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Not necessarily. I, for one, in both bars and massage venues try to steer to clear our of Mamasans, and prefer to deal with boys themselves. Last week I overheard mamasan telling customer that long time tip in that bar is 4000. While later when called boy for a drink, again motioning him myself to come over, quoted just 3000.  Sometimes though mamasans can be useful if you need translation but DIY as much as you can. 

Olddaddy is super nice guy with only one personality and if his posts don't make sense I suggest you urgently strat taking  double doses of gingko biloba or something

Bismarck, late XIX century German chancellor once said " people should never be shown how politics and sausages are made". At least you know why

While I accept that the fault was mine for not checking that I collected my passport back from reception, the reception staff should also have made sure that they return the passport immediately after making a photocopy. Both sides were equally negligent. Thank goodness the issue was discovered quickly. Reception guy had passed my passport to another staff to make a photocopy while he processed my room check-in. And both Reception guy and I forgot about the passport. The hotel really need to look into their operating practices. I like the hotel but with a heavy heart, I must comment on service standard. Some of the staff have not been trained as well as the experienced ones. Another example I will recount is a Chinese guest coming back to reception with his keycard and luggage. He said he couldn't access the lift to the 3rd floor. His room - 310X. I can't remember the room whether it was 6, 7 or 8 so I just call it X. But clearly it was the guest's first time in hotel. He didn't realise that 3 refers to building 3 and 1 refers to 1st floor. I believe he went to lift and press 3 to go to 3rd floor. Reception staff should have explained to him more clearly. By the way, the guest's English was limited so I spoke to him in Chinese and found out his problem. I happened to be at reception when the guest came down. I cannot recall if I wrote about the wrong keycard being given to a guest in my report about my weekend trip two weeks ago. I will recount it here - a Chinese guest came back to reception to say that when he opened the door to his room, there was someone already inside. He and his travelling buddy (another male tourist from China) were shocked. The reception staff checked and realised there was a mistake. Wrong room assigned and wrong keycard given! I didn't have to help translate as the guests spoke good English. And finally on Saturday morning, on my way out of the hotel, I saw two Thai policemen standing at reception. All the reception staff were at reception. There was a small-sized Asian lady standing with the policemen and speaking to reception staff. I surmise that the Asian lady was a hotel guest and she probably called in the police to report something stolen from her hotel room. I didn't stay to witness what happened next. My conclusion is that one needs to be careful when staying at this hotel. Perhaps there are too many new staff recently hired and they are inexperienced, thus making mistakes and causing misunderstanding. Always good to check and look after one's things properly. Other than this, I like the hotel. I only hope the prices are not so high! They used to be affordable but not nowadays.

It's been almost 33 years since the actor River Phoenix died from an overdose of several drugs. He was just 23 but one of the leading young actors of his generation. His coming of age drama movie Stand By Me directed by the late Rob Reiner is being re-released to mark its 40th anniversary. Most may recall My Private idaho where he plays a gay street hustler for which he received several accolades. For one so relatively young, I had no idea he was in 16 mostly major movies. These are discussed in an article in Thursday's Guardian newspaper. Three decades ago, queer parts for straight-identifying actors were still thought of largely as awards bids (see William Hurt’s transparently covetous performance in Kiss of the Spider Woman) or career-killers (even at the end of the 1990s, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio all turned down Brokeback Mountain). In that context, the boldness of Phoenix and Keanu Reeves in unselfconsciously playing sex workers in My Own Private Idaho, a kind of Midnight Cowboy cross-pollinated with Shakespeare’s Henry plays, should not be underestimated. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/aug/06/james-dean-has-got-nothing-on-that-kid-river-phoenix-films-ranked