PeterRS

I am sure we have all seen movies that for one reason or another become totally fixed in our minds. Of the most lighthearted ones, I will never forget the first times I saw Cabaret and Victor Victoria. Both remain almost crystal clear in my mind as I have aged. I have been interested to realise over the years that when showing these movies to a younger generation of Thais, they too have enjoyed them - sometimes hugely. I write as I have just seen another on one of the TrueVisions channels. The Reader, with a screenplay by the masterly David Hare and excellently directed by Stephen Daldry, was one of two movies for which the incomparable Kate Winslett was nominated for Best Actress in 2009. Many thought she'd win for Revolutionary Road, the tale of a desperately bored housewife in suburban America with dreams of moving to Paris with her boring and almost equally as bored husband played by Leonardo di Caprio. But she won for The Reader. I believe justifiably so. Set in the mid-1950s, in the movie she plays a mid-30s German tram conductor, Hanna Schmidt. Returning early one evening, she finds a young schoolboy of 15, clearly sick, sitting in the entrance to her apartment block. She cleans him up and takes him back close to his home where he is discovered to have scarlet fever. But he cannot forget Hanna. After his three month recuperation, he returns with flowers to thank her. She is distant and hardly grateful. She asks that he goes down to the coal cellar to collect two buckets of coal. Returning covered in coal dust, she runs a bath for him. With youthful bashfulness he strips off and luxuriates in the bath. Then Hanna is standing by the bath with a towel and we witness the first of what essentially are sex scenes with, had the Thai censors not been so active, considerably nudity. David Kross, the 18 year old German actor who then played the young Michael. looks gorgeous! There follow a number of scenes when he admits he is very much in love with Hanna, even though there is such a difference in their ages. It is, he tells her, his first time being with a woman and clearly he enjoys every minute of it! Even so, Hanna remains distant, her only desire that he read to her. Initially after sex; then prior to sex. One day he runs up to her apartment only to find it totally empty. She has disappeared. As one in the full bloom of first love, he is naturally heartbroken. Some years later as a law student studying the Holocaust, he sees her again. Unknown to him she had been an SS guard in Auschwitz during the war and is being tried along with 5 other guards with the ghastly murder of more than 200 children under their care. Watching her trial Michael is horrified and transfixed. Questioned by the Chief Judge, Hanna seems openly honest and truthful, but yet evasive. Only Michael had finally learned her other secret that, were she to confess it to the Court, could mitigate her sentence. But she is too stubborn. She remains silent. Finally he goes to see her in jail. At the last minute he gets cold feet and walks away. Hanna gets life in prison. As the film fast forwards. Ralph Fiennes as the older Michael has clearly been unable to forget Hanna. After some 20 years he goes to visit her. She has changed immeasurably, but his feelings clearly have not. Ever since meeting her he has been virtually unable to convey his feelings even to the wife he divorced and the daughter he loves. Only as the movie ends does he begin to open up. I find it a haunting movie - and not just because Kate Winslet is wonderful and David Kross is so tempting! It's largely about the choices we make in life and the way we communicate or not with others. It's also special as two of the producers were themselves so special in the world of filmmaking. Both died during production - the greats, Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella.

Chakran close to the Aree stop on the Skytrain might be worth a visit. It is beautifully decorated, has a small pool, rooftop jacuzzi, snack bar and all the other usual facilities. It is now almost exclusively Thai for Thai or Thai for Asian, but since you are young (compared to many of us!) you might find success there. Certainly there will be a lot of young Thais/Asians. Don't confuse it with the massage spa which is located in the same building.

Totally agree that Thailand has so much to see outside the main cities and tourist spots. There are also lots of local events that are stunning and quite unique to Thailand. I have referred before to the Candle Festival in Ubon Ratchathani and the Ghost Festival in the village of Dansai in Loei Province. These both take place during the period of Buddhist Lent and so usually the June/July period. Although there is occasional rain, it is not the main rainy season. The Ubon Festival is not a procession of townsfolk parading through with hand-held candles. For about a month beforehand, each temple prepares massive wax carvings on trucks. These depict scenes from Buddhist scriptures. About 30 or so of these form the main part of the Parade which also includes participation by thousands including many cute students from the local university. There are many ghost festivals around Thailand but Dansai is I believe the largest and most popular. Loei is a lovely green province where the weather is generally little cooler. There is even a large vineyard. The only problem for visitors to the Festival is the lack of good hotel rooms in or very close to the village. There really is only one on the hill above the village and so it needs to be booked far in advance. Many visitors stay in Loei which is about 1 hr 20 minutes away and go by tourist bus.

