macaroni21

I think I can see where the "problem" is. You're approaching this question through trying to know the nationalities of individual members. I wasn't doing it that way, since that is simply not possible. Instead, I was observing that in recent years, a significant number of trip reports refer to short trips of a week or even less. My guess was that maybe a quarter or a third of trip reports seem to be of such length. Usually this means the person is coming from just a few hours' flying time away, i.e. from the region. It's similar to the way Europeans from Hamburg or Stockholm hop over to Barcelona, Benidorm (!), the Greek Islands or Rome for short trips. No doubt there are exceptions. Vinapu, for example, has reported on one-week trips even though he's more than 12 hours away. Or there are others from outside the region who, though spending only a week in Thailand, also go on to spend another week in, say, Manila or Hanoi (I've done that too). But in the main, I think my observation about how lengths of visits indicate origins is on to something. As I write this, I am acutely conscious that I am speaking of Asians on this board as "them" - as a subject of discussion, and this can be alienating. This is the complete opposite of my intentions. My apologies if I come across that way. Let me reiterate our welcome; you're part of "us". Your contributions are valued.

On the question of security and/or fear-mongering, I don't want to come across as saying there's nothing to worry about. Below, for example, is a picture of an entrance to a condominium, albeit one in a good-class district. Notice the cage-like double gates. There are few cities in the world that will go this far. And this was only one of several condominiums with such a feature. To me, it shows that the problem of security is a real one; not to be laughed off. The locals do seem to know a thing or two. Maybe I was just lucky that I did not experience any incidents. But it is one thing to take precautions, it's quite another to be paralysed by fear.

Via Paris, the same way I went.

For those of us with home bases in East Asia, Southeast Asia or Australasia, South America is a pain to get to. Hardly any wonder that the last time I was in Brazil was 15 years ago if not more (so long ago, I can't even be sure). This year, I had reason to be in Europe for a month, mostly for family reasons, including attending a heterosexual wedding. Partly to recover from the trauma of that, but also because Brazil is more accesible from Europe, I decided to add four weeks there before flying all the way home. Beginning with this post Virgin Mary and the money pouch, there will be reports over the next few weeks about my time there. In case you're wondering, my habit is to post reports on my own blog because I prefer to write long form, and it takes the better part of a day to draft a post - not something compatible with a discussion forum. Contributors to the Brazil threads on this site have been an immensely helpful resource - thank you very much - and I hope my reports are interesting in their own way.

We may not be comparing apples with apples. I think I know which sites you're referring to in Hong Kong and Singapore - those are gay-scene sites. This one is ... not quite. This site is an M2M-sex-buyers site. Nor am I pessimistic about this site's future. Precisely because it is an M2M-sex-buyers site, it will age well. Given human nature, the trade will never disappear, though it may move from place to place and price point to price point. That's not to say that this site has not evolved nor continue to evolve. One day, even when there's AI and sex robots and businesses supplying them, I'll bet there will still be plenty of things to talk about. When I first participated here, the Pattaya threads were as active as the Bangkok threads. Not any more. This seems to reflect, as others have pointed out, the decreasing number of Western retirees spending their golden years (and pensions) in Thailand, with Pattaya being the seaside town of choice. But I don't think the overall traffic to this site has reduced. It may even have grown, though I have no access to site statistics over the long term. So, if traffic has grown, it must mean that enough new members have come in over time too. This, in turn, is the other evolution that I can discern. More and more members are Asian. It's hard to put a number to it, but perhaps one in three or one in four of the active participants may either be Asian or expats living and working in the region. My guess is that there is a growing number of Singaporeans and Malaysians here, partly because these nationals (particularly the former) are comfortable in the English language. I thought there might be more Hongkongers for the same reason, but I don't see evidence of it. I have noticed the increasing number of short trips reported on this site. It indicates they're from the region, and thus able to do a weekend or just a week's trip, rather than travel across multiple time zones to escape winter for three months, which used to be the dominant pattern in years past. In time, as their disposable income rises, we may see more Filipinos and Indians on this site, for many of them too speak English.

