Londoner

"When we are together it is clear that I am to be looked after." Yes; my experience is the same, even to the extent of my arm being held when we cross a road, even though my experience as a Londoner makes me far more aware of the dangers of traffic than a farmer from Kamphaeng Phaet, where two tractors are considered a traffic jam!

One of the other gay forums rarely includes any threads that aren't Covid-based. I know the issue is vitally important-it is for me- but for heaven's sake, let's talk about other things too.

Thanks; I love this post, not only because it's Covid-free but because so much of it resonates profoundly with those of us who in LTRs and are consequently struggling to ensure that our loved-ones are coping. I understand your decisions to help BG. I expect you have heard the warnings- silent or otherwise- not to be taken-in, exploited, abused and so on. We give, sometimes generously, but the amount of happiness and relief that our money provides is worth it. I've never gone hungry because of P; I've never said, "No, that new shirt is beyond me at the moment..." and so on. I tell him- and it is true- that giving money to him gives me happiness. And as a Buddhist, he appreciates this fully, perhaps beyond my understanding. The money I have I saved by missing four trips has certainly helped P..... a new smart TV, a new motor cy, the re-seeding of his small-holding and a spirit house the size of a Bangkok temple ....well almost.... not to mention the other day-to day expenses, none of which I have missed. He has done well out of lockdown!

Thanks for reminding me....I loved those books. I read the first two in the series but I see that there are more which I've now ordered, thanks to you!

Others on this site are far more knowledgeable about Japan and its culture than I am - I've not even been there- but may I make a couple of points? Is it possible that the communal bath-culture so loved in the country affected the acceptance and popularity of Japanese saunas? And I have been a London sauna- frequenter for twenty years and have the impression that Japanese guests are represented at a higher level than I'd expect from their numbers in London.

If Babylon is to close permanently- perhaps it has already- it will undoubtedly be the result of the property values of its surrounding area. However, anyone who remembers its old premises and the huge numbers it attracted twenty or so years ago will recognise that social media has affected the popularity of saunas, perhaps as much as that of gay go go bars. Obelisk and Colony went long ago. And others, whose names I cannot recall.

I'm becoming something of a boor on this subject but I must allude again to the highly-successful campaign to encourage the use of condoms, with a corresponding drop in birth rate in the 90s. I suspect that perhaps the improvements in living -standards under Thaksin twenty plus years ago played their part.

One thing that I found surprising is that P's school (this was in late 90s) held ladyboy competitions, not unlike those that used to be held in Pattaya. I suppose this merely goes to show (as I suggested earlier) that a clearly defined Third Sex was more acceptable than what we think of as gay sexuality.

I wonder how much gay sex is practised in rural areas? Is it to be assumed that a gay man, wishing to express his sexuality, has to travel to Chiang Mai or Bangkok? I ask this question because of a friend of my boyfriend, in Kamphaeng Phaet, was recently diagnosed with hiv+. I was astonished. P blamed the guy's infection on his interest in cruising toilets- specifically those attached to petrol stations. He says that there are very, very few local guys (that is, within thirty kms ) on Romeo or Hornet. And so, presumably, other avenues are explored. It sounds rather like 1950s Britain. I should add that P told me that his first experience was with a schoolfriend when he was eighteen and that his nephew, who is also eighteen, has just "come out" without, as far as he knows, facing opposition in his family. I suppose it helps having a gay uncle!

Fascinating. I knew that my boyfriend was very close to his parents and he claimed that they were fully aware of his sexuality but that the subject was never discussed. We'd been together for four years or more before I received the invitation to visit in Kamphaeng Phaet. I had felt rather hurt by his reluctance, particularly in view of the falangs I knew who'd been "taken home" at an early stage in their relationships. I wondered whether the poverty in which they lived was an issue, and without explaining why, I talked to him about my experiences in West Africa, where the poverty in some rural villages and compounds I'd visited (and ate in, from communal bowls) was way beyond that of rural Thailand. But no. I had to tease out the reasons why my invitation was relatively late in arriving; nothing to do with poverty, parent or family; everything to do with the close-knit village in which his family lived and its collective view of homosexuality. A gay man, he told me, was considered to be effeminate. P is straight-looking and acting. He didn't want to be considered a ladyboy, or anything like it. About a year earlier, I'd paid for a house to be built next to his parents to provide a better environment for him....it even had an indoor toilet and bathroom! However, he was there for only six years when the opportunity arose for him to move about ten kms away, to a secluded (relatively speaking) but older house with its own plot of land. I have to admit to being upset. That house near his parents had cost me dear; I'd been involved in every stage of its planning and construction. I must confess to a feeling of pride for what I'd done for him. And of hurt by his decision. But again, the desire for privacy and separation from the village trumped everything else, including being willing to swap the smart concrete house I'd paid for an old and traditional one. I stress that P , who's now thirty-eight, is straight-looking and acting. And exclusively and assertively gay. But the hold the community still had on him was immense. He visits his parents everyday; but his sexuality ensures that he will no longer live there. In an odd way, bearing the mind the part I played in his two houses, including the fitting-up and refurbishment of his new one, I am something of a victim too!

