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@reader thanks for sharing this interesting Myanmar article with all of us. For those of you who will be or are already in Pattaya, this Wednesday, 31 July 2024, the PCEC Pattaya City Expats Club will give a presentation led by Kevin Kirk, where the topic title is: "The Myanmar Mess and Beyond". The start time is at 10:30am at the Holiday Inn Executive Tower 4th floor conference room.

I was in attendance at today's PCEC meeting and it was a full house. Both presentations were very good and informative.

It was recently brought to my attention that Vietnam is contemplating (announced back in February 2024) to extend residence visas to 36 months with multiple entries - including for us retirees. The current offering is for a tourist 90 day visa. The PM asked his colleagues to study this idea and to report back to him with their findings by the end of the 2nd quarter 2024. https://visaguide.world/news/vietnam-plans-to-introduce-visas-on-arrival-36-month-multiple-entry-visas/#google_vignette https://vietnamnews.vn/society/1650991/visa-on-arrival-36-month-multiple-entry-visa-on-the-table-gov-t.html Hopefully, soon the Vietnamese government will announce what they decided.

Thai government is forcing my hand - I would prefer to stay in Thailand for the full year..... But Thailand has decided to break its "social contract" that it had formerly given to us expats who chose to retire here.... If Vietnam had a retirement visa - I would up and move right away to Vietnam - but unfortunately, they only have a 90 day tourist visa

I will go to The Philippines around Christmas time for 1 month as part of my 4-4-4 plan to minimize my time in Thailand to be under 180 days each year. I will use this one month to explore different places where I would want to live for 4 months each year - where I would live for 4 months in Thailand, 4 months in Vietnam, and perhaps 4 months in The Philippines. I have already ruled out Manila - Makati - for the same reasons that I do not live in Bangkok - too big, too polluted, too noisy, not on the sea, etcetra. So, I am thinking to start in Cebu City and then explore other Philippine cities that are on the sea. Anyone have any good experiences outside of Manila / Makati - that they believe that they could live in ? A city on the sea like Da Nang is in Vietnam would be PERFECT for me, as Da Nang offers: a big enough population, on a sea that is clean and beautiful, enough local guys to play with, a small gay life with a couple of gay bars and gay massage places, access to the nature (mountains, hiking, motorbike riding, etcetra), easy access to other nearby interesting places (Hoi An, Hue, Ba Na hills), international airport.

As reported in my April Da Nang trip report, I had the BEST of luck for hookups with the Heesay app (formerly BLUED). Grindr and Hornet had less profiles to look at than Heesay.

https://www.pattayamail.com/latestnews/news/dont-panic-because-thai-revenue-has-written-to-100000-tax-residents-urging-registration-465598 Don’t panic because Thai Revenue has written to 100,000 tax residents urging registration Contrary to fake news, no expats have received Thai Revenue letters urging them to register. Panicky expats in Thailand have been advised that none of the 100,000 tax residents in receipt of advisory letters from the Thai Revenue Department (TRD) are foreigners. Nor does the letter have anything to do specifically with transmitting overseas income to Thailand. According to mainstream media, TRD Director General Kulaya Tantitemit stated that the letters had been posted to Thai nationals with financial assets, urging them to register. About half that number had done so and staff were following up on the rest. Director General Kulaya stated that her department was widening the tax base and looking to increase revenue which had been negatively affected by the reduction in the number of condominium units sold over the past year. She anticipated that the main growth areas in taxation would be in energy businesses, financial services and tourism. She made no specific reference to overseas income although, of course, that is potentially taxable. Expats are currently concerned about the closing of a tax loophole which means that their “assessable” overseas income to Thailand becomes taxable from the start of 2024 provided they are tax residents remaining in Thailand for at least 180 days during the calendar year. The actual parameters and liabilities remain unclear to say the least with some tax lawyers saying they expect TRD to make further announcements before the year’s end. The TRD does not have access to foreigners’ Thai addresses unless, of course, they choose to register with the government department. It has been rumored that such registration could become part of the process of renewing annual extensions of stay based on retirement or marriage, but the immigration bureau knows nothing of such a plan. In any case, there is no automatic connection between the type of visa granted and eligibility for tax residency. For example, some tourists could clock up 180 days in a year by exploiting the recently revised exempt visa regulations. There’s a huge amount of water still to pass under this particular bridge.

Compliments @ggobkk. I love your writing style. I cannot wait for the next segment.

Here is the link to Cam's blog https://thegayexpat.com/

You have to take the initiative to watch Cam's other videos and to read his blog to get the full picture. In one of Cam's many videos or blog, he states that many Filippinos were soliciting him in a positive way because they wanted to be allowed to be with him to see if what they heard about black guys being gifted was true. My impression was that Cam did not feel excluded by the locals - hence the original concern of @brall3 friend.