The internet has been a boon though it is true that sites and technologies change with head-spinning speed. But I certainly wouldn't want to go back to the Spartacus era. Guide sites are very different animals from forum sites. I am not surprised that they struggle to stay relevant and up to date. It begins with user expectations - that what they see on a guide site should be authoritative, up-to-date, accurate and also comprehensive, covering all the available attractions of a place. It requires a lot of work to maintain a site to meet such standards. Look at the Guide section of this very site (gayguides.com). It has very little that's useful. The write-ups are undated, and for we know, the information about any bar or hotel may be 10 years old. It gets worse when the guide site owners hope to make money or at least recover costs through advertising. There's even more work involved doing sales and keeping up with customer service. Then there's conflict of interest. Do you play down or omit an attraction just because they decline to advertise with you? If you omit, then you're failing the user who expects a comprehensive site. If you don't omit, then those who have hitherto paid to advertise may wonder why they should continue paying. Forum sites depend on the wisdom/intelligence of the masses. It has its pros and cons, as no doubt we all see all too often on this very site (e.g. recent bust-up about antisemitism). But if there is enough participation and contributions, a forum site can go quite far in producing the comprehensive, up-to-date and accurate information that users desire. "Enough participation" means the "network effect" must operate, where users gravitate to a single site and leave the rest in the dust. The more the participation is centred on a single site, the more informative and comprehensive it gets. And, except for the heavylifting done by the moderators (thank you!) it's done free. Seen in this light, the evolution of the online space is only following a natural path.

I was just looking at room bookings for the usual Jomtien Complex hotels for the month of December. Many dates are sold out, to the extent that I may have to completely rework my plans. For the boys and the bars, this high season may be looking good.

I don't see them using the term "straight". They use "gay" and "man". Depending on the business establishment or context, "gay" suggests either someone who is effeminate to some degree or other, or someone who bottoms. "Man" means straight-acting or someone who does not bottom. The term won't tell you much about his sexual orientation. The Thai way of seeing things is to describe gender behaviour, not attraction.

I have used Booking.com quite a fair bit, and I've noticed that many hotels listed there state "Payment handled by property", meaning that the credit card details are only to guarantee the booking, (or sometimes, to pay only for the first night). If a hotel is unhappy about delayed payments from Booking, perhaps they will amend their listing to "Payment handled by property"? Then the money will first flow to the hotel, and it is for them to send the commission onwards to Booking.com. Of course, it may well be that in such a case, the commission that Booking.com charges may be higher than one where the payment is handled by Booking.com itself, so there is a deterrent to hotels handling payments. I have an inkling what the problem at Booking.com is though, I must stress, I am just making an educated guess. It's a very, very common problem, yet one which few people pay attention to. It is this: a large state-of-the art company creates a business ecology that also involves consumers or smaller businesses that are far from state-of-the-art. The large company goes whole hog with IT, with fancy software accompanied by a determined push to reduce headcount (costs). In theory the software mostly works (but sometimes doesn't and there is no one to fix it). In practice, the consumers or business partners find it hard to navigate and fulfill the requirements of the software to get anything done (picture this: a dentist's wife who runs a bed-and-breakfast, struggling with the IT submssions requirements of a major IT company, maybe in a language foreign to her). The reduced headcount at the big company means calls are unanswered and issues left unaddressed. Meanwhile frustration grows among the business partners and consumers... but they can't even get a reply. In my line of work, I have seen this again and again.

You are twisting my words. @scott456 understood me perfectly. What is a right amount depends on circumstances, and we shouldn't jump to the conclusion that 150 - 300 baht is wrong. That's all I said.

My thought exactly. In these mixed places, quite often the masseur gives a handjob while standing beside the massage table without him taking off his clothes. I don't think it's worth the same as in one of the Saphan Khwai places when it's body on body. We need to take context and all the facts into consideration before jumping to conclusions.

