BiggusDikkus

This sounds really miserable. And I bet the birthday boy would have much rather had a small cash gift he could have spent at a nightclub with his real friends once he finished his shift.

The only time I was there it was filled with Japanese dads and grandpas and little kids, as well as other Japanese tourists. There was also a smattering of uncomfortable-looking locals. I'd say my Japanese boyfriend and I were in a tiny minority of gay guests. I found the place to be extremely uncomfortable as all the dads, grandpas and little kids kept staring at me. I can't imagine customers going there and wanting to be stared at. And the facility was too small to accommodate the crowd it had attracted. I couldn't find a bath to dip into to get all the eyes off my junk. I felt like I was being singled out. I don't think I would have enjoyed that kind of attention if I were at a gay sauna. Plus, unlike Japanese hot springs, or even those in Beitou, on the outskirts of Taipei, the water didn't leave my skin feeling soft and youthful, but rather dry and chlorinated. It was an all-around awful experience.

I'll have to search these out. I used to have fun in NAB before the pandemic, but I'm sure that has closed down. Does anyone know what the hot new nightclubs in Pattaya are? I'll probably be going back to Thailand in February. If not then, April.

I would definitely spend more vacation days in Pattaya if there were a gay or gay/mix nightclub where I could actually get up and move, rather than, like you said, just sit there and drink. It doesn't even have to be big, just a small club. And, sure , put it in Jomtien as that seems to be the happening gay spot, anyway.

From what I remember, Pattaya Viagra prices were always cheaper than Bangkok's -- except for that little store next to the Emporium. I guess the same holds true for Cialis. Bangkok drugstores must be running an ED pill cartel.

