macaroni21

What happened to free market principles and independent pricing decisions?

Yeah, I too prefer to host in my hotel since these shops' rooms tend to be too basic. The problem is that few hotels allow joiners, so it's always good to know of hotels that don't mind guests.

I see this quite often, and in many countries. It's a problem of software design, but it's so basic an issue that it's amazing how unaware software engineers are that this is an issue. The craziest was Turkish Airlines. It had that problem in all its self check-in terminals, demanding a Turkish country code and no other and in a mandatory field. And the same software was used at whichever airport around the world. Here's an international airline whose software designers didn't imagine that passengers might not have Turkish phone numbers? Needless to say, the 5 or 6 self check-in terminals were hardly used. Meanwhile the human check-in counters had horrible queues. I hope they have realised their mistake and corrected it by now.

Thank you. This is useful information, especially the part about a joiner-friendly hotel, though in this instance, you used one of the shop's rooms.

I second what @vinapu says. If there is a medical problem with your back, seek professional advice. However much we may be experts on sex opportunities in Thailand, I wouldn't trust any member's advice re medical issues. Also, bear in mind that rules on false advertising may not be as rigorous in Thailand as in most western countries. Just because a shop says "certified chiropractor" doesn't mean what we may think it means. Certified by who? Certified by themselves?

A 120-minute massage is too long. Even trained masseurs may not have the repertory to fill that much time, and anyway they get tired, so the value of the last 30 minutes is questionable. If they don't get tired, it means the massage was hopeless in which case you're still wasting money. What about having enough time for extras? If a shop only offers handjob or B2B, that usually means the boys expect to fulfill that part of the programme in little more than 15 minutes. A 90-minute session is more than enough.

@bkkmfj2648 One thing you don't seem to be checking out are the supermarkets. If I were planning on staying for months in a city, I would want an apartment with at least a small kitchen so I can prepare my own breakfasts or small meals if I don't feel like going out. A good supermarket stocked with the produce I would need would be essential. I have seen smaller Korean cities where the supermarkets don't have cheese, for example, or parts of American cities whose shops hardly stock fresh greens. Or Chinese cities where western style bread is unknown. However you may not plan on having an apartment with a kitchen, so maybe the above is irrelevant.

I haven't looked closely, but I think the BTS platforms are built for 6 carriages. The BTS and MRT systems were already packed when I visited in December, It can hardly get worse now that the government has mandated free rides. But it is also because of government interference like this that the system is still running on 4 carriages (and sub-optimum frequency too). As I mentioned in a recent post https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2025/01/02/bangkok-miscellany-nov-dec-2024/ the government ordered the BTS system operator to build extensions to the suburbs, then mandated free trial runs, but has not paid what they owed to the system operator. The dispute is mired in court suits. BTS is limping along with perennial cash flow problems as a result. How are they to buy additional rolling stock to alleviate the crowding?

+1

@Shax used the word "fun", generally interpreted as sex. The difficulty with that is that we don't know if he meant insertive sex or "outside" sex. In places like S'sense, I think most boys would offer a handjob or body-to-body (though some may not) but i think insertive work would be beyond their limits. Basically my advice is to look to different places for different things. Massage shops for massage, sex shops or gogo bars for sex.

I have occasionally used the Suriwongse Hotel, adjacent to Moonlight. I have also heard that Pavilion Hotel along Patpong Soi 2 (maybe 20 metres from Good Boy) is also a workable solution. Then there is Niagara which a gogoboy brought me to once eons ago. Niagara is in the Chong Nonsi area, sort of behind Arena Massage.

I almost completely forgot about this, but some time ago, I was told that the owner of Moonlight and Hotmale is a woman who is related to the family that owns Suriwongse Hotel. I don't have a way to confirm this, though.

@bkkmfj2648 - if you're in an AirBnB, do you somehow get daily cleaning and towel change? If not, how are you able to host so frequently?

Oh, that explains why there was no mention by @vinapu of any new policy. It's been like that for years. All the boys wear long trousers, and half or more of them have tank tops. It's the same at Hotmale. When @daydreamer referenced BoyzBoyzBoyz, I thought he was talking about long-sleeved shirts which are often seen there. That's the problem. One has to pay 500 baht per boy just to see whether there are hideous tattoos under those tank tops and trousers. Multiply that by the 12 boys on rotation, and that's 6,000 baht. Businesses like that deserve to die. The only qualm I have about making that statement is that Bangkok is perilously close to the cliff edge when it comes to maintaining a critical mass of gogo bars. Once a few more closes, then Patpong goes the way of Pattaya's Boyztown, without enough of an attraction to draw enough visitors through the year.

@colmx might it be that whoever you asked to invite his friends over somehow hinted to those friends that you would be paying for their time and company?