Despite having been to the US many times, I am still amazed at this practice and the amounts involved. On the other hand, I have seen Americans get all flustered in Asia when service providers refuse their tips. Once incident I remember: I was once travelling with an American colleague to a secondary city outside Beijing. We were going up to our hotel rooms after check-in, and a bellboy was helping us with our luggage. When we reached our rooms, he offered a tip to the bellboy, who refused it, saying something like "I'm only doing my job, sir." The bellboy's accent was difficult to understand (though I would credit him for speaking in English at all, and in a secondary city too - how many American bellboys in, say, Cincinnati, can speak Chinese?), but I knew what he said. However, my colleague (ike so many Americans) had a hard time dealing with foreign accents, and didn't know what the bellboy said, only that the chap wouldn't take the money. My colleague looked at me and asked in a whisper, "Is it too little?". Yes, that was what crossed his mind! I am much, much happier in countries, like in Asia, where tipping is not expected. Thailand is actually one of those countries. The problem is that the gogobars and massage parlours mis-use the word "tip" to mean service fee. Thus causing much confusion.

I can't read Thai either, so I can figure out the details of this Bangsaen establishment, but at first sight it reminds me of Korean Jjimjilbang (찜질방) which are 24-hour saunas. Jjimjilbangs typically have the usual wet facilities, + a sort of single-sex communal sleeping area (some have massage and scrub too). They normally have other social spaces and a dining room too, but these are mixed-sex spaces, so one is asked to put on a robe before entering the mixed spaces. By implication therefore, one can walk around stark naked in the single-sex areas. Because this is culturally traditional to the Koreans (and to the Japanese and Chinese, who have similar establishments), no one needs to tell clients when to get naked. They only need to tell clients when NOT to get naked. In Thailand however, the opposite may apply, thus the specific mention that it is an all-naked space? (though not being able to read Thai, I can't see that advisory anywhere.)

“If you accidentally enter the new satellite terminal [SAT-1], you will have to restart the whole check-in process again and this delay may result in you missing your flight,” the Airports of Thailand (AOT) warned on Friday. Why???? It doesn't say. I've seen other airports with satellite terminals and while there's time lost from backtracking to the main terminal, there's no need to check in again.

@xpaulo we shouldn't take such surveys too seriously. I wondered about how Turkey made the list while Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries did not. Actually, we don't even know which countries were in the survey in the first place. At best it is some poll that measures how many people will say "yes" to a question from a less-than-representative sample, so, if it measures anything, it is no more than the degree by which people feel free to say they are LGBT. I treat it as little more than a fun thing, even if it has a grain of truth. @PeterRS I think we need to be careful not to make too much of laws. Social attitudes can be vastly different from what the law says. From my observations of Singapore - and from your comments too about straight behaviour and how, when the law was finally repealed, there was no more than a whimper - social attitudes are a lot more liberal on LGBT issues than what we read from the law books. Gee, if we relied on laws to assess social attitudes, then places such as Korea and the Philippines which have not had anti-gay laws for decades, if ever, (as far as I know, if I'm mistaken, please point out) should also demonstrate accepting social attitudes. From what I have read and from several visits to these two countries, that's clearly not the case.

Koh Samui's chronic water shortage Text story includes a video. Doesn't sound like a seasonal problem, but something that will get worse as El Nino bites next year. 5-star hotels may be able to buy groundwater from private extraction companies (for now), but prices go up and that leaves smaller businesses short of water. Imagine getting a massage and being told there is no shower! Direct link to video

Badly written last paragraph. So, did they apprehend the suspects? All it said was that the police "diligently" examined CCTV in order to identify and apprehend the perpetrators.... and then it leaves the reader hanging as to the outcome. And was the word "diligently" really necessary? Or was it to flatter some important people? (just to be clear, I am referring to the reporter; not to forum member @reader, whom I thank for sharing this news tidbit)

I've witnessed something very similar before - not at Toy Boys, but in a Bangkok gogo bar. Also a South Asian dude. And I was seated quite close to the action, so I caught a bit of the conversation. In my incident, the mamasan was explaining that the off fee was for the bar and the boy still expected a tip of [whatever amount - I can't recall]. The customer objected and claimed he had been misled, and said - this I remember - something along the lines of "In my country, 500 would be for everything." Of course, I don't know what country he was referring to, or even whether it had gogo bars of similar variety.