I'm just returning from a really good trip to Thailand. In fact, it was surprisingly good, and there are three main reasons for this: 1. I took some advice from several forum members who replied to a question I posted on this thread three months ago: I wanted to know which of the three ED drugs is least likely to bring on headaches. Basically the advice was to try all three, then choose the one that helped the most and hurt the least. I had been using Viagra for years and putting up with increasingly severe headaches. I did some online research and decided to try Cialis first. Those years I spent using Viagra? I always bought some Thai-made generic pills from a little drugstore tucked next to a corner of the Emporium shopping mall. A box of four 100mg pills cost 280 baht. That was really cheap, I thought, which is one reason I kept going back to that store. So ... let's ask how much generic Cialis is. Uh-oh. Wasted trip. My favorite recreational drug store did not make it through the pandemic. I obviously wasn't the only tourist keeping it in business. So I'll return to the gayborhood and over-pay for my pills, I thought. But finding an affordable option turned out to be, well, impossible. The first place that said they had Cialis was the counter inside the UNESCO World Heritage site on Patpong. How much, I asked. "2,500 baht," came the response. Man, that's a lot more than 280 baht, I thought. The price was for a box of four 20mg tablets. After an exhaustive search of a wide area from Surawong well past Sathorn, I spent 1,000 baht on a 4-pack of generic Cialis. Still a lot more than 280 baht. After some more online research I decided to start off with half a pill. The results? Corpora Cavernosa Magnifico! A triumph of youthful proportions! And no headache whatsoever! 2. There were a lot of cuties in Pattaya. I almost never find the slender-but-well-defined type of twink I'm looking for when I go to Pattaya and always end up leaving two days after arriving. But this time there was a veritable smorgasbord. The selection of eager bottoms combined with my soaring confidence, youthful vigor and porn-star-like stamina -- all chemically generated, of course -- made me feel like I was Justin Bieber on an anonymous trip to Brazil. All of the hotties wanted me to fuck them. At least that's what it seemed like. You know how Pattaya is. I had fun in both Boyz Town, even though it is a sad shadow of what it once was, and in Jomtien, where there is a real buzz of excitement in the air. I will definitely make Pattaya a larger part of my Thailand itineraries from here on out. 3. The renovation of Silom Soi 2. This is where DJ Station is, and DJ Station still seems to be the major attraction. It used to be my happy place. I couldn't get enough of its vibe, of the hot, hard, bronze-skinned bodies who would take off their shirts, jump on the stage and sensually gyrate to the music as if they couldn't get enough attention. The first floor was like heaven, but of a multilevel heaven that was even more of a paradise on the second floor, where Southeast Asia's cutest twinks used to hang out, eager to start conversations with Westerners. I am not a drag fan but I even loved the DJ Station drag show that would start at 11:30 every night. The headline performer had the ability to be hilarious even to people who do not speak Thai. Finally, I always loved the music in DJ Station, often finding myself on that previously mentioned stage without my shirt. I would always feel let down when the lights would come on announcing closing time. But DJ Station lost its vibe sometime around 2008. The hot young Thais just stopped showing up, it seemed. So did the second-floor twinks. And the place was getting old. The stench of urine was almost everywhere. Eventually, I kind of wrote off DJ Station and found other reasons to go to Thailand, like the SK Party during Songkran and the White Party during New Year's. If I was in town at some other time of year, I'd wait in my hotel until late, then go to G.O.D. because I knew DJ Station would be a disappointment. But DJ Station is back, baby! The entire soi has been given a face lift. Now there are no walls or doors to any of the clubs. They are all open-air. In DJ Station, the gyrating, bronze-skinned boys are back and so are the twinks eager to start conversations on an expanded second floor. It was Saturday night. Well, Sunday morning, really, as I didn't get to DJ until well after midnight, and all the locals were already chatting up the tourists. No matter. I was enjoying the party-like-its-2007 vibe and just happy to be there. Eventually, right before 2, I decided to head back to my hotel, but I was waylaid before I got to the door by an adorable young man who made me guess his age. If we were not in a place that checked IDs, I would have guessed 18. It turns out he was more than a decade older than that. He didn't mind when I told him my age. We talked, and when the lights came on, he and his friends invited me to an after-hours club I had never heard of called Sake. We were in a taxi for at least a half hour, it seemed, trying to get around numerous police barricades to wherever it was we were going. When we finally got there, I had no idea where we were, what part of Bangkok we were in. Sake turned out to be a straight Thai-style nightclub where groups of friends stand around tables after ordering a bottle of whiskey and mixers. A run-of-the-mill, industrial-looking after-hours club, except for one super cute boy on the other side of the space who kept checking me out. Why? Because I'm the only white person in the club? Because I'm with someone almost half my age? And where am I again? Is this a gay-mix party? The new vibe that one boy was giving off definitely made me wonder. But there was a stage, more of a runway, in the middle of the bar that a lot of straight couple were jumping onto and showing off their moves. So, yeh, I'm in a straight bar. My new friend who took me to Sake (pronounced like the Japanese rice wine) didn't seem to mind this other kid checking me out. In fact, when the guy walked by our table, my new friend stopped him and began caressing him, then encouraging me to do likewise. Soon enough this boy's shirt was off and the caressing did not stop. His hands also found their way into my jeans as he wanted to check out my size. I kind of didn't mind being molested in this way. In fact, I liked it and started wondering if a three-way was in the making. So did my friend, who asked the new boy if he'd like to join us. The kid looked at me, then at my new friend and ever so slightly shook his head. No. Was I disappointed? Yeh, but it was a long shot and I was already with the second-cutest guy in the bar (which did indeed turn out to be a gay-straight mix club as male couples also began taking to the runway. I love this about Thailand. Gay or straight, no one cares. We're all having fun). So how did this new kid end up in our taxi on the way back to my hotel in the Silom-Sathorn district? He says he's going to an after-after-hours club on Soi 6 but is starting to tease me, too. Might the three-way be on after all? My chemically rejuvenated cock was sure ready for one. What a great way to cap off an already fantastic Thailand trip! But it didn't happen. Still, I must look out for this club on Soi 6 next time I'm in Bangkok, which will be much sooner than I had previously planned. Is it a club? Maybe a sauna?

So he's saying he's a bottom and likes guys with certain-sized cocks? Never mind. I have since read through the rest of this thread and understand.