Re Moonlight, strangely @vinapu was there around the same time, wasn't he? And he didn't mention this. Did you @daydreamer go in at an unusually early or late hour? If fully clothed boys is the new policy at Moonlight, it's almost surely the strange personal notion of the boss who also owns Hotmale. The rotation boys of Hotmale are in red pants. Those in Moonlight have long been in black pants. I once asked the papasan in Hotmale why they are in pants when boys in other bars are in shorts or briefs. He replied, with some exasperation, that it was the boss' instruction even though he (and other papasans) told him it was a bad idea. Now I wonder whether the rotation boys in Hotmale are also in shirts. This same boss is trying to sell Hotmale for 5.5 million baht to "focus" on Moonlight. His "focus" is the factor that is destroying the bars. For instance, I had long doubted Moonlight's marketing strategy of featuring "models" who only parade around the stage. Can't dance, can't act. Apparently not off-able at an affordable rate. The strategy represented a kind of false marketing, luring customers in with a certain implied promise but mostly offering something else. Although the rotation boys of Moonlight are not bad looking, they are clearly not the same look as their publicized models. In marketing ethics, this is known (negatively) as bait-and-switch. And now if they demand payment before entrance, and then customers see only clothed boys after paying good money, customers will feel even more misled.

Thanks @Jhynx for your public service. Good news indeed. Did you partake of their services?

@jason1975 are you seeing this first hand because you're in Bkk, or are your spy-boys giving you this Intel?

Maybe this is good time to explain the different entry requirements since, from time to time, I come across posts in this forum that suggests some confusion. The confusion partly stems from different terms used by different countries. Basically, for tourism purposes (I won't be touching on longer stays) there are 4 broad types: What is described here in the OP is the 4th, which I will call "arrival notification". I will come back to this later. The first of the terminology is the visa. This is approval before you can enter a country. Visas come in 3 variants. Traditional visas often come as a sticker in your passport or a pdf document. The tourist has to apply in advance and get one before making any firm plans for the journey. Example: US citizens visiting Vietnam; Turkish citizens visiting China. Some countries, e.g. US make it necessary to interview the applicant at a consulate before issuing a visa and for some countries, e.g. Pakistan or Nigeria, visa applications are quite often denied. Some destination countries offer an e-visa service, so the tourist does not need to travel to an embassy of a destination country to obtain a traditional visa. I think Cambodia has an e-visa system. Some destination countries offer "visa on arrival" to tourists from selected origin countries. This tends to be the case when the destination country does not have an embassy or consulate in the origin country. Visas on arrival are not guaranteed, so one can end up flying all the way there and still be rejected. The second terminology category is the Visa Exemption or Visa-free. If a destination country offers visa exemption to citizens of an origin country, it means the latter citizens can enter (subject to very rare immigration ban) visa-free for a set number of days. Thailand offers visa exemption to a long list of origin countries. In the past decade or a bit more, the US has instituted an "authorisation to travel" and the EU is implementing something similar this year. This is the third terminology category. This complicates the visa-exemption category, because even tourists who should otherwise be eligible to enter without a visa must first get an "authorisation to travel" before they travel. It is usually issued very fast via an online service but still requires lengthy form filling and payment. Once issued, it is valid for multiple entries over a set number of years. Lastly, there is the arrival notification. Regardless of what category one fell under (visa or no visa), some countries require all travellers to still complete an arrival notification in the days or hours before flying in. This usually includes a health declaration (that's why is is done only just before arrival).

Not having a proper desk or desk-height table in the room is very frustrating. After a few such experiences I now look very carefully at photos of rooms to see if there's a desk before I book.

Those absurd prices were what I experienced in my visit pre-Covid, though with a bit of hard bargaining (exhausting!) I recall being able to get a discount on occasion, and the distances I wanted to travel were always longer than the 1 km from Thapae Gate to the Night Market (I would walk that distance). That was why on this recent trip I was using Grab except the fixed-price taxi that I took from airport Arrivals to hotel. But my policy is usually that any distance less than 3km is to be done on foot, so even Grab wasn't used much. As an example of Grab costs, a 6-km trip last December cost 126 baht, though of course the pricing would vary depending on traffic conditions, availability of drivers, etc.

I find it hard to imagine a customer (or group of customers intending to share a bottle) going through "all outlined above" like a pre-flight checklist, so in most situations some costs may not be explained until the bill arrives.

Thanks @colmx , that was very helpful. It kind of confirms that the whole concept is obviously meant for a different demographic of a customer from someone like me!

Even though I have no interest in relocating to Cebu - and a gogo bar visit costing 190 USD has done nothing to change my mind 😱 - I find this journal by @bkkmfj2648 a fascinating, engrossing read. Thanks for sharing. One tiny question: is Mr B the same as Mr M?

Because most of us forum members (including me) are isolated in an English-speaking corner, we may be unaware of any chatter in Chinese forums. I have a suspicion that there is considerable word-of-internet-mouth in those forums, maybe including Korean and Japanese too, about BoyzBoyzBoyz and Fresh Boys in Bangkok which also draws a significant number of Chinese tourists. What is a mystery to me is whether the interest in these bars came from marketing publicity that these bars themselves initiated in these languages or if it grew organically because some early visitors became "influencers" in their native language forums. Once female visitors become the target market, the bar obviously has to change its product offer from selling sex to merely selling titillation and entertainment. I'm not surprised that the roster of boys would have changed too, to those who are 100% straight, only interested in girls, and maybe slightly revolted by the idea of even touching another man. These would be the boys who have no interest in earning money from gay men; they'd sacrifice that extra income just for the thrill of flashing their body parts to girls every night and getting half-soused. Don't every one of us know of this type? The super-straight jock-wannabe?