@brall3 Tell your friend to watch this Youtube video, produced by Cam, a black gay blogger in the Philippines about what it is like to be black and gay in the Philippines. Cam's email is below in case your friend would have any further questions or concerns. cameron@thegayexpat.com

@vinapu - thanks for the knowledge sharing. One more question, in order to calculate the DTA (Double Taxation Agreement) differentials it assumes: Income tax returns are already completed in both countries Thailand has set the first tax filing deadline for the application of these new tax rules on our year 2024 income, as 31 March 2025. However, if in your home country, your tax deadline is 15 April 2025 --> does this imply that you need to accelerate your home country filing in order to be able to meet the tight Thailand tax deadline? Otherwise, it would not be possible to calculate the DTA differentials and know who to pay what to and to avoid a late filing penalty ?? Below are the Thailand PIT (Personal Income Tax) rates: Thailand PIT source = https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/thailand/individual/taxes-on-personal-income

Thanks for the update Reader. I am glad that you are enjoying Da Nang --> as I truly love it there - especially with the access to the nature and beach views from the road out of Da Nang driving north on yhe hilly coastal road - it is truly stunning. For me, Da Nang is my home away from home after Thailand.

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.

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/

Wait - what happened? 2nd coming of Dorothy's in the Jomtien Complex ? The Supertown Twitter (X) page is reporting that Dorothy's is now back with a photo of Mike and his partner James, and that they had a special "imported" sexy show from the Bangkok Circus Soi 4. Anybody have any news? That was the fastest bar closure and resurrection that I ever saw....

This should be fun to watch occasionally - especially since I have 2 football guys (Russian) from last years tournament that also moonlight as "heterosexual" massage guys who are available for fun outside of the football stadium.

well that definitely does not describe me. My life outside of the Jomtien Supertown Complex is VERY full and complete with little or no extra free time to squeeze in more activities.

Well, I hope that @reader NEVER stops posting these articles. I find them extremely useful. Try living in Thailand as an expat and not being able to understand what is or may happen to you thanks to this crazy current government's new initiative to tax us expats who live here more than 180 days in a year. Furthermore, thanks to @reader posting articles about the various gay pride events in Thailand, I was able to participate in many of these events, that I would not have known to exist - especially in Koh Samui - thanks to my recent trip to Koh Tao via Koh Samui. I would suggest that you just ignore the parts of this forum that you are not interested in. For example, for the South American continent - I ignore all of those many related posts because I chose to retire and live in Southeast Asia. But, I am happy to see that they exist - as I believe that they add value to those readers who are interested in South America.

Macaroni - you are GREAT. I wish that you were the mayor of Pattaya - as you could make things so much better here..... You wrote in the context of gogo bars, but if you have visited the Jomtien Supertown Complex - with the boring bar manager mantra of: "farang sit farang drink", those 30+ bars are so ripe for your philosophy to add some true entertainment and/or alternative value otherwise it just continues to be so boring...

https://www.romeo.com/en/app/ Romeo is an old app that has been around since I believe since 2002 ? Wikipedia PlanetRomeo When I lived in Europe for more than 20 years it was VERY popular - as it was born many years prior to Grindr - when I believe that Grindr was born in 2009. Note that if you want to use the HUNQZ (rent boys) feature on your phone, you will need to also download and install the web version of the app - as the HUNQZ modality is not available on the phone app version.

I second Vinapu's recommendations for Chiang Mai. I truly enjoyed the Adam's Apple go-go bar - especially the Burmese Shan state masculine guys who performed.... I wrote about these places in my 2014 trip report to Chiang Mai where I employed one of the principals (Woody) of the Classic House Massage massage shop to be my tour guide. I see that Woody is still listed as one of Siam Roads tour guides https://siamroads.com/woody-chiang-mai/ Enjoy

and this was DEFINITELY evident in my recent trip to Koh Tao - where the majority of the workforce on that island were 95% from Myanmar / Burma. Here in Pattaya in the male massage industry there are numerous Laos and Cambodia guys. It would be nice if there were some Burmese - but there is a much larger concentration of them in Bangkok, as opposed to in Pattaya. Anybody know why that is ?

oh no Reader - you do not know what you are missing..... On average I have 2 to 3 four hand massages each week :>)) 6 and 8 hands are too much for me, as the fun part cums too soon, as it is HARD to stay calm and to breathe fast enough to avoid the inevitable, and to prolong the pleasure... 4 hands is a good compromise - because you have 2 free hands to reciprocate the pleasure

Try Twitter - I had to plan a 17 day trip down south to Songkhla province during the New Year's holiday and I did most of it via Twitter - by writing to random guys - gay, bi, or straight until I found 3 that would be my tour guide for these southern Thailand provinces and also for some fun. It took me around 3 months to find the right 3 after contacting around 35 of them.... It is hard work - but the rewards can be very exciting....