I forgot to include my TransferWise ID number when transferring funds from my bank. I didn't even realize this as it was the second time I had transferred money to TransferWise and had set things up so my bank's website would remember TransferWise. As it turned out, there wasn't even a space for me to type in that ID number. When I realized there was a snafu, I called transferWise and asked them to check for the transfer. I gave them the day, time of day, my bank account number, what bank the transfer had come from and everything else they would need to look for the transfer. They refused to look and instead gave me a list of information that I had to give them so they could check for the transfer -- and said the information has to come directly from my bank. So I had to go down to my bank, give them this list of information -- it was exactly the same information I had already given TransferWise -- and asked my bank to produce a document on bank letterhead that I could send to TransferWise. My bank was not happy but did this anyway. I sent the document to TransferWise and they said it wasn't good enough, that I would also need to include additional information. So I went back to my bank, and this time the teller thought TransferWise was being absolutely ridiculous and that if she could talk to them in Japanese she would be able to convince them to just check their accounts for the transfer. She called TransferWise and stayed on the line for more than a half hour and still TransferWise refused to look for the transfer. So the teller hand-wrote all the information TransferWise had requested, gave me the document and again I sent it to TransferWise. But again they refused to look for the transfer and requested that I come up with another document from my bank with even more information. This process had already gone on for three months as in between trips to my bank I called every TransferWise number I could find and begged, actually begged, for them to look for the transfer. All they had to do was open their bank's website and zero in on that specific day and time and they would see my name and the deposit amount. But they refused. I sent more emails than I could count, telling them the money is in their account and they would see that it is in their account if they would please just bother to look. But they steadfastly refused, and eventually I gave up. I hate corporations.

I did end up downloading Bolt. That first weekend, while I was still in Bangkok, I'd open both apps and type in my destination to compare rates. Sometimes Grab was cheaper, sometimes Bolt was. But it would take Grab drivers a long time to show up. For my ride to Pattaya, I gave up waiting for a Grab driver and went with a Bolt economy car that was about the same price as a maybe bigger and more comfortable Grab. From then on, I exclusively used Bolt. For my return trip to Bangkok, Bolt options were much less expensive than Grab's offerings. Once back in Bangkok, I did more comparison shopping and Bolt motorbikes were always cheaper. When I checked out of my hotel and told the hotel receptionist how I had planned to get to the airport, he suggested sticking with Bolt because Grab's fares could be outrageously expensive. So Bolt appears to be taking away market share from Grab. I wonder if it's subsidizing its drivers?

oh my god! You're a genius! I wish I had thought of that. But as soon as I'm finished typing this, I'm gonna rearrange the contents of my wallet. Thank you for the nifty trick! And very kind of you to compliment my writing style. Thanks so much!

I think you're being facetious but I'll answer anyway. Nope, the thought didn't even cross my mind. It turned out that Baht and I were heading to Pattaya two days later, on Sunday. I had more shopping plans for that night but Baht again texted me to join him in Jomtien Super Town — is that what they call it? — to start drinking with another group of his friends and later head with them to a Pattaya nightclub that Baht was eager to experience. Baht had mentioned this on Friday morning in the coffee shop, and I was definitely interested. I've had such great times in Pattaya night clubs. I love the clientele mix. Gay, straight, sex workers from all over Southeast Asia, sex tourists from all over the world as well as plenty of locals and gay and beach tourists pulled to Pattaya by draws other than go-go and host/hostess bars. On one of my first nights in Pattaya, back in the mid-90s, I remember going to what I believe was Marine Disco. It was on Walking Street, and the sexual tension was off the charts. The music and music system were outstanding. There was so much energy in that place. Through the decades other Pattaya nightclubs would open and close, from Hollywood, near Sunee Plaza, to Christine's to Dave's and NAB. I had so many great nights in every one of them so I was eager to try a new Pattaya disco. Trouble was I had asked Baht the name of the place because I had just read a long Stickman's column about a few new happening nightclubs in Pattaya and thought it might be one of them. It wasn't. Instead it was one that had just been raided by police, one from which the customers rather than wait to be booked and locked up broke free and ran away, one that had been closed down by the humiliated police. Now it's Sunday night and Baht and his friends are getting excited about moving to a Pattaya venue. Baht still refuses to believe me that the place he intends to go to has been closed down by police. So he asks a friend working at the bar we're drinking at. The friend says, yeh, it's still open, and Baht shoots an “I told you so” glance at me. But at that point the bar's other waiter pipes in and says police have closed it. No matter. There are other Pattaya nightclubs. But at this point I'm not really in the mood. I had been working the apps, chatting to some promising locals before heading to Jomtien and wanted to get back to that. I also didn't want to put myself in a situation where I would be expected to subsidize the drinking of six more strangers. So I paid for my tequila and left. The next morning when I woke up I noticed Baht had tried to call me twice, which is odd for him as we only ever text. I texted back, thanking him for introducing me to his fun friends, telling him I had a great time at Fake Club and again in Jomtien and wishing him a safe drive back up to Chiang Mai. They had planned to leave when they woke up that day — after for what for them were three straight all-nighters of binge drinking. Baht has yet to reply to that text, nor to even read it. I hope he is OK.