I understood that private hospitals are (or will be) offering both doses at 2500-3000 bht. Like others, I was pleased to hear the announcement about re-opening. I checked EVA's flights from London, and yes, they are available in October. I also contacted Agate Hotel (Jomtien) but they are still closed, waiting and hoping. Perhaps I'm grasping at straws, but it was good to speak to P this morning and agree with him that we may be together in four months.

Ting-tong and ching-chong.

Some members of the the Thai hi-so community acts as if they have a divine right to do exactly as they please, whether it is killing traffic policemen and escaping (sic), paying thugs to attack Red Shirts or (so it seems) acting as if there is no national health emergency. These spoilt brats are untouchable, while the Thai population sweats and labours in fields, or works long , underpaid hours in 7 11s...or for that matter, keeps the tourist business alive in Patpong. Unsuccessfully, for now. I won't say here what I believe is the root cause of the chasm between the very rich and the rest of the country but note (with a degree of optimism, though not much), that middle -class students , as well as Red Shirts, are challenging the status quo. About time too.

Please, please, not vests! I was having a beer in Panorama. A couple of tables away was an elderly gentleman in a white vest with his Thai companion....heaven knows what my mother would have said. I thought it absolutely appropriate that he was drinking beer (the large Singha or Leo, whatever) while the Thai had a glass of water. But that's my prejudice showing. Apologies; my Britishness is showing again. A km away, in Soi Bukheaw (sp), he could have bought a T-shirt for less than 100 bht. Less than the cost of his beer. This was over a decade ago. It's probably not to my credit that it has stayed in my memory.

Chicken with cashew nuts! The first thing I order on my first night in Thailand. The Balcony, Dick's Cafe....wherever. And now I'm feeling bereft; fifteen months without. I ordered it in London many years ago. Never again.

Nonsense! we are all irresistible, whatever we look like, whatever we wear. Or so I've been told.

Speaking of clothes... Things have certainly changed. On my first visit in 1995, my memory is that, in Boyztown, falang gentlemen (sic) made an effort to dress more formally in the evenings. I mean by that long trousers, usually not jeans, and shirts with collars, not T-shirts. I certainly did but "dressing for dinner" had always part of my holiday experience. In the Caribbean, which was my chosen destination before Thailand, hotels wouldn't serve dinner to guests in shorts and some places even demanded a jacket. it took a few years for me to adapt to the more informal (and infinitely more sensible) fashions of today. And P too, though I expect some of you will be surprised by that. Like me, he wore shorts in the daytime but for the evenings he changed to long trousers. He is as old-fashioned in a Thai way as I am in my British habits! And then , one evening, on the way to Central from Jomtien we both noted that we were the only men in a crowded bus not in shorts. A revelation indeed! Now, my up-bringing is out the window and I wear shorts and a polo shirt to dinner. Just as P does. And it feels so much more comfortable.

Thaiger is a reliable source but.....July? I'm not even confident of my October plans going ahead.

A quick look at the website suggests that its readership must have very different tastes to mine. I wonder if it's aimed at women, despite its name?

Pattaya hotels have been ordered to close by the Governor. For weeks I've been trying to sus-out the Agate situation. This what the management told me a fortnight ago.

My sympathies to all Brazilians. It would help you and all your fellow citizens, if you got rid of the Covid-denying, racist, homophobic and ineffably stupid Bolsonaro and elected someone who would fight the virus. Come back Lula!

To be blunt, I don't care..... were it safe and the hotels open, I'd be on my way there now.

I'd like to know more. What "trick" could have persuaded anyone to give up a password?

I can understand that. What I like about Thai food is that the simple dishes which I enjoy- such chicken with cashew nuts, or squid salad- don't require a huge amount of expertise to be tasty. I eat it only occasionally here in London and I suppose that its association with Thailand adds a certain lustre to it. A bit like sex perhaps.....no, not really! "Occasionally" doesn't even begin to describe that .

Some positive news at last....thanks.