Londoner

Have just had three pleasant days in Tarntawan. Inquiring about the future, I was told that, after the renovations, the only change will be to the name. The staff remain. The hotel has had some critical comments recently; I can report that the reception and staff were friendly, the rooms as clean as always in my experience and the a/c quiet and effective. I thought some of the criticisms to be OTT, to say the least and noted that Trip Advisor's reviews were generally positive. In other words, I was not alone in my views. I am now In Krabi , staying in a hotel twice as expensive as Tarntawan. Not only is the breakfast nowhere near as good but I'm being charged 450bht pp a day for it. I have to say this though.....the restaurant- on the sea-front with a view of the islands in distance- is rather better than that of Surawong!

The staff are remaining, I understand, and according to Agoda, the pricing will remain much the same.

Ex- Tarntawan clients will be seeking hotels of a similar price. Le Meridien and similar are too expensive and the likes of BBB Inn too cheap. Tarantawan charges around 2500 pn.f

I'm due to arrive next week. And after twenty years of patronage the email I received this morning quoted by ggobkk heralded the end of an era; yes, another one. I've been getting discounts for years- deservedly so in view of my loyalty- and I suspect that that will end. As to the carpets....their distinctive smell always announced to me that I'd finally arrived after fifteen hours of travel and so was strangely welcome. More modern hotels in climates like Bangkok's no longer (in my experience) have them. Rightly so.

One of the advantages of the numerous places around Jomtien Complex is that many (most? all?) of the guys sit outside, making selection easier. There seem to me to be many more guys than at the Pattaya joints. And I've seen some cute ones, too. I hasten to add that I've no experience of any of them! By the way, have you tried hornet and Romeo?

Thanks....sounds ideal for me.

Where exactly is the new Hotmale? Thanks for the update.

BoyzBoyzBoyz in Pattaya is often referred to as "BBB"- for obvious reasons.

Further to Will7272's remark about beer bars and host bars, he is quite correct; being able to sit in Dick's, or at tables at the other bars at street level, was one of my Bangkok pleasures. Watching people - customers, massage staff, guys on their way to work and staff- over a glass of beer was an enjoyable and inexpensive way of spending a couple of hours. To be blunt, I'd lost interest in the go-go bars by about 2007...as soon as go- go dancing was replaced by go-go standing and go-go posing. I hope that the new gay area will accommodate such venues.

Babylon's dark room is pitch-black for about two minutes....and then your eyes adjust and you can make out shapes. You cannot tell whether someone is falang or Asian except by making assumptions based on height and weight!

At Babylon, the hot tub/shower room opens at about 1700. Before then. the dark room is busy from about 1500.

That's a good deal better than I'd have expected.

Glamour? I don't remember any on my first visit in 1997. On that occasion, I knew only Boyztown; Patong (and the Paradise Complex ) compared very badly to it in terms of gay venues available, costs, and- most of all- environment. Much of Pattaya was pretty shabby in those days but the Paradise Complex was, bluntly, dispiriting to visit. I've returned to Phuket with my boyfriend on an number of occasions since and we prefer to spend our time in other parts of the island.

How many punters at the bars visited?

The popularity of gay go-go bars has been declining for twenty years. An owner of one of the biggest and most popular confided me in about 2007, just before he sold-up, that he saw no future in the game. Admittedly, that was before the major Asian influx and a few have certainly been kept alive by straight Chinese tourists who go to look but only spend money on drinks. As the guide said, the apps have removed the need for money-boys to prance around (or nowadays, stand around) in underwear. Some of them do well-enough from their apartments and some don't....but the same was true of go-go dancers. Host bars in Jomtien are coping as are massage joints....but few traditional go go bars have looked busy for years. My impression of Nice in Sunee a couple of months ago - a popular bar that has a devoted if elderly clientele- was that the guys were making their money from services offered on-site rather than offing.

What time did you arrive in Patpong? I hope your trip improves....