I'm sure the surprise of it all and the fact that a straight female friend was on the other side of the curtain heightened the experience.

You can walk into almost any gay massage parlor and ask for exactly what you described above. Or you could walk in, say you'd like an oil massage, play dumb about any extras and see how far the therapist will go. Think of it as an adventure. There used to be a massage place in front of Pinnacle Lumpinee, for years a favorite hotel among gay tourists. A friend from New York who was with a straight female friend once asked the hotel receptionist to recommend a massage shop that both he and she could enjoy. Basically they wanted a place with no hanky-panky, although probably neither would say no to some fun. Anyway, the receptionist recommended the place right in front of the hotel. They entered, ordered hourlong massages and were put into adjoining — um, what are they? Rooms separated by thin curtains? — well, you get the idea. My friend must have been giving off gay vibes because unbeknownst to him he was assigned a gay therapist, but also an actual masseur, someone with skill. The therapist, I guess sensing he was in the company of another gay man, decided to see if he could arouse his customer with strokes that kept getting closer and closure to my friend's anus, eliciting louder and louder moans with each stroke until a thumb started brushing up against the anus. And then ever so slightly inside. Eventually the therapist asked my friend to turn over. He did, and the masseur repeated the same procedure — long strokes not quite to the crotch but getting closer with every stroke until he was gently caressing my friends balls with his finger tips, but for only a split second before starting the down stroke. My friend said he couldn't contain himself, letting out a stream of moans that gave voice to his pleasure. All along, his female friend on the other side of the curtain was completely silent. Eventually my friend shot a load without even having his erection touched. This was 2004 and to this day he still says it was the best massage of his life. And the biggest load he has ever shot. But he's probably had more fun relating this story than he did during the sensual massage. He first told his female friend who immediately after leaving the shop asked, “Oh my god, what was all that moaning about?” The female friend couldn't believe all that had gone down — or maybe up — just a few feet from her without her realizing it. They had, after all, asked for a no hanky-panky shop.

