lotus123

This is very similar to the situation in Canada. If you start early, you lose 0.6% from the full payment for every month before your 65th birthday. Conversely, you gain 0.7% per month for every month you delay after that birthday, until age 70. Consequently, I'm doing my best to hold off for as long as I can.

Seed for me, too. Hopefully we wouldn't all be there on the same evening!

She was indeed a ladyboy and profiled in the book to which @forrestreid has helpfully posted a link. She performed in many different bars over the years. I first saw her at Super Lex Matsuda around the turn of the century. The mamasan at the time, Khun Phet, herself a ladyboy, told me a bit of her background but I didn't get the deeper story until I read the book. I used to tip Auntie Nong wherever I happened to see her. As for Super Lex Matsuda, it was one of my fave bars in those days. I always thought it went downhill after Khun Phet left, as did Mustache House, which she had managed before she moved to SLM. She wasn't pushy, was good company if you wanted her to be, knew everything about every boy, and kept the place in good order. She was inventive, too. During one of the Thai Rak Thai morality campaigns when no nudity was allowed, she got the boys to show off their more respectable talents. I'll never forget one boy getting up and doing a mor lam number accapella. It was hauntingly beautiful and got a long spell of applause from the other boys. Auntie Nong also performed. Then I took a boy home and got demolished like I never had before. An unforgettable night for several reasons!

Love it. Will definitely check this place out when I can next get to BKK.

Well, this is encouraging. As in it might encourage me to go to LOS again. I hope someone will post with a first hand review of the flight.

There's a first day for everybody in every business. Maybe Mike told the truth.

I'll go there. Yes, Thais seem to me to accept transgenderism more than homosexuality. My unscientific theory is that it's because kathoey conform to a traditional gender presentation/role even if it's the "wrong" one in relation to the sex they were born into.

Thailand has been mythologized by outsiders as a sort of gay paradise that allegedly has high levels of tolerance for sexual diversity. My observation is that it's simply not true at the village level. Even in 2021, I would bet that most gay and bi Thai men outside certain circles in the capital are closeted, and definitely so if they present as straight-acting, as per Londoner's example above. They can discreetly do as they please or whom they please, but if they try to adopt a publicly gay identity, they encounter immediate pushback.

The second time, and subsequent times, have often been as good or better for me. Like some who've commented above, I prefer the tried and true over the attractive but untried. With my longterm Thai guy, it took 8 years for the sex to start dimming in excitement -- and then the light went out completely within a year. With others, anything from 2 to a dozen encounters were satisfactory or better. There was one guy I offed at least once a year between 2001 and 2015. Every time I saw him, he was in better shape!

The air in Bangkok looks so clear!

You've hit the nail on the head. Educated young Thais who are good at English generally don't go into teaching; they leverage their English skills in other fields that are far, far more lucrative. Since the most English-competent people don't self-select for teaching, the only solution is in-service training and development for those who HAVE self-selected and are already in charge of classrooms.

I won't comment on the Ministry of Education's policies. What I will say as someone who taught in Thailand 20 years ago is that the salaries for foreign teachers in publicly funded schools in Thailand -- which is a category that takes in all public primary and secondary schools, as well as many colleges and universities -- were fixed at 25K baht per year (17K salary + 8K housing allowance) back in the 1990s. They have not changed since, as far as I know, or at least they hadn't the last time I checked, which was in 2015. Twenty-five thousand a month was a decent salary in the 90s, but I wouldn't care to try living on it in 2020. There are sometimes opportunities to earn more, either through overtime or by taking on extra classes in after-school programs. That said, private schools, colleges, and universities may offer higher pay, as will commercial language schools, especially ones that specialize in corporate language training. The most lucrative teaching positions by far are those in the international primary and secondary schools (i.e. schools run on foreign curricula where at least 70% of the pupils are foreign passport holders). For those jobs, however, you *usually* need to be licensed to teach in public schools in your home country. In other words, you need to be a properly qualified career teacher. If that's you, hooray. You could be making a salary similar to what you would make back home, plus benefits like free flights for home leave, multiple weeks of paid vacation, a generous housing allowance, top-of-the-line health insurance, etc., etc. In nearly all cases, you would be recruited from abroad, often at international school job fairs. There is one loophole for those not properly qualified: international schools that have to fill unexpected vacancies on short notice are permitted to hire under-qualified foreign teachers on local contract, on the spot. You won't get the benefits, but you will get a salary comparable to what your more qualified colleagues get. The tricky bit is to be in the right place at the right time...

As others have said, my first night was memorable. Why? Because it was the first. For me, that was the first night of my first visit to BKK, back in the summer of 1997, which I've written about on another thread. However, the first night that I had a really great fuck is also memorable. That was at the end of '97. It was with a guy called Toy, of all things, who worked at Twilight. He was an ethnic Khmer from Buriram who could, um, ram it really well. He claimed to be 27, but I found out later he was closer to 37. We got together off and on for a year until he ordained as a monk. No kidding. Apart from the night I met my longterm boyfriend, the other most memorable night was the one I spent with a Thai guy off Romeo. Beginner's luck, in that he was my first-ever online connect in BKK. This was around 2012. We met in Silom and had a drink in Soi 4. He spoke excellent, idiomatic English. We then took a taxi to his condo unit in a tall, swanky building. Said he was an architect. Looked to be in his late 20s, but who knows? Quite dark skinned. Average height, but muscular and with a chiseled jaw. It turned out he was also packing a thick 7 or so inches, which he used to work me over good. At dawn, pretending to be still asleep, he pulled the blanket aside to reveal his morning wood. I admired it for a few minutes before he grabbed my neck and pushed my head down for a blow job, which I was only too happy to provide. There followed a thorough fuckdown before he kicked me out around 8am, saying that he had to go to work. Never saw him again, nor did I ever have such a successful Romeo encounter again.

