TALES from a GAY LIFE (mostly in Asia) – Part 4

[PeterRS]

Spas! I was never really a massage guy until Albury opened around 1996 or so. I happened to be spending a long weekend with friends who lived at the far end of Sukhumvit Soi 15. They had heard that a new spa named Albury was opening nearby that weekend and suggested we go. I am not sure how the word got out, but it was surprisingly busy. I tend to be more into twinks than the more buffed guys and was slightly disappointed until I saw a fabulous looker who was exactly my type. I will not give his name for I know he now lives with his lover in Chiang Mai. But he gave a surprisingly good massage with great ‘afters’. He then became my regular monthly masseur for about six years.

Not that I only patronized Albury. Even before Chakran opened, nearby I was a semi-regular at V Club on Soi Aree. It was popular because it had a few genuine models - mostly from fashion magazines but once or twice someone from the movies. At that time I was living quite near Aqua just off Sathorn near Chongnonsi/Narathiwat. Like Albury, it was in a private house with a bar where you could also have snacks. Of the various times I was there, I cannot recall anything other than a good to excellent massage and . . . need I say more?

Living so close to Thailand and then living here from the end of 2001 (albeit with monthly trips to Hong Kong), I had got to know a lot about other parts of the country. En route to Singapore I’d sometimes stop off in Phuket for a couple of days. The end of Nai Harn beach from what has been variously named as the Phuket Yacht Club and a Mandarin Oriental hotel was often quite cruisy in the late afternoons. I found the most enjoyable gay gogo bar for a while to be Young Sharks, not part of the complex around the Paradise Hotel. 

Chiang Mai has also been a regular since 1987 when I met and spent the night with a lovely young guy I met wandering around the Night Market. Adam’s Apple used to be fun for a few years but I then went off it. I preferred a young lad from Udon Thani who worked at one of the massage spas not far from Le Meridien Hotel and whom I visited regularly. Once when staying at the Dusit D2 hotel I asked a very obviously gay concierge if he could recommend a different spa. He suggested one named I think ‘Him’ - across the river from what is now the Centara Riverside hotel. Although a bit far away, it turned out to be excellent.

Of the two saunas in Chiang Mai (I did go to a third named Sanctuary Spa once - it was located south of the city on the river - beautiful setting but a dud as a hookup place, alas), I always went to House of Male. It could sometimes be a bit boring, but they used to have a two-for-the-price-of-one offer for students at the nearby University a couple of days a week. These could be really fun. One time I had met a really nice guy and we’d exchanged details. Then I stupidly left a pair of spectacles in or near my locker. No one could find them which annoyed me for my stupidity. A couple of months later, the boy from Chiang Mai was in Bangkok and I suggested having dinner at Sphinx. He told me to close my eyes as he had a small gift for me. It was my spectacles! How he had got hold of them I have no idea. I thanked him the only way I thought appropriate!

Exploring Thailand has been half the fun of living here. I have posted photo essays in this forum of my trip to the Ubon Ratchathani Candle Festival, an absolutely fantastic day. Held at the end of Buddhist Lent, every temple in town hires a lorry - usually a long one and then craftsmen spend a month creating in wax the most spectacular scenes from Buddhist history. These are huge sculptures. It seems like all the townspeople take part from the kids, the students - some looked mouth-wateringly gorgeous - to the elderly. Such a fun day and I was almost the only tourist that year! In the evening I even found the town’s one sauna!

I have also posted more recently about the Dansai Ghost Festival in Loei Province, another superb day and quite unique as it is larger than most similar festivals. I have done other photo essays on places like Khao Lak north of Phuket which has a fabulous Marriott Hotel and the widest and least populated beach I have ever seen in Thailand. I am not sure how I got a 75% discount from the TravelZoo site, but it was amazing value. That same year 2013 I also got 70% off a 5-star hotel in Tokyo and 60% off yet another 5-star hotel on Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg - all from TravelZoo. Sadly TravelZoo Australia which had loads of special offers in Asia closed. When I tried recently to contact them, I was referred to their USA site. For Asia that is utterly hopeless. I see there is a UK site but that requires paying £30 per year for their services. It may be worthwhile, but I want to know more about their deals in Asia before I pay them anything. As used to be the case in gay bars, I like to see what I am getting before I pay up.

[macaroni21]

My most memorable excursions around the country have been boat journeys. The first was in the early 1990s - a ride on an open longtail boat from Tha Ton (right up north, near the Burma border, down the Kok river (a  tributory of the Mekong) to Chang Rai. It took just an afternoon, but it being an open canoe (albeit a motorised one) with no protection from the blazing sun, I was roasted by the time we reached Chiang Rai.

Tweny years later, it was another longtail boat (this time with cover) for a two-day journey upstream on the Mekong River, from Luang Prabang to the Lao town on the opposite bank of Chang Sean (I forget waht the Lao town was called). To be clear, it was in Laos, not Thailand. I loved that trip; we had to negotiate quite a few rapids, and the boat also stopped at several villages and hermitages along the way (the route serves locals mostly).

I have been wondering on and off whether it might be fun to go down the broader stretch of the Mekong from Nong Khai to maybe Pakse or, if possible all the way to Phnom Penh. But I don't see any organised route; though I am sure if I put on my younger backpacking self, I can do it without too much trouble. The only thing that makes me hesitate is if this more downstream stretch might be through too flat a region, so less interesting than the gorges and mountains up north.

[macaroni21]

Oh, and how can I forget!

A gun battle broke out while our open canoe was on the Kok river as we putt-putted our way through a steep valley. We could see flashes on the mountainside to our right. There was nowhere, absolutely nowhere, to duck or hide, save to jump into the fast-flowing river (which would have been too stupid to contemplate). Some locals on the boat screamed, but others didn't seem too panicky (it was mostly locals on the boat) - a relative calmness which was rather curious. Nor was the boatman too alarmed. He revved the engine, but kept going. In any case, what else could he do?

Soon, there were flashes of gunfire from the other side of the valley. But I also noticed that no bullets were piercing the water around us. We weren't being ambused from both sides. The boatman said something to the passengers in Thai, which of course I didn't understand. But it didn't take long for me to guess that it was actually a gun battle between two narcotics gangs who controlled opposite sides of the valley. They are aiming at each other, not us. Still, it was a relief when the shots died down soon after and we were several hundred metres further along. The fast river current helped.