Apologies for not finishing this story earlier, but I’ve had an excitement-filled week with little time to devote to this story. The short version is this friend, let’s call him Baht, never asked me to share my vacation with him. I handed him an envelope with some cash in it and apologized for not being able to help him more during the pandemic. We made our way to a tiny specialty coffee roaster that was on the end of a sub-soi off Soi Convent and had a nice catch-up. He invited me to join his friends at Fake Club that night. I demurred as I had some shopping to do on Silom Soi 4 and Patpong, and had already wasted my first night in Bangkok catching up on the sleep I failed to get the night before my flight left. But I had always wanted to go to Club Fake and knew I’d never go to a place like that alone. Still, though, my shopping expedition beckoned so I told Baht to text me later, I might change my mind. When he finally did text me it was from Fake Club itself and the news wasn’t so great. They only sold bottles of whiskey or vodka. No tequila, but they’d let you bring a bottle of tequila inside the club and charge a 300 baht “uncorking” fee. I think I was supposed to take care of the tequila but didn’t realize that. I don’t know where to buy bottles of tequila that late in Bangkok, and Baht had made it sound as though it were something he could handle once I showed up. That happened at about 11:30. I got to the table only to find whiskey. Baht poured me a glass of whiskey and soda despite my protesting that just the smell of whiskey makes me wanna throw up. Then he excused himself to go to the bathroom. He didn’t return for a long time —almost an hour — and as his absence stretched I grew more determined to say my goodbyes as soon as he returned. It ended up that Baht had commandeered a motorcycle taxi and told him to go to every liquor store and convenience store still open until they found one with tequila. As the clock ticked almost to midnight — Thailand’s legal cutoff time for sales of alcohol — they found one last convenience store. It had a bottle of tequila. He texted me a photo of it. It was almost exactly midnight. When he got back, well after midnight, he must have had to travel far, Baht plopped my prize down on the table and told me of his adventure. Well, I guess I can stay another half hour or so, I thought. I ended up having a great night. I had not drank like that in almost three years. The music was really fun and I found out that despite no practice since the end of 2019, my body can still dance. We ended up polishing off that bottle of tequila and staying till the very end. When the bill came, a little more than 5,000 baht, I took it from the waiter, who shined his flashlight on my wallet so I could see what I was doing. As I was counting out 1,000-baht notes, I noticed all eyes around the table were on my wallet, riveted with suspense. Would I go all the way? If I did, would I leave a tip? I got to 4,000 and hesitated. Surely Golf and his friends could take care of the rest and add a tip. I glanced up, all eyes, even the waiter’s, were still glued to what my fingers were doing in my wallet. There was also a sense of desperation in those eyes, so I counted out two more bills and a jubilant celebration erupted as if I — or they — had just scored the winning goal in a World Cup game. The waiter actually broke into tears he was so happy. He gave me a big hug, showering me in thank yous. I’ve never hugged anyone so bone thin. I was happy I had left him a generous tip. He could obviously use the money.

No problem whatsoever, at least with the hotel staff, who will ignore you. There is, however, a long walk to the elevator bank, and there will be other guests' eyes on you and your new friend. There is also the matter of the W being ultra hip. Everyone dresses like they are fashion models. Most guys you meet on Soi 2 or 4 or even on Patpong will not look out of place — they also seem to be stepping out of fashion magazines when they change into their street clothes — but on one long walk to the elevators with several pairs of eyes on me and a Thai friend I had known for years made me wish I had dressed as well as everyone else. Also, if you are with someone from the Patpong area who is new to the scene, he might be overwhelmed by the luxe ambience of the W's lobby. That's quickly forgotten, however, once you get upstairs. One final note, the W attracts a lot of gay guests, and I always find that comforting. Have fun, you'll love it there!

