hojacat

Frankly this list is just as ridiculous as the others. It puts New Caledonia above Thailand. Nothing against NC (I've actually have visited it). Great for diving with its amazing barrier reef, but way fewer options if you want to explore something smoother than corals🤪. Also, Angola ranking higher than Japan and Barbados ranking higher than Hong Kong. Maybe it's a list for gay people pursuing a vow of chastity.

https://e.vnexpress.net/news/travel/southeast-asia-s-second-largest-economy-receives-19-7-million-foreign-tourists-4773479.html do you think they will the 40 million tourist target?

I think this is mostly because of the internal conflict going on in Myanmar. It doesn't much reflect the petty or street crime in there. I've only went to Myanmar once, 7 years ago so during their brief "democracy" period, but I remember that it felt really safe, especially considering the level of poverty in there. Remember even Lonely Planet mentioning something along that line. They explained by saying that during the long military junta the punishments were really harsh, even for the pettiest of crime. Well, Manila has definitely more crime than BKK, Phnom Phen, Hanoi or even Jakarta. Remember going there the first time around 15 years ago and making the mistake of staying in Malate/Ermite, having read that it was the gay area. It definitely felty more chaotic, dirty and more dangerous than BKK and PP. Obviously, the jury was lacking any rice queen.

Yeah, I remember it was kinda difficult crossing main roads in PP. How does Grab work in there btw? Did you have the same issues you encountered in Manila? Or is Passap, that @vinapu is mentioning, a better choice? Can you pay by card with Passap? Is Grindr the most active app in Cambodia? In Vietnam for example, HeeSay(ex Blued) has way more profiles than Grindr or Hornet. I'm a slim top guy in my mid-30s, usually look younger than my age. Have had my fair share of Khmer guys in BKK, the US and a couple even in Europe. I'm quite the fan as they have twinkish looks, great bubble butts and tend to be really smooth. Do you think I'll get the same reception on the apps in there as in Manila or HCMC (as you himself said getting contacted by 30-40 profiles per day). I should also say that I'm also mostly looking for free sex. I rarely go to any club, bar, gogo bar, etc. Usually the only gay venues I care about are cruising bars and saunas. Now regarding the latter I have read mixed reviews in here. A Thai friend of mine though recommended I go to Paul and Arthur. He said he had lots of fun. I also will be there only from Sunday till Friday, as I want to spend the weekend in Singapore (quite the fan of the Keybox sauna in there). So not sure, if it will be the best time to go to a sauna in there. Sorry for this barrage of questions and I hope people in here don't feel I'm derailing this topic.

Thanks for this piece of information @roughjock Honestly, was the biggest issue during my trip to the Phils, mostly because it was unexpected. It started at the airport where I tried for around 45 minutes and at the end had to queue up for a regular taxi. Pretty frustrating, especially when it happed night time.. Never had this kind of problem in other countries where Grab is available. I would say Vietnam is probably the best. Never had to wait more than 2 minutes for the car to show up. I was actually thinking of going to Cebu this December, as I have never been in that city. It's choice between Cebu and Phnom Penh, as the last time I was in Cambodia was around 15 years, while I was still in college, so it was before the advent of apps. I was already leaning more towards PP but your info kinda sealed the deal.

I agree, that's why i mentioned seasoned traveler compared to more sporadic ones. I still think that in light of Thailand extending the visa free period and the number of countries it offers it too and even Indonesia removing the need for a visa on arrival for many countries, the visa policy of Cambodia and Vietnam is pretty shortsighted. I believe Cambodia still maintains the requirement for a visa because it doesn't want to give up the income that it generates. It can probably be solved by implementing an arrival/departure tax. Vietnam's policy is a bit more peculiar as they allow a good number of European countries to travel without visa but not citizens of the US, Canada, Australia, France which represent quite a big market. I assume is because these countries have large Vietnamese diasporas, including opponents of the ruling party, so the visa is there just to filter out any "agitator".

Turned out that taking a Grab, at least for me when I was in Manila around 2 years ago, was much more difficult that I was expecting. Lots of times I had to wait 4-5 minutes just to have a car assigned to me and then wait sometimes even 10 minutes for the car to arrive. Around 4-5 times I even got a "All drivers are busy. Retry later" message. Not sure if the situation is better now but at that made my trip quite I think it's mostly like that in Manila. none of my guests had to go through check-in at the hotel I was staying in Puerto Princesa, Palawan. It's still more flexible that in some other countries like Vietnam where the check-in at hotels is strictly enforced. In both countries if you want more privacy (maybe because you are bringing 2+ more at the same time) an Airbnb is the best choice. I think the Philippines is more suitable for a top tourist. My main issue with Pinoy guys though is that a good number of them are not as smooth as other Asians. It's true also that they tend to be super clingy. Way more than other guys in SEA.

Thanks. Looks like Yahoo removed the link. Does anyone know how to embed text from a link in a post? Used to be that when you would paste a link, it would give you the option to automatically paste its content but looks like this new version of WordPress doesn't do that anymore.

I would say that' carbon monoxide poising is the most probable cause. Reminds me of https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/28/americas/sandals-bahamas-resort-deaths-carbon-monoxide-police/index.html. I always thought though that water heating in Thailand is mostly electric, usually through the use of tankless heaters. If that is found to be the case, hopefully it pushes hotels to install CO detectors.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/riddle-six-foreigners-found-dead-151229507.htm

Most probably people over 60s that don't have much domestication with online things. Don't think any seasonal traveler under 40s would make a decision just based on visa policy. I mean, Vietnam is still very popular with Americans, Aussie and Canadians even though they have to apply online for a visa. Have to agree though that some visa websites are not easy to navigate, the photo requirements are ridiculous or they are just plain buggy. Was applying for an Uzbekistan visa around two months ago and got stuck at the photo validation step. Thankfully Reddit came to my help.

