourists and neither group is particularly interested in offing boys, surely the bar owners have a problem that has no immediate resolution. I'm curious to know if those patronising the bars agree or not.

As promised in Part 7, this post resurrects some postings from the past with photos of various travels. Since the photos are in the posts, there seems little point adding them again. So if you are interested, please just click on the links. I hope some will be of interest. Tokyo as a Potential Stopover: Blog This was a long 5-part photo blog covering mostly Tokyo and also partly Kyoto and Nara and lots of sakura blossoms. https://www.gayguides.com/topic/7804-tokyo-as-a-potential-stopover-blog/#comment-56340 Photo blog of Nikko outside Tokyo For some reason photos in this link are unfortunately much smaller, but clicking on them increases their size. https://www.gayguides.com/topic/8881-another-tokyo-side-trip-nikko/#comment-68106 A Suspicious Death Changes Gay Hong Kong: Murder or Suicide? Five part series with links to each in order (but I think no photos - merely a fascinating tale!) Experience of Chengdu being a very gay city plus photo visit to the Panda Reserve and the gorgeous and huge Jiuzhaigou National Park https://www.gayguides.com/topic/7390-a-gorgeous-part-of-china/#comment-53040 Harbin Ice and Snow Festival - and a trip to Lijiang and Shangri La in Yunnan Province with yet another reference to Chengdu and its Panda reserve plus being a very gay city https://www.gayguides.com/topic/40392-china-cuts-visa-fees/#comment-368946 Response to TotallyOz thread One Week in Gay Taiwan - a few photos of Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo https://www.gayguides.com/topic/39659-one-week-in-gay-taiwan/page/2/ Taipei Info/Tips? - photos of a Taiwan round-the-island trip and some of various Gay Pride Parades (I have attended 6 Parades!) https://www.gayguides.com/topic/38532-taipei-infotips/page/3/#comment-350156 Photos of the Ubon Ratchathani Candle Festival and Loei Province (at Dansai village) (the caption has an error stating 'Udon' - it should be 'Ubon'! https://www.gayguides.com/topic/36866-the-prince-massage/#comment-322824

i can't say I have many experiences of Russians in recent years other than great visits to Moscow and St. Petersburg a dozen or so years ago. But I recall when Russians started coming to Thailand en masse probably around 15 years ago. Then there were few if any flights from Russia directly to Phuket. So the passengers had to change at BKK. I lost count of the number of times I would be in a queue when a large number of Russians would suddenly appear - I assume from a nearby security check - and immediately barge into the queue near the front. This upset a lot of other passengers.