Thank you so much for that natural high. You just sent a rush of endorphins up my spine, into my shoulders and down my triceps. They've never reached so far before. They usually stop at the base of my neck, at that ridge really good masseurs know how to hit and how to keep coming back to. I read a lot of gay romance novels and while doing so often imagine myself authoring one. I do have some material to work with, as you might imagine. Shall I start with the latest? I'm in Pattaya, by the way. I think I've bitched and moaned on this site about how much I hate Pattaya (except during Songkran). I think I've reminded everybody how filthy Pattaya is, how it's a constant death match between all the diesel exhaust-spewing tourist buses and my lungs, and how its heyday was sometime when I was partying in DJ Station like it was (actually) 1999. So why did I come back? Because I'm a bit of an addict and can't stand the the thought that while I'm in Bangkok the twink of my dreams — he's super thin, barely 20, maybe a bit effeminate but with ridged abs that don't give way when you rap your knuckles against them — might be be an hour and a half away in Chonburi, half naked, on a stage flashing intoxicating smiles at some other old dude. And besides, Bangkok has become too expensive, and something happened to DJ Station around 2008: Cute young Thais stopped going there on weeknights, like they're actually taking their futures more seriously. So knowing there is little excitement in Bangkok until Friday, I have taken a Bolt taxi to Pattaya (thanks much for the tip about this new app, everyone). Cut to the chase (a full trip report that starts on Friday, Nov. 25, will get it's own thread. Hopefully I can upload some videos of that night). It's now Tuesday night, two nights after I made a go-go bar crawl through Boyz Town only to find … well I felt like I was walking through a dystopian version of Boyz Town. Tonight, Tuesday, is also one night after I headed to Jomtien, ran into an old friend and became dizzy with the reactor's worth of energy and good vibes that the Super Complex now generates. Jomtien has much more on-the-street excitement than Boyz Town ever did. OK, back from that tangent, tonight's also the night before I head back to Bangkok. I'm expecting to bar hop. A shot of tequila here, a shot of tequila down the soi, a shot of tequila around the corner and down the way from the sad, boarded up Penthouse Hotel. I start in the go-go bar on the same soi as Boyz Boyz Boyz, the first one on the left as you enter the soi from Second Road. I had actually poked my head in this bar on Sunday night. No customers in the seats and no one resembling a twink on stage. Pass. But this night, my last in Pattaya, isn't going to be about shopping for nonexistent twinks. It's about killing some time, going into a few bars, ordering a drink at each, having one of the guys on stage sit with me and forcing him to have a Google Translate conversation with me by buying him a drink. So I take my seat and … that twink who doesn't exist is staring at me. This is when I usually freeze up. But before I left my hotel I promised myself to channel my inner-Eddie. Eddie used to live in Tokyo, too. We kind of knew each other. We also ran into each other in Pattaya and Jomtien on a couple consecutive New Year's vacations. He was in his 60s at the time and had no compunction against approaching anyone who caught his eye. One day on Jomtien he walked up to one of the most darling teenagers you could possibly imagine. Eddie called him “Chicken Boy” because he was going up and down the beach selling chicken. With his mother. Eddie disregarded the parental presence, walked up the the kid (I'm sure he was of legal age) and gave Chicken Boy his deets. The next day on the beach the kid came by with his chicken and mother and couldn't stop smiling at Eddie. “Yeh,” Eddie explained, “he called my hotel. I had the receptionist translate. We arranged for him to come to my room this morning. He has a beautiful cut cock. I couldn't help wrapping my lips around it. He came in my mouth