macaroni21

Only one hour? Count your lucky stars. I've experienced much worse.

Here's a new video on Youtube touching on Malaysia Hotel and the Ngam Duphli/Sri Bamphen area. Interesting bits of information.

I have been to Negombo twice, both times because I wanted to be near the airport in the days before departure. As @fedssocr said, there's really nothing that would make Negombo an attraction in itself. The beach is difficult to access and is nowhere as nice as the beaches beyond Galle. Negombo is not even in a convenient location for accessing other attractions around Sri Lanka, which are mostly inland and in the mountains (other than the beach towns beyond Galle). I did have a massage once in Negombo that included a handjob, a so-so experience. I cannot now remember what the name of the place was, but it's not something I would want to make a trip for. I just happened to be in the town with nothing better to do.

Spot on! One evening last week, 8:20pm. Mack and friend walk past two doormen for a gogo bar, on his way to Foodland. Doorman 1: "Boy bar, gogo bar," making arm movement to invite entry into his bar. Mack: "It's only 8:20. You're not even open." Doorman 2: "Have many boy." Mack: "And I have many hungry. For food." Doorman: 1 "Come back later?" Mack: "Maybe. We'll see." Doorman: 1 "Tip?"

Let me hazard a guess: the Pattaya city council or whatever they call themselves is obsessed with making their city a family friendly destination, and they are ultra sensitive to any marketing effort that still makes it look like sin city. Bangkok is more relaxed because the majority of tourists it gets are 'morally upright' visitors anyway, whose primary interests are temples, malls, food, chatuchak, malls, food....

Oops, bad typo. I meant "I have seen this with my own eyes in bars quite a few times."

I have seen this my own bars quite a few times. The two most recent incidents (2022 and 2023) were in Toy Boys Pattaya and Fresh Boy Bangkok. In the Toy Boy case, I was in the bar pretty late. A dressed boy came into the bar, and the first thing he did was to hand over a wad of notes to the papasan. He was probably returning from an off from earlier that evening. A similar thing happened at Fresh Boy, except that it was quite early in the evening (only 9-something) before show time. A dressed boy came in and handed money (don't know how much) to the mamasan. He was probably off'd the previous night. And that's what drives me nuts about how the businesses conduct themselves. If offing is what brings in the money, then why do they make such a bad job of marketing the boys? Instead, over-concentrating on the shows?

I am pretty sure Banana Bar pays a much higher rent than the Patpong Soi 2 places. But as @spoon pointed out, it is almost all cabaret now, with ... which is fine if that's what the location and traffic wants. Won't surprise me if they decide to be a mini-Tiffany and drop the rent boys part of the business altogether.