It's been like this for decades! Fly NYC/TYO or TYO/NYC return and the biz class fare has traditionally been much higher than, say, NYC/TYO/HKG. In the late 1980s when I worked in Hong Kong, there were many occasions when I would purchase return tickets HKG/TYO/NYC for Japanese clients who would just tear up the coupons for the HKG/TYO sectors. It saved them a ton of cash. Unfortunately at some point the airlines got wise to this practice and computers started deleting all flights on a ticket if the first flight was not actually flown. There used to be several anomalies that you could take advantage of. At the same time and well into the 1990s British Airways had a first class fare from Macao to Lisbon via London that was less than the cost of a biz class ticket HKG/London. That seemed madness to me, but I tried it. Macao then had no airport and the ex-Macao ticket provided a jetfoil ticket from Macao to HKG, then first class tickets to London and a biz class seat on to Lisbon as there was no first class on that aircraft. One stopover in London was permitted. A friend in Lisbon alerted me to this and told me just to tear up the jetfoil tickets. I did - and it worked like a dream. I loved those short stops in Lisbon!

Blue Elephant has been a Bangkok Institution for almost two decades. I had the pleasure of being invited to a dinner party there soon after it opened. Everything was as near perfect as one could hope for - food, service, ambience. etc. Since then I have been back more than a dozen times and have never once been disappointed. It's a great restaurant if you have a special guest you would like to impress. The late King's sister, Princess Galyani, would sometimes dine there.

Re Le Bouchon, we dined there yesterday evening. It felt a little strange as we kept trying to work out where the Babylon entrance and staircases had been! We found nothing familiar. Not surprising since it had been a ladies spa and another business since Babylon moved out to the larger premises further down the soi about two decades earlier. We had heard mixed reports about both the food and the service. Some of the staff from the old location on Patpong 2 were still there and they were excellent. Three tall, younger Thai ladies were rather dumb but we assume they will learn. Once seated and with our drinks, everything moved up quite a few notches. We both thought the food was excellent, especially a starter with Hokkaido scallops. The salmon was also near perfection. My plentiful chocolate mousse for dessert had a lovely chocolatey taste and a nice consistency. My partner's Creme Brûlée was as good. Price for a three course meal plus aperitifs and a glass of wine each was 1,900 baht for two. Good value even if on the slightly pricey side. The present menu will be gradually expanded as the staff get into their stride. We were told that the set lunch at 480 baht++ is packed virtually every day. Last night it was around three-quarters full. Closed every Tuesday.

On many trips to Phuket, I also stayed once at Le Meridien, thinking that it would be nice to have a basically private beach. Totally agree with @vaughn. It's a hotel for families and the location is not convenient. I have never returned.

You haven't had a problem in SE Asia because I don't think any countries/cities have special additional taxes. Tokyo has, though. In addition to the standard government consumption tax (VAT) and hotel's usual service charge, there is a special city nightly charge of around $1 - $2. The last is almost always collected by the hotel in cash and does not always appear on booking sites. I understand it is some sort of tourism-related charge. I have been to New York many times over many years and have always had a city per night charge. Sometimes this is prepaid and sometimes added on check out. I have also been in European countries where a special city nightly tax has been levied. As I understand it, these charges are often added with only a short period of advance notice and the nightly rate can also change without much notice. As the website https://ec.europa.eu points out, "In many cases occupancy taxes are payable in person, and cannot be included in the pre-paid price of the accommodation." It adds that these nightly occupancy taxes are being adopted by more countries. Niggling little things like this also piss me off if I am not told about them/do not know about them in advance. If I was to register a complaint on Tripadvisor, I'm not sure where I would make it because it is not the fault of the hotel. Is there a special agoda section for complaints? But considering the amounts are so small relative to the actual cost of the rooms, making a fuss over it seems to me a waste of time and effort.