I spewed my water at this.

If you use Korean Air again, you could break your journey in Seoul. I love it there. Lots of fine young men around!

Back in 2012, the Bangkok Post ran a piece about host bars that cater to straight women. I tried to post a link, but it seems to be dead. If memory serves, the reporter, a Thai woman, visited several establishments in Bangkok. I didn't recognize the names of any of them and the locations were not in tourist areas. If I remember correctly, some were open to all, but some only let women enter. I did, however, find this more recent piece by a female farang on Thrillist: https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/my-night-in-a-bangkok-escort-club-for-women . She doesn't seem to have had a good time, but then the set-up doesn't sound like much fun, either.

I don't want to say which one, for fear of hurting his prospects, but I'm pleased to see an old favourite in Numazu's 2016 pic of the Hotmale lineup. How old a favourite? I first offed him in 2001, or maybe 2002. I haven't been back to BKK since 2016, so I don't know his whereabouts now. I'd say there's a good chance he's still slaying the lineup in some bar, somewhere.

That's a great line, about Bangkok providing "the illusion of discretion." Very well observed.

An alternative to Ayutthaya is Lopburi. It takes a little longer to get there, about 2.5-3 hours by ordinary train from Hualomphong Stn, but it's cheap and easy to do because the Lopburi train station is right in the centre of the town. From there, you can easily walk to the sights, but tuktuks are of course available at the station, too. There are Angkorean temple ruins to see, as well as the remains of the palaces of King Narai of Ayutthaya and his chief minister, who was a Greek adventurer named Constantine Phaulkon. They came to Lopburi seasonally to get away from Ayutthaya. There's a small museum, too. Many visitors enjoy interacting with the monkeys that inhabit one of the Angkorean temples, and indeed much of the town centre, but I prefer to give them a wide berth. I don't know if it's still there or still good, but The White House restaurant used to be the best place to eat.

Glad to hear about a successful 3-some. I've never had a really satisfying one, myself.

I second the BACC, which is easily combined with the Jim Thompson House. They're within 10-15 minutes' walk of one another, and both are near Siam Square and MBK if you also want to do some shopping or catch a movie. Apart from art exhibitions, the BACC also has some quirky shops and eateries on the lower floors. There's also a reading room with a lot of English-language books, mainly about art and design, in the basement. As for the Jim Thompson House, if you don't want to pay for the tour, there's a gallery with quarterly free exhibits above the shop, and you can also eat and/or drink in the café. I'm also a fan of Chinatown (Yaowarat). Now that the MRT extension is up and running (or will be soon?), you can emerge at surface level right next to Wat Mangkon, one of the capital's biggest and most important Chinese temple-shrine complexes. Wat Traimit with the giant golden Buddha and the Chinatown heritage museum is within walking distance, as are several other Chinese temples and shrines and the Chinatown gate. There's also lots of good food to be had on Yaowarat Road, which is Chinatown's main drag. In the evening, food vendors set up on the sidewalk up and down the street, and also in some of the side streets. I've written about spending an evening in Chinatown on my blog: https://lotusandpersimmon.com/lpshop/blog/57_a-yaowarat-evening.html . If you're interested, there are other posts about Bangkok and Thailand on the blog.

A good mamasan is worth every penny. I fondly remember Khun Phet at Super Lex Matsuda (for newer BKK visitors, this gogo bar was in the same short sub-soi as Super A), circa 2000. She kept the place in good order, spoke excellent English (and Japanese, I'm told), and knew everything about every boy -- his physical characteristics, his personality, his language skills, what he would do/not do, etc. I fear she was the last of her breed, however. There was another good one active in Soi Twilight as recently as the mid-2010s, but I've forgotten his name. He was an ex-gogo boy himself, and he too knew everything about every boy. One time I asked which of the available boys had the biggest cocks and he jotted down a list of the top 5 on a paper napkin for my consideration. Another time I was unable to find a favourite because he'd changed bars. This mamasan recognized my description of the boy, asked for 500B, went off with it, and came back with the boy in street clothes. Needless to say, I gave him a good tip for a job well done. Otherwise, I haven't found mamasans to be of much use in recent years.

One of my first regulars, who worked at Twilight 20 years ago, used to tell me proudly every time he'd saved enough to buy another water buffalo for the family farm. Purchasing farm land or paying off back taxes on land already owned by the guy or his family is another expense that I've heard about more than once. An American female friend, one of the rare farang women frequenting the bars, couldn't understand at first why her in-laws (she married a barboy who was a close friend of my ex) kept giving them plot after plot of land. Eventually she realized that by making the plots over to her husband his relations were escaping tax debt. She paid every time, of course. Nearly 20 years on, it's finally paid off. She and hubby have recently been able to sell a lot of the land at a profit.

I've never been pickpocketed in Thailand. The only 2 people I know who have been pickpocketed are Western men who were carrying their wallets in their back pockets.