True for me too. Here's my two cents' worth (again). IMHO, it is important to distinguish the Bangkok scene from the Pattaya scene. They have been bifurcating for a long time. The Pattaya scene depended heavily on winter exiles from the Northern hemisphere, and we know where the trend is heading. Pattaya has never managed to be much of an attraction to the gay Asian travellers. The Bangkok scene is a more complex story. Its three parts: gogo bars, massage, and social-and-dancing locales, are going on separate trajectories. I believe the social-and-dancing venues are doing fine. Business is robust, not just on Silom Sois 2 and 4, but also in places like Fake Club, etc. Bangkok attracts the Asian travellers. To the farang, it may be difficult to tell a Thai apart from another East or Southeast Asian, but eavesdrop on the language they use and it will be clear how much the Asian traveller is contributing to gay scene tourism. The massage business looks relatively healthy too, though, as with all massage businesses around the world, there is always considerable turnover, i.e. shops exit the business, new enterprises start up. I credit this to the fact that the shops outside of the Silom-Surawong area continue to depend largely on local custom as their bread-and-butter clientele. Tourists are icing on the cake. The shops in the Silom-Surawong area are more tourist oriented, but because of the healthy flow of Asian tourists, they're doing OK. More importantly, the massage shops continue to attract young men as workers. Understanding why they can attract young men into the industry whereas the gogo bars struggle to do so helps us understand the strategic mistakes the gogos bars made over the years. The Bangkok gogo business: A part of me thinks their days are numbered. I would say that they are being killed by two things: the tea money and the horrible strategic mistake the market leaders made to expose themselves to the general public through relying on the non-sex-buying customer. Let me elaborate. Tea money: While I don't have the insider figures, I think this is a key factor in the exorable rise in prices for drinks and offs. Of course, high prices limit sales volume. Tea money may also be the factor holding back gogo bars' reinvention. They don't seem to be able to try anything new, and I suspect this has to do with the terms of the tea money deal. As soon as bar tries to experiment with the business model, the tea-money-collectors will want to charge more. Exposure: When the gogo bars began to welcome hordes of straight tourists, they basically put a jinx on their staff recruitment. It gets harder to recruit when the gogo boy is expected to put himself on stage for people to gawk at them, even worse then he is expected to be part of an explicit show. The calculus is like this: The boy will do it if there is a high chance of an off. But if the great majority of the audience are only there to gawk, the boy earns little for "shaming" himself. So recruitment falls off a cliff. Here's something to observe when you're next in a gogo bar. Look at the ages of the performers in the Big Cock Parades or other explicit show items. They are the older ones. Dream Boys', Sol's and Tawan's stable now have a significant number of guys in their 40s. I doubt if they get off'd. So why do the bars keep them on their roster? Because they're the ones more likely to be prepared to show cock. The young ones won't do it. There is another strategic mistake the gogo bars made. They have left too much of the management in the hands of gatoeys. I think some bars are run as employment-creation platforms for ladyboys. The mamasan's primary objective seems to be creating jobs for her fellow ladyboys. Shows with fancy costumes and lip-sync don't attract the the boy-offing customer. They attract the gawkers, which then reduces the boys' chances of getting off'd, which then exacerbates the shaming the boys have to endure for working in a gogo bar. Yes, the economic progress that Thailand has made, the rise in wages, have generally made it less attractive or necessary to work in the sex industry. But the massage parlours have no difficulty recruiting. Only the gogo bars. So, economic progress does not explain everything, which is how I came to the view that the the factors unique to the gogo bars - exposure, gawking, ladyboy acts - are the real killers.

Despite statistics showing a recovery of tourism arrivals - there were over 27 million in 2023 which is roughly similar to the annual numbers of 2013 (26.5 million) - the traffic in Hotmale last night was pretty bad. At about 11pm while the show was in progress, there were only 10 customers. Earlier, on my way in, I noticed that their outdoor bars had just 2 customers.

@floridarob's map location was clear enough. It's as he described - a single shop unit in a small road parallel to Second Road. The only difficulty some may have is his description of "green awning". Colour descriptions don't always work for those of us who are colour-blind. The restaurant that @thaiophilus indicated is a totally different one, on Second Road itself, known as "Pakboong loy fah" a.k.a. Flying Vegetables Restaurant. I don't know if they do the flying vegetables act anymore. It was quite a thrill.

Read the full article. The reported used five different ways, one of which cost $400, and yet "In total, Victor found 17 out of 27 cameras — not a bad result, but not a great one either, especially given the time he spent locating them." I can only hope that whatever anyone manages to film of my body in a hotel room has absolutely no marketable value.

The incident I experienced wasn't intentional but nonetheless a loss. I was in Ben Thanh market in Saigon last year and liked a shirt. At the same time, another tourist was also buying. Through the corner of my eye, I noticed his choice of colours. He liked them bold. We both made up our minds around the same time and the shop owner collected payment from me to pass as change to the other guy. She packed our shirts into brown paper bags and thanked both of us as we left. "Come again soon," she said. When I got back to my hotel room, I stuffed the paper bag into my suitcase and forgot about it. It was a few days later, when I got home that I looked into the paper bag. I had the two garish shirts the other guy bought. Not only that, they were too big for me. He must have received the shirt I bought. Too small for him, I think. At least I paid for only one shirt, while he had paid for two. Ouch.