I thought the now deceased Super A had moved downstairs to pretty dreadful premises more than a few years ago.

As many have done, hugely expensive apartments like those in Bangkok's most expensive condos in Witthayu and homes in places like Phuket. I know two from Hong Kong who have each built huge houses with several guest houses in their own compounds in Phuket. Many of these owners provide employment for cleaners, cooks, housemaids - even butlers. Add in private jet parking fees and yacht berths at marinas. I also knew a couple from my home town in the UK who have been coming to Phuket for six months every winter to stay in their own luxury apartment. Add in all the sun, sand, cuisine etc. that you could not get over wintering the UK. Posters here may assume that sex is an essential part of a visitor experience. I doubt if that's true for most of the rich Elite members. They probably bring their boyfriends/girlfriends with them LOL.

It's been the aim of the country since much further back - around 2003 or so. That was the reason the Thaksin government started up the Thailand Elite scheme. For years it was virtually a disaster, but in recent years with the various major changes to the retirement visa and with some having to lock up virtually 800,000 baht in an account each year, it has become a great deal more popular.

The requirement for anyone arriving in Thailand by air to have an air ticket out of the country has been the law for decades. It is rarely enforced once you arrive at Immigration but some airlines do check this before they allow you to board your flight to Thailand. As a frequent traveller and living in Thailand, I have been stopped twice - in Sydney by British Airways and in Hong Kong by Cathay Pacific. In both cases I was very close to being prevented from being given a boarding pass because I could not show an onward ticket out of the country. The reason given in Sydney was that if the Immigration Department discovered I did not have an onward ticket, I would be sent back to Sydney at my expense and the airline would be fined by the Thai authorities. In order to get on that BA flight, I had to give the check-in manager a signed credit card slip (it was about 15 years ago). I was told Singapore has the same requirement but I have no idea how true that is.

Chiang Mai remains a beautiful city to visit and there are lots of gay boys around. But as @macaroni21 has just pointed out the bar/massage scene is a mere shadow of its former self even eight or so years ago. Well over 70 gay venues have closed for good in that time, most pre-covid. Apart from the points made above by @billyhouston, the main bars now are a cluster of small host bars found in one smallish soi virtually across the main road from Le Meridien Hotel - often named Gay Soi 6. We last visited pre-covid in November 2019 and so the info is out of date but we found these bars very boring. The few working boys seemed interested only in locals and their phones. More so than in Bangkok and Pattaya, Thai gay guys in Chiang Mai do not seek to mix with foreigners. In the evenings they tend to go in groups to mixed clubs. If you are with a Thai, you might meet up with other Thai gays there. But if you go on your own you will almost certainly find mixing with Thais very difficult - partly because few will speak much English. Elsewhere, many of the commercial sex workers are not Thai but come from the Burmese border Shan State. At least that is what we found. You may find it easier to meet up with Thai guys in the two gay saunas, although I'm told that even there there will be some evenings with very few customers. But then of course there will be boys available on the apps.

For as long as I can remember over a great many years, high season for hotels has always started on November 1 and continues basically through to the end of April.

GIven that the practice has been going on for decades and recruits have even died as a result relatively recently, I find the "breach of military discipline" comment more than facile!

If I recall correctly. there were quite often several customers at Barbiery who came as a couple - i.e. male and female. Not many, but often at the week-ends. I do not recall any feeling of discrimination. Indeed, some of the boy couples doing their thing around the audience would sometimes go up to the girls.

I remember venturing to Saphan Kwai about 3 times during the early 1990s since I had heard about a cluster of bars in that area. I stopped by a couple of the gogo bars although I cannot now remember their names. As far as I recall, the dress of the boys was not as skimpy as Soi Twilight and the clientele was more Thai than farang. Perhaps one reason was it was really difficult to get there by tut tuk. I found it less interesting than what was on offer in Twilight and other central locations. So never went back.