I too have had a case where I mistakenly assumed that the guy who welcomed me into the shop would be the masseur, only to be assigned another. Fortunately the other one wasn't a woman. The story is in my blog: "This boy cannot," she said

@PeterRS wrote: Most majority Chinese communities Technically, you're correct that Singapore is a majority-Chinese city, and I often hear this kind or argument that lumps Singapore with Hong Kong and Taiwan because of this statistic, but my own observations about Singapore and Hong Kong are that they are very different. I've had work projects with several companies based in Singapore and in Hong Kong, but none based in Taiwan so I will leave Taiwan out of these comments. When one works with a company for a period of time, interacting with various levels of staff, one gets to see a different side of a society than if one were only a tourist. In Singapore, the staff in all the companies I have been engaged wth were multi-ethnic. The language they use among themselves was English; I have a feeling that the media they consume is likewise skewed to English language (i.e. more westernised) media. In Hong Kong, other than senior management, the middle and junior levels of staff I dealt with were all local Chinese and if I were not in the conversation, they would be speaking Cantonese among themselves. In fact, even when I was in the conversation, many of the middle and junior staff would stumble when trying to speak in English and would need someone else to translate for them. I am pretty sure they consume primarily Chinese or Cantonese media. In Hong Kong, each time I was invited out for a meal by the middle managers, it would be for Chinese food, such that the one exception was memorable: Lo, they chose a Vietnamese restaurant - which they considered exotic enough. In Singapore, when I hung out with the middle and even junior staff, there would be all kinds of food from Indian paratha to pizza, from shawarma to sushi. In short, a multi-ethnic group of employees consuming multi-origin food. I don't claim that my experiences are representative, on the other hand, they are more in-depth than merely tourist experiences, involving ordinary people far from the tourist industry, and usually sustained over a longish period for each project. I had the privilege of observing them as they interacted with each other in their workplaces and with each other. What I have taken away is a sense that culture-wise, Singapore is rather different from Hong Kong. I mentioned media, because media influences attitudes and culture. Singapore is multi-ethnic, multi-cuisine, multi-language at many levels, whereas Hong Kong is a very Chinese city with a cosmopolitan veneer (e.g. in the same way that Shanghai and Beijing are). That still doesn't tell me very much about societal attitudes towards LGBT - not a subject I enquired much about anyway - but here's another interesting thing: In the Singapore companies, I have seen openly gay managers. (At least two if my memory over the years serves me well). In both those companies, the staff all knew that so-and-so was gay. I have not seen a similar situation in the Hong Kong companies I worked with. But then, mine is a tiny sample. Basically my point is this: While it may be true that Chinese families have great difficulty accepting that their sons are gay, Singapore families, regardless of genes, are less Chinese than Hong Kong families, culturally. This then poses this question: does that mean it is easier for Singapore LGBT to be out, and to answer Yes to a survey question?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iM3Uh5m3WoM Top ten, and one of them is from Southeast Asia - but it isn't Thailand.

I have such a card too but different bank from yours. Works great for the major currencies but Thai baht is not a option on my card. So, pointless for Thai trips.

Yes that sounds like a plan. Go there to unwind. You may still strike lucky and find an Adonis. At the very least you will form your own opinion whether Pattaya is to your taste or not.

And that's the problem. Pattaya is holding less and less interest for me. My usual favourites, relatively speaking, are Abomb and Toyboys. BoyzBoyzBoyz used to be on the list but since it has gone hetero, it's been scratched. The other thing about Pattaya is that massage skills tend to be poor. One may be able to get a bigger boy for massage out of the (exaggeration) hundreds sitting outside their shops, but nothing that comes close to Prime in Bangkok (if I want a real massage) or Arena (if my interest is more carnal). The only thing Pattaya has over Bangkok is the beach... But now that the gay area is also disappearing... sigh.

Oh dear, not to me. But as I've said, tastes differ.