I've tried that but found the heat and humidity intolerable.

At a conference in Jamaica many years ago, there was a guy from India whose gold necklace was quite visible. Inside the posh (everything is relative, of course) hotel, it wasn't a problem. But the evening we were to go out for the conference dinner, the event leader suggested that he not wear it. I overheard a bit of the conversation. He explained that the chain had been blessed by his priest and he was to wear it at all times for protection or something like that. So, sometimes we shouldn't apply cold rationality to such issues. People have reasons for doing what they do. However, as I write this, I cannot recall whether that chap finally took the conference leader's advice or stuck to his priest's edict. Memory (or lack of) can be frustrating!

Like these very attractive men? Heehee

I think the term "public" is a classifier or tag to indicate that all the information on the info box for the named service provider is available for public release. Each provider may also have additional information in his database profile tagged as Private. Examples of Private info items might include his real name, personal phone or Line number, history of bookings, etc which only the shop management can access. Of course the tag "public" should not itself be displayed, since doing so would only confuse the public 🤣

The drop-down for service status has 3 labels: "Ready", "not available", and "not yet notified of employment". Any idea what the last means?

How does one get a sample of a massage out on the street with clothes on? What part of your body was the sampled area?

Getting COVID during a holiday is a bummer. Some precious days are lost as a result. Am glad my trip report was useful. However I think you meant 800,000 dong instead of 8,000. And so on....

