vaughn

No, don't swim at the Pattaya main beach. they pump waste water into the ocean just north of the beach so it's been known to cause rashes and sickness. Further south at Jomtien is a safer bet for swimming, but the main beach has lots of sunbeds to relax by the ocean. The area is good, connecting directly with the shopping mall below there's a decent food court and cafe options. The general area is busy with hotels and restaurants, walking distance to Boyztown and Walking Street. If you haven't been to Pattaya it's a good option to explore the central area.

That's just everywhere in Phuket now, same with Vietnam. It's the destinations for those migrating from the situation in their country and holiday makers getting warmer weather. The music playing through portable speakers and heavy drinking around the common areas can be annoying at some hotels, but the more expensive western brand hotels have less of it in my experience.

Yeah I've stayed there, the jacuzzi suite was great for me, overlooking the ocean and nice sized room. I didn't use many of the amenities in the hotel but the service was good and no problem with guests. It seemed to have mostly Japanese golfer guests and some older chinese tour groups when i last stayed, i remember seeing minivans loading up with their golf clubs of a morning.

The most redeeming part of the W is their cocktail lounge, but i agree, I was disappointed with my last stay too. Rooms are too small for the price and while still close to the BTS it's not the most convenient. It is gay friendly though, the W brand hotels are very focused on younger crowd of traveller.

Nice beaches are almost everywhere in Phuket and Samui, but the 5 star resort within walking distance to nightlife will be the more limiting factor. If you can sacrifice walking distance for a 10 minute Grab ride I would recommend Le Meridien Phuket, it has a small private beach, nice rooms and great service. It isn't walking distance to Patong's Bangala Road nightlife because of the hills, but it's not far. There are probably some more 5 star hotels closer to Bangala, but i haven't stayed at any. Samui has an abundance of very nice hotels and beaches, but more limited for nightlife, there are bars but not clubs like Phuket (that i know of). Koh Phangan has a lot of nightlife / partying and beaches, but limited on 5 star hotels with more local 3-4 star places.

I've spent a lot of time in HK many years ago and went back a couple of times in the last 2 years, it's definitely changed a lot, for the worse imo. FLM is one of the more popular gay bars, it's near Shueng Wan. Pottinger St is not as busy as it used to be, but there are a couple of gay venues still. Hutong Club in Mong Kok mentioned above is a gay sauna I haven't been to yet, but i've heard its still one of the better options remaining in HK https://maps.app.goo.gl/x5zHfM1cmxTs37ND9 I have always found HK guys to be pretty interested in foreign guys and open to meeting up from Grindr and Blued

me too, not the pee thing, the relaying of my trip report info to a guy. It's annoying to deal with, especially in a bar you like to frequent.

not to hijack the thread, but i was with some thai friends at dinner 2 years ago and they were talking about one of the Silom Edge public bathrooms being a popular cruising location. I'm not sure if it's still accurate, but might be worth keeping an eye out for guys hanging around if that's your thing and you're in the building.

Last time I went to paradise complex was 2-3 years ago, the bars seemed more like jomtien complex host bars than anything like gogos (this was during covid, so that may be a factor). There weren't as many guys, but you can ask one of the workers to have a drink with you and negotiate from there. I only had a few drinks with guys and didn't take anyone so i can't confirm price expectations. I had a few massages in the small soi in the middle of the complex, i had a decent experience there, same price as bangkok. I didn't see any other gay oriented places other than Paradise Complex, apps had a few guys around looking for customers.

It's a wild ride of emotions coming back for a weekend to see what the latest news on GayGuides is and looking at the recent olddaddy posts. One minute, 5 weeks twice a year is too much time in thailand, next invest it all and open a 24/7 venue. Good fortunes to you, I look forward to the postings of OldDaddy the Jomtien bar owner.

Grindr uses a keywords and emojis to flag potential violations of their terms of service. They were required to implement it because the company is HQ in the US, US laws against prostitution mean they are required to 'take measures to prevent it on their app' in all regions, despite ownership by a Chinese company. Using $, MB, P4P, massage, 🤑 💵 💲 etc can flag your account for review, it used to just be in your profile but it's probably in messages as well by now. https://help.grindr.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500009296922-How-Grindr-moderates-content-and-profiles They do also have a pretty low bar for banning accounts based on user reports too, so it's easy to catch a ban from upset guys you reject. Sometimes you see accounts last a while with the keywords in their profiles, but more often than not the account will get banned within a few days. You can easily avoid it, instead of 'how much $' just say 'meet me 2000'. The filters aren't that smart, just need to be a bit careful with avoiding the obvious $ and trade words.

This site seems to have a few of the more popular saunas and onsens listed, I just have it in my research notes so I can't give any experiences (yet). https://www.gayifiers.com/gay-scene/tokyo-gay-sauna-cruising-onsen-gay-bar-club A lot of the saunas seem to be strict on the rules, age, japanese speaker/local only, etc. Looking at websites for them usually have a set of rules to rule in/out if they are foreigner and age friendly. The saunas below are the ones I've found in my search that seem to accept foreigners. Body Breath (foreigners ok, short hair only, under 40) - http://www.bodybreath.jp/ Na Mara (new and cleaner facilities, range of guys, prep discount bring bottle) - https://www.na-ma-ra.com/ Wankers union (mostly uni students, hug n tug only) - http://www.wa-union.com/ 24Kaikan Shinjuku (Doreigner friendly, less private rooms) - http://www.juno.dti.ne.jp/~kazuo24/shinjyuku/shinjyuku.htm Deepthroat Men Shinjuku (very foreigner friendly) - https://www.dt-men.com/ Ninja (possibly foreigner friendly, but some say it is small) Hook in Yokohama - under 49 only - 20s crowd, seems accepting of foreigner https://hook.yokohama/ some sites might need to be on a VPN with Japanese IP otherwise it will say forbidden.

Another one to add to the agency list - outcall only but they can apparently arrange a room, i'm not sure if that is really any different to the other shops https://www.push-fave.com/cast/

I would be very interested in any report you're willing to share after your trip. I return to Japan later this year, I'm well into my research of those albums and excitement is building haha.

Interesting perspective and report, thanks for sharing. I also come from the younger side of the typical demographic for customers, but I would say I rarely feel overlooked, maybe it was just some bad luck on that occurrence with those mamasans. Expectations vs reality can sometimes be an issue, but I hope you decide to give Bangkok another chance. It can take some time to find the right bars and guys that really match what you're looking for, but there's a lot of options out there, both free and paid. Keep in mind August is also low season, I would test it out again November to February.