I agree that some of the guys are better-looking than their photos suggest. I'm thinking of those photos where the guy is putting on a moody James Dean look or, even more irritating, pulling faces at the camera...sticking out a tongue for instance.,

Let's be honest about this....the guys back then were hungrier. Larger, pre-birth control families were still encouraging (or allowing) their sixteen year-olds to migrate to Bangkok and Pattaya because there wasn't enough to eat at home. The Isaan busses were met in Bangkok by bar-owners, and offers of work and accommodation made. In 1996, my first visit to Pattaya, sixteen was the legal age for go go dancers. These guys were often poorly educated, desperate for money and, frankly naive, having spent their lives in some very isolated communities. There was certainly nude dancing in soi Twilight in 1997. Blue Star had two troupes, one of more mature guys, the other of the younger ones. They took the go go responsibilities in turn but appeared together for the full-frontal display. Even then, I was conscious that some of the younger guys were very shy, keeping their hands strategically placed while the older ones were usually more comfortable. I also saw nude dancing in a tiny Patong Bar, and the old Adam's Apple in Chiang Mai. Once or twice in Sunee, too.

We oldies tend to romanticise the past. Ask me about BKK in 1997, the year of my first visit and I'll recall the exciting , vibrant and busy bars I visited, all of them full of cute and willing guys. And they actually danced and engaged with us. So different to the statuesque ones that took over ten years later when straight guys with muscles became the fashion. And yet, and yet....if pressed, I can also recall bars with no customers and few guys. Even then, there were too many bars, a couple of them in Patpong where the exodus is taking place, and even at the end of Silom Soi 2 where the clubs are now. Some of them had disappeared before my next trip the following year. Come to think of it, I'd even suggest that the last few years of Soi Twilight have seen a period of relative stability. And, by the way, in 1998, Soi Twilight had only a few of other bars -Twilight Bar itself, Blue Star, Extreme......it was hardly the centre of gay life. Others can correct me on this but my recollection is that it wasn't even paved in those days.

I have come across cases where guys who work and live in Jomtien don't know where Boyztown is. Come to think of it, there was one who lived in Sunee and needed directions. I'm not sure whether this is a comment on the decline of Boyztown or the parochialism of the young men!

I agree with JackR. Too many bars were established in the last fifteen years to cater for a dwindling market. Empty bars drive away customers, empty sois likewise, just as a vibrant atmosphere encourages custom.

If someone's life-style is so embarrassing that no one must know of it, even after he/she is dead, my suggestion is to change that life-style. That's what millions of our forebears did to avoid persecution. And of course, others campaigned, often at great personal cost so that our generation need not be embarrassed....

In my seventy-plus visits, I've only been inconvenienced by flooding once. That was during a September/October stay. Sometimes in June the area near the Temple (Junction of 2nd road and Pattaya Tai), the water will quickly reach a few inches but no one seems to take much notice. And thirty minutes later, it's gone. Flooding is very localised. Once P. and I thought ourselves stuck in Central Mall; the water outside was about twelve inches in depth. He bravely ran (waded!) across 2nd Road and called a taxi. Five minutes later it had taken us to Boyztown, only a km away....which was bone dry. By the way, that one day on which I was inconvenienced and watched fish being caught in Boyztown had dried -out by the evening. The soi was barely damp.

Many will tell you that Songkran is a time to avoid in tourist areas. My boyfriend's experience in the northern countryside is very different....washing Buddha images, visiting grandparents and parents to pay respect with a sprinkling of water. My experience, a week before Songkran when I was in Pattaya, was receiving a bucket- full of icy water in the face while travelling at 30+ mph on the Jomtien road. Accordingly, Songkran joins New Year as the only times of the year when I'm happy not to be in Thailand!

Traveller123 is correct about Jomtien. The gay scene there- no gogo- is more lively than in Pattaya and there is a good selection of gay and gay-friendly hotels in Jomtien Complex. The buses to Pattaya are numerous; seldom do you have to wait longer than a minute though you may have to queue in the late evening to return to Jomtien. The cost is 10 bht. It takes up to fifteen minutes. Why not try both? My boyfriend and I love the Agate Hotel in Jomtien but prefer the evenings in Pattaya staying in the newly refurbished Ambiance....so we split our trips between the two.