No problem with guests at hotels in Malaysia. Much better than other places like Vietnam, Indonesia or Philippines were you need the check-in your guests. Plenty of affordable Airbnbs though if you choose to do that.

I meant he did that with every guy he had sex with, even the ones he didn't record, just to be safe. Of course you need an ID and a release form if you want to publish on OF.

I think in his particular case, the FBI arrested a different guy for possession of child pornography. During his confession, he made the name of Austin Wolf and said he was exchanging videos with him. Using his phones, the FBI exchanged more videos with AW and were able to track their destination as the apartment where he lived. I think this was enough evidence for a judge to issue a search warrant for his apartment where they found a SD card containing numerous videos of child pornography including the one with the 10 years old guy mentioned above. I think a guy as notorious as Austin Wolf in the gay circles, known for his liking of young twinks, would have to worry more about being framed by the guys he had sex with than by authorities. Easy for a 16 or 17 years old guy to induce to meet him and then blackmail him later. He probably checked the ID and even probably took a pic of it for every guy he had sex with, but even that might not be enough as most IDs can be faked quite easily.

I think what made this news quite surprising and generated so much buzz online, beside the hideous nature of the charges brought against him, is the fact that it happened to a guy who could pretty much had almost any twink in this world and in most cases even make money out of having sex with them. I actually saw Austin Wolf at a big orgy in LA around three weeks before he got arrested. He probably had sex with 6-8 guys that night. Every time I got a peek of him, there was a circle of young twinks around him when he was having sex, ready to go next with him. You would think these kind of guys won't feel the need to watch any kind of porn. As this athletic young British guy in BKK told me around 2 years ago after we were done sharing a local twink: Since moving to Thailand, kinda forgot what masturbation is" (he was really successful with the local crowd).

It's not only Thailand and Bangkok. Pretty much most of the cities in East and partly in Southeast Asia ( Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Busan, Taipei, HK, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, Singapore, etc) are much safer than cities of similar size in Europe and definitely in North and South America. It's personally one of the main reasons (right behind of of course the hot boys) why it's my favorite region in the world. You can enjoy everything a big city has to offer without worrying about petty crime.

https://www.advocate.com/news/austin-wolf-arrested-child-pornography

It's not very clear from this article that when they mention a Schengen-type visa, are they just talking about a visa that allows you to enter in any of the ASEAN countries or they are talking about no border controls among ASEAN members by land, sea or air?! If it's the former, I don't see much benefits for most of the members of this forum, maybe only being able to stay up to 90 days in places like: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos or Thailand where now you can only stay up to 30 0r 60 days. If it's the latter then the people more happy about it will actually be the citizens of the poorer ASEAN countries like: Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos as it will make it way more easier to work (although illegally) in the richer ASEAN countries like Singapore and Brunei, or even Malaysia and Thailand. Honestly, don't really see that happening anytime soon. Even in Europe poorer countries like Romania or Bulgaria only joined the Schengen area much later and after strong opposition, even though they had been EU members for a while. I can't imagine Singapore letting anyone from Myanmar or Laos pouring in their city without any checks.

It will be so great if you would only need two shots for the whole as your Prep treatment. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/20/gilead-prep-lenacapavir-succeeds-in-phase-3-trial.html

There are definitely places and occasions where staying in Airbnbs makes more sense. Personally, it's a must when I visit Vietnam (because of their strict check-in policy) and definitely recommended for the Philippines and even Indonesia. The longest I usually stay in Thailand is three weeks and so hotels work better for me. Kinda love coming after lunch and seeing the room all in order after the craziness of evenings and mornings.

Beside the usual drawbacks of using an Airbnb like sometimes complicated check-in/check-out instructions, slow response if something is not working, etc I feel like the biggest drawback of using an Airbnb in places where you are expecting a high volume of in-bed activity (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Phili, etc) is the lack of daily housekeeping. Personally, I can't imagine sleeping in the same bedsheets for 8 days in southeast Asia. Even if you or the guy(s) are super clean, just the sweat that eventually ends up in the sheets during that time period would make it a very unpleasant and unhygienic place to sleep. Some hosts offer a housekeeping service every x number of days, usually with an extra charge. It's something you should definitely look at if you plan to go through the Airbnb route.

Though Sydney is definitely more expensive than Toronto in most categories, I think it's the favorable exchange rate between USD/CAD that makes feel like Toronto is affordable and Sydney is not too bad when visiting those places. For locals though, it's a different story.

I think this ranking mostly has to do with the price of housing in relation the average income of a given city and not the cost of visiting them as hotel prices in places like NYC, Paris and London are definitely much higher than HK or Sydney.

Luckily, both places offer ample opportunities for indoors, or better say in-room activities😄.

When in Manila two years ago I stayed at this boutique hotel right across Glorietta mall. Their guest check-in policy was a bit inconsistent. Some of the guys didn't have to check at the front desk at all, some had to leave their ID and a few times I even got a call from the reception to ask if everything was fine once the guy left. I guess it depended on the time of the day and how busy front desk was. Didn't have to check-in any of the guys I had at this big hotel in Puerto Princessa, though the the place I stayed in El Nido had a no-guests policy. Luckily I was there only two days and kinda needed a pause after all that high-intensity activity in Manila. Overall, I would say an Airbnb is the best option in Manila, but even in those some receptions might be stricter than others. I would choose a condo with many listings on the site, instead of just one or two, as the reception would assume everyone visiting is an Airbnb guest so won't ask for documentation. I also noted that Grindr has a lot of issues lately. With the last update my private albums disappeared and some profiles take a long time to load. Haven't had any issues with alerts or notifications though.