I am happy for you that persistence paid off. Also, useful for this board to have this first-hand information. Imagine the headline: Mass shooting at gay bathhouse after man rejected four times; 27 dead. Police were called a little after 11pm to a building on 15th Street after shots rang out and naked men were seen fleeing the premises. The building, frequented by homosexuals and called Pleasure Hole had been an unassuming business in the community for several years, keeping a low profile. But the bathhouse was well-known in the homosexual community. The shooter is believed to have killed himself as police cornered him in the steam room. According to the name on his bathhouse membership card, he was Eugene Mattayod. His age is unknown. Membership records show that this was only his third visit, after signing up about seven weeks ago. A neighbour who was drying her hair near her upstairs window said she heard some muffled shots but wasn't alarmed as she wasn't initially sure that they came from a firearm. "The building had thick walls and closed windows," said Tricia Tricks, "and the sounds were not loud." Then she saw naked men feeling from the front door and an upstairs window, climbing onto the roof of a porch. "Some of them had really big dongs, like horses. It was so exciting, I was distracted and kept holding my hair dryer against the same side of my head until my hair caught fire." Her boyfriend then called the fire department to come put the fire out from her head. When the fire engines arrived, they were surprised to be surrounded by naked men on the street shouting about a shooting. This wasn't consistent with the call they received which was about a Tricia with her head on fire. They called the police who arrived shortly after. Meanwhile many other neighbours were peeping through their windows, but afraid to come out. They told this reporter that they too heard what sounded like gunshots and didn't think it safe to come out of their doors. On top of that, having naked men come scrambling over their garden hedges was not something their church had taught them how to respond to. "It was best to lock our doors," said Miriam Morales. "I pride myself on my moral standards," she added. "We shouldn't be talking to naked men, not even to find out what was happening. Who knows what psychological effect that might have on normal people, like turning homosexual ourselves and drowning in sin." Her 12-year-old son Angel had a different opinion. "The men were very beautiful," he said, earning him a smack on his head and a stern "Wash your mouth out and go to bed!" Two women from three doors away did come out. Dressed only in their nightgowns, they had been having a slow night, and thought that the sudden availability of men in their neighbourhood might be a godsend for their sales revenue tonight. "I lifted the front of my nightgown," said Lily Quicke, "but no one was interested." "Not a single one. It was so strange, especially when they were already naked and ready for action." Her room-mate, Dina Dynamite, said she was disappointed too that no business resulted. "I lifted the back of my gown and twerked," but the men fled even further. "My booties are massive and perfect for a sizzling performance. I dont understand why it didn't attract anyone this time." Rejected four times A few of the men on the street had noticed Mattayod while inside the bathhouse. None said they had much of a conversation with him, but apparently, he had been rejected four times. "I think I was the first of the four," said a tall, bearded guy who prefers to go by the name Duchess-Mary-the-loose. "We started making out on the sofa in the TV room. I did my best with my legs high up in the air, but somehow I didn't feel a thing. "When I looked towards the site of the action, I noticed that he was too small for me," Duchess-Mary-the-loose recounted. The tryst was cut short and Mattayod was sent on his way. "Most of us are too small for her," said a hunk of a guy listening in. "She's not called 'the-loose' for nothing." According to the hunk who preferred not to give us his name, even if one were not too small, performance anxiety when confronted with the high standards demanded by Duchess Mary would likely cause shrinkage. Hilario Clinto claimed to be the third of the four guys who had rejected Mattayod. "He came on to me while we were at the bar," said Clinto, "and at first I was interested in going with him into a cabin. "Then I noticed that he had a MAGA tattoo." Clinto explained that it was a matter of profound principle that he avoids people with MAGA tattoos. "I honestly don't know what to do with the deplorables." Duchess Mary and Hilaro Clinto considered themselves extremely lucky that they were in the dark maze when the shooting started. "We could have been his intended targets," Clinto said. "When I heard the first pop of the gun, I thought it was incredible," Duchess Mary said. That needed some explanation. "Not many guys can fill me," she began. "But this one in the dark room filled me like a huge, tight cork in a bottle, and when he was pulling out, I thought the pop was from the suction effect." "It rarely happens nowadays. It's hard to find big men." Might it have been Clinto while they were in the dark maze? Clinto laughed. "I don't dare go near her, and I certainly do not want to be attached to her with suction, struggling to be released." Your reporter was unable to interview the second and fourth guys who rejected Mattayod. They were unable to speak as they were in bodybags. The police asked Rodney Grease, the owner of the Pleasure Hole, why they didn't forbid customers from having firearms with them. "I believe in the Second Amendment," he replied.