in a few seconds. He had never had sex before. Then he came in my mouth again a couple minutes later.” This memory going though my head, I immediately ask the twink who really, really does exist to come sit with me. I pay him a bribe of vodka and Coke, and we chat via Google Translate. Me: What's your name? Me: Nodding my head as though I understand what he says. Me: Where are you from? Barely legal boy with the great smile: Cambodia. Me: How long have you been in Thailand? Barely legal boy with the great smile: Two weeks. By this point both of us have an arm wrapped around the other, and barely legal boy gives a genuine impression that he's enjoying himself. I'm loving it. He has a perfectly chiseled body. Hard lats forming a V from his shoulders to his waist and rock-hard muscles running down either side of his spine. He uses his hand to encourage my hand to further explore his supple skin. It is at his point I feel the need to ask a stupid question: Me: Are you gay? OH MY FUCKING GOD! I CAN'T BELIVE I JUST ASKED THAT! He's so obviously gay! Barely legal boy with the great smile: No. What the fuck? He's not gay but he's physically encouraging me to caress his Adonis-like body? I'm still really happy to be with Barely Legal Boy, though I know nothing can happen between us. I'm a top, and gay-for-pay guys are never bottoms, right? I guess my original plan of quickly hopping from one bar to another is back on. But I still haven't finished my tequila, and and Barely Legal Boy has barely touched his cocktail. So I'm gonna stay right here with my right arm wrapped around a young man who's being extraordinarily kind to me. So … how do I keep the conversation going and my disappointment from showing? Is there a small-talk question I haven't gotten out of the way yet? Well, yeh, the obvious one. Me: How old are you? Barely legal boy with the great smile: 25. Me: I was gonna guess 17. Barely Legal Boy: (Smiles) Thank you, but it's true. You can ask my brother. He's right there. (Points to my left). I turn and look and my eyes can't believe it. There's an even younger man with a family resemblance but even better looking than Barely Legal Boy. Oh, and he also has a smile that makes me melt. Me: (How come two nights ago I thought Heaven was a dystopia?) Does your brother also drink vodka and Cokes? Barely legal boy obviously in cahoots with his younger brother: He does if I tell him to. Shall we call him over? Me: (Adjusting my crotch in the mistaken belief that I can hide my tremendous hard-on; fail miserably). Um, OK. Me: Your brother says he's 25. You look like you're 16. Brother who speaks good English and can converse without the help of a smartphone: No, he's 28, and I'm 26. Do you want to see my passport? Me: No, if you say your passport says you're 26, I believe you. Younger, cuter brother: I have a picture of my passport on my smartphone. Look. I look. Birth year listed as 1996. So what am I going to believe? his government-issued ID or my judgment based on the lack of lines anywhere on his face? I drop the subject as the brothers converse in Khmer. More drinking ensues. It turns out that the 26-year-old — the younger brother — is gay, has been in Pattaya for a year and recently recruited his straight brother. Yeh, I needed several seconds to allow this to compute, too. Now both of my arms arms are full. I never did make it to another Boyz Town bar. The younger brother agreed to return to my hotel with me if I take his older brother home tomorrow night. It's at this point in our bargaining session that I remember this thread — right here on this forum — and my pre-vacation promise to myself to ask a particular question. So I turn to the straight brother and ask: Are you a good kisser? He instantly smiles and pulls my head to his. He's gotten something to prove and doesn't care if his brother and coworkers are spectating. Yep, I'm convinced and try to pull away three times but Older Brother doesn't let me. Actually, maybe that endorphin rush was the result of the night I just had. Oh, and I'm also staying in Pattaya one more night.