I fear both your time and mine have passed. I still think some enterprising entrepreneur with lots of cash could open up the sort of bar that was common in Bangkok 3 and more decades ago - like Barbiery. I am certain it would be hugely popular. But . . . my read is it will never happen again.

Any form of hazing is a disgrace which should lead to the instant dismissal of those found guilty of the practice. Too many young men have died or been maimed as a result.

These lists are all basically nonsense. Anyone who believes that the length of the average erect Thai dick is only 11.45 cms needs to come and do some proper research. The only way that could be accurate is if they count in boys just entering their teens in the sample. To suggest that the average Japanese boasts an appendage more than 2 cms longer is even more nonsense. And that is a comparison I feel able to comment on!

You'll now have to further test his knowledge by mentioning a skean dhu and a tam o' shanter!! LOL

Yet again we see how the wheels of justice in Thailand can move quickly when it is in the interests of the government to ensure this. Conversely it once again shows how the elite will slow the justice process to dead-slow-stop when it is in the interests of one of the elite. The murdering Red Bull heir is still free almost 10 years after murdering a traffic cop doing his duty. This low life was found to have drugs and alcohol in his system and to have been driving his Ferrari at around 200 kph at 5:00 pm along Sukhumvit. The lies that have been consistently told by the government and the police to explain why this murderer cannot be located even with the (alleged) assistance of Interpol (highly doubtful) surely indicates the large dollops of cash his family is regularly passing over until the statute of limitations is reached.

Let's also recall that the disastrous rice pledging campaign adopted by the Yingluck Shinawatra government started the fall in Thailand's overall rice production.

Last week we learned that Netflix has been losing subscribers for the first time in about 10 (?) years. If you had one, have you given up your subscription? I joined less than 2 years ago. At first I really enjoyed a few of the movies and especially binging on several of the multi-episode series during lockdowns. I still subscribe but apart from one movie I have not even checked the site for months. It's not that TrueVisions has much to offer, although I am a junkie for some of the news, current affairs and sports programmes. Its movies channels are a disaster as they now churn out repeat after repeat of mostly old films. Not long ago, two separate channels were both showing the same Bourne movie about half an hour apart! It has also started showing programmes made in Holland, Greece and other countries without any subtitling in either Thai or English! Its programming started to go seriously downhill some years ago when it gave up the HBO channels. Others have also disappeared merely to help the company boosts its own profits. Fox Sports went last year to be replaced by two channels devoted to SPOT TV. This shows a series of sports programmes, many way out of date, which have little interest for me (other then the occasional Japanese men's volleyball!) Why viewers in Thailand would be interested in regular Korean baseball beats me, the more so when Japanese baseball is far better. Even Taiwanese baseball would be worth seeing as its players are much cuter!! One of its lowest ebbs was when it failed to bother obtaining rights for this year's Australian Open Tennis in January, an event it has broadcast for many years. Apparently the rights had been snapped up for much of Asia this year by a company named Be-In Sports which is based in Qatar. I know something about TV rights and True could easily have purchased the rights from Be-In. But it could not be bothered doing so, no doubt because that would have cost more than it paid in previous years. On the first day when I realised it was not showing the Open Tennis, I had a series of long phone calls with its call centre supervisor who could do nothing but keep giving me the party line about True being unable to obtain the rights. I then tied her up in knots regarding TV rights and accused True of paying zero attention to subscribers. Apparently so many other complaints were received that, lo and behold, the Tennis Open was carried by True from the following day! So much for fake party lines!

You make it sound as though the Vietnamese are responsible. It was partly the colonial French and then the USA during the Vietnam War that were solely responsible for the destruction of this major historical site. US troops were even given orders not to destroy the old historical sites. They did so anyway! Only 10 of 160 structures in the Citadel were left standing. True, the presence of the Viet Minh contributed but without those two invading powers, the Citadel would still be standing in all its glory. When built in the early 19th century it was loosely modelled on Beijing's Forbidden City and there remain some parts which are certainly well worth visiting. UNESCO has been helping the Vietnamese restore some of the destruction. I visited Hue, Danang and Hoi An just before the lockdown 2 years ago. I loved that part of Vietnam and will return. I wasn't on the look out for guys but the apps were certainly busy. Photos of The Hue Citadel