@newtobangkok123 in Thailand's massage parlours, whether it's a place primarily for legit massages or one primarily for erotic massages, the client makes two payments. The first is to the shop. The amount will be based on the their price list depending on the service you choose. You know that already. Some shops require you to pay before the session begins, other shops are happy to take payment (for the shop) after the session. The second payment is directly from you to the service provider. It is always made AFTER the session. Your chief question is how to know how much. First of all, not all massage places publish minimum tips. Some do, some don't. Legit massage places almost never publish minimum tips. Erotic massage places mostly do nowadays, or if they do not publish them publicly, the receptionist will whisper to you as you pay the shop's fee. Or, there will be something stated as a footnote on the menu card. Just be alert and pay attention. The rule of thumb is that any place with a stated minimum, however stated - whether publicly published, whispered or footnoted - you can assume to be an erotic massage place where the service provider expects that you would want a happy ending, or at least to get hard. So, to your question: Once I know the minimum tip, does this tip include the happy ending? the answer is Yes. Also, even if you decline the offer of a happy ending during the session, the minimum applies. That's simple enough However, regular visitors to massage parlours do not always pay just the minimum. The "how much" gets trickier. If it's a handjob, something like the minimum, plus a bit more (20%?) if you're orgasmically over the moon, will be fine. But if it was mediocre, just pay the minimum. More often than not, there is no discussion about handjobs; the service provider proceeds towards it, and you have to stop him if you do not want the session to go in that direction. If you're into plugging holes, you will probably be having a brief discussion in the room regarding who does what to whose hole, and in the course of that discussion, the service provider may mention a figure perhaps 25-50% higher than the previously stated minimum. Naturally, if you agree, that's the new minimum for your session. (If he quotes a new figure that is 75 - 100% above the pre-session minimum, I am likely to turn it down, as such a high mark-up probably indicates an unwillingness to go that route.) Whatever you've agreed, you can tip another 20-30% more above that new minimum if you're intoxicated with delight from his services (but they don't expect that). If for some reason, there is no discussion about any new minimum, then if he bottoms, you can still use the above percentages as a guide, i.e. anything from 25 - 50% above the minimum that was stated pre-session. If he tops. I think the pre-session minimum is still the reference level (but this is not an area I am familiar with). If it's a legit massage, my practice is to think in terms of maximum tip and then discount from there. If it was an excellent legit massage, I would apply the maximum, which would be an amount for the service provider that is the same quantum as what the shop charged for the session. However, if it was legit, but substandard, then I start discounting from the maximum. Example: I book a legit massage for 700 baht. If the guy delivers a very good massage, he gets 700 too. If not so good, then 600, or 500 and so on. What happens if, in what looks like a legit place, the service provider also delivers a handjob in the privacy of the room? If there was a discussion in the room, then all's clear. If no discussion, then I tend to tip some kind of industry average for handjob, which, in Bangkok (since you asked about Bangkok), may be in the 1000 - 1200 range. As with all conversations about appropriate tips, this post is going to get wild reactions from other members of the board. Some will say my ranges are too high and I am spoiling the market. More likely, others will pick up a megaphone and decry what a cheapskate I am. Without knowing who I am or which country I come from, they will say that (a) I come from a rich country, (b) I am perforce rich, and (c) I am a disgrace to humanity for failing to throw money around like Mansa Musa on his pilgrimage to Mecca. All I can say is that my rules of thumb have worked for the hundreds of massages I have had over decades, and no service provider has said - not to my face at least - I tip too little. I simply don't believe in bragging about my wealth (if any) by showing off. I was raised by parents who taught me that showing off is very crass.

I think the address on their website is wrong. Either that was an old address, and they have since moved, but did not update the website (a very common issue in both Thailand and Philippines), or they deliberately put up a fake address on their website to throw off the authorities. Between corrupt police and a prevailing homophobia in the country, police raids, closely followed by TV cameras, are a known thing. A more detailed websearch indicates their real address is 1148 E. Rodrigues Sr Ave. If you put that address into Google map and click their street view, you will see this, a Fahrenheit sign on the buidling. I would not expect the inside of the place to be anything like their pictures. I would not trust any of their pictures either. For example, if you clicked "gallery" from their menu bar on their website ( https://fahrenheitcafe.com/gallery/) , you will see no photos, but a strange opening paragraph that says "An unforgettable dining experience in the heart of Covent Garden, London. Contemporary british menu, inspired by the traditions of Great Britain.". I think they ran out of money and didn't pay their website developer who abandoned the job halfway. I won't be surprised if the interior of the premises also has signs of running out of money and not paying the contractor properly.

Some members here would be breaking such a rule each time they step into a gogo bar. Based on their reports, and my own observations every now and then when I am nursing a drink in a bar, some customers readily give out tips just because a boy looks handsome. I have always thought that that is a kind of cancer. It has damaged the work ethic when, from the boys' perspective, earnings are not dependent on having to work for the money. Mamasans expect to be tipped despite having been a nuisance; "models" get garlands for just standing around. There was one bar doorman who expected to be tipped because he saw me walk by. Thankfully he was no longer there a few months later.

Is that the one in an old house about 200m from the National Museum? If so, I think it was. On a related note, I also had cashew nuts ice-cream in Brazil. No cashews to be seen, but there was the distinct flavour of cashews in in the cream part....