The thing is he knows this!

The immigration and customs officials are ready for the masses. I deplaned around 4pm on Thursday. While the airport wasn't nearly as busy as it had been in 2019 — while there weren't patterns of planes unloading passengers in the middle of the tarmac away from the terminals and then herding them onto buses — once inside, the arrivals areas were buzzing. After having seen an insane picture of the huge lines at customs earlier this month, I decided to book a Fast Track reservation through www.limousine.in.th so I could bypass any mess that might await me. As it turned out, I did not need this service as lines behind the plentiful customs desks were only three or so deep. What's more, the guide who was waiting for me as soon as I stepped foot into the airport, guided me past the first customs area to a second, which not only wasted several minutes but forced me to walk back almost the entire length of the baggage claim area once I zipped through customs. The customs and immigration procedures have been streamlined since 2019, and there is no need to even fill out customs and immigration forms during your flight. Customs only wants to see your passport. They will also record all 10 of your fingerprints and take a photo. I really hate this collecting and filing away of my biometric data for no reason other than I fly internationally. Anyway, if I saved anytime at all by going Fast Track, it was five minutes tops. So you might not need this service. And even if you do need the service to avoid long lines, its value is further diminished by the very long time it takes a plane's baggage to arrive at the designated carousel. By the time that happened, every singly passenger on my flight was already around the carousel. Not one bag made a second trip around, all being claimed on their first go-round. I regretted my purchase of this Fast Track insurance policy, especially as my suitcase was in the final batch. I didn't save anytime at all. In the future I will only book this service if I know my suitcase is going to receive a PRIORITY tag. Next up was immigration. Like I said, there is no form to fill out, you either walk through a green “nothing to declare” passage way or a red lane. In the green lane, passengers are randomly picked out and their bags given secondary scans. On this day, the randoms were all young women carrying large black bags of some kind. My second mission was to head to the basement floor to exchange some currency near the train entrance so I would have some spending money once I got to Silom. Super Rich has moved. It is now down a pretty good distance from the train's entrance, on the right side, along with Happy Rich and Kasikornbank. Super Rich also does not have the best exchange rates anymore. Today, Happy Rich and Kasikorn were offering 3,555 baht per $100 bill. Super Rich was offering B5 less, and the lines were equally short at each place. (I did check a small, unbranded forex booth on Surawong once I got into town, and it was offering B3,500 baht per $100. It was night, and the big forex shops were closed so maybe there will be better rates on Friday.) Now for my final mission at Swampy: leaving the place. I went back up a level, and the queues for the taxi were horrendous. I took a walk to the left as instructed by another poster on another thread to look for a second taxi stand with no lines, but there was none on this day. So I pulled out my phone and hailed a Grab SUV to my hotel for about B650, not bad! Grab drivers meet you on the second level (I thought the meeting place was the fourth level, so I had to hurry down two escalators, and look for my driver). The meeting place is also along the outer lanes, so you gotta cross those first lanes of traffic. They will tell you were to meet, like “Outside Exit 7.” Initially we couldn't find each other, so my driver called me and then we both started waving our hands high in the air so we could find each other. Had I been looking rather than waiting, it would have been easy to spot the SUV and license plate number. This Grab taxi option was extremely easy and receives the Biggus Diccus seal of approval. Download Grab, folks; it'll save you time. Now onto another matter I want to put out there. Tomorrow I'm meeting a friend of a friend to give him some cash as he's still in a tough spot. He was the best friend of Dave, who died during the pandemic. I don't owe anything to this guy, now into his 30s, but thought I would be doing right by Dave by helping out his best friend. The three of us did share some magical New Year's and Songkrans. I did try to transfer some money to him during the worst of the pandemic but instead TransferWise stole $500 from me. I'm still furious about that. After that experience I started saying no to requests for wiring more cash to Thailand. But now that I'm in his country I have no problem handing him what I would have given him had TransferWise not stolen it. Before I told him how much I was going to give him, he was sending me texts about how expensive it would for him be to fly down from his home in Chiang Mai and pay for a hotel. After I told him how much I was going to give him and he would be better off using a bus or train and staying with friends, he decided he'd hang around Bangkok for the weekend because he hasn't visited the city in a long while. He's gonna have hundreds of dollars so why not enjoy it? The problem is I know he's going to ask me to let him stay with me in my hotel, and to stay with me for my entire trip. He broached that subject once months ago and I brushed it off, giving him an indirect “no” that people in may Asian cultures are often adept at intuiting. Since last week, though, he has been texting me on Line, “How are you?” I reply, “I'm fine how are you?” He replies that he's fine too and I end the conversation by saying, “Well, I'll see you on Friday to give you that gift.” But that hasn't stopped him from texting me every couple days, “How are you?” I'm still fine, I say, just like two days ago when you last asked. See you sometime Friday. So tomorrow when he asks to join me for the rest of my vacation I'm ready with my answer: “This is why I've been ghosting you on Line. I knew you were going to ask that even though we both know what the answer is going to be, even though you know I will not change my mind no matter what you say, so let's pretend you didn't just ask that.” I'll pause for a couple beats, then change the topic of the conversation: “So how do you plan to spend your money?” Anyway, the thought of this possible confrontation — something that should be a happy occasion and reunion of sorts after three years — is keeping me from sleeping tonight. Good night, everyone.

I've also been asked to put on kissing exhibitions in go-go bars, but neither occasion was as memorable as the one described above, though there was some hooting when we came up for air. The hoots plastered a big smile on my partner's face. I thought it was kind of fun.

Yeh, I regret posting this. I had no right to cause paranoia. But to answer your question, it was sometime around 2019, at least from what I remember. Thailand felt it was being particularly hard hit because of its migrant labor situation.

Oh, wow! Thank you. That certainly takes away a lot of stress.

I'm getting ready for a flight tomorrow and just realized I have no idea what Thailand's arrival procedures are. I know that the government has fully opened the country to vaccinated tourists, but how do I prove I'm up to date with my jabs? Do I just bring my coupons along and show them to someone at the airport? Thanks for any help you might be able to give.

OK, I'm convinced. But the last time I tried to download Insta, it went into my contacts list and notified everyone there that I now (then) had an account. Does anyone know if this is still the case?

What a great suggestion! I'm definitely going to put this to use.

I thought the clubs that stay open after closing time are allowed to do so because they pay off the police? Also, does anyone know what happened to that lawmaker's proposal to move closing time to 4am in certain nightlife districts?