Jump to content

hojacat

Members
  • Posts

    224
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by hojacat

  1. 400 guys were at SBN, not Sweatbox. Now, I don't know how many guys go to that party on a normal weekend as it was pride Sunday when I went there and I think that definitely attracts a bigger crowd than usual. I mean even at Sweatbox, I had to wait for around 30 minutes to get in when I went there on Pride Saturday night at around 10:30PM. It's just that I found the crowd to be just so-so, even though they were kinda friendly and as you mention, the cruising area at Sweatbox is definitely too small. Going again to London this year for pride and just wondering if Pleasuredome would be a better choice on Saturday night. Because the crowd was quite large in there, you could find from barely legal twinks to guys that were definitely in their early or mid 70s so don't let age be a blocker if you want to go there. I agree though that bringing a younger guy that enjoys performing in front of you would make the experience much better.
  2. I guess he meant SBN since I said they were giving free Viagra + poppers at the entrance.
  3. Wasn't it downgraded from 2 to 1 star Michelin in the last publication? Personally, I found the food there just so-so, nothing exceptional and can see why they lost one star and for example Gaa gained one more and now has 2 stars. Probably the best Indian food I've had, including some famous places in India.
  4. Do you know if it's better/bigger than SweatBox in Soho? I was in London last June during pride week and since staying in Soho, I opted for Sweatbox. Went there twice. On a Thursday (young people's night) and Saturday. Found the sauna not that big and not as many twinks, especially Asian ones, as I was hoping considering it's right next to Chinatown. There was a long line at the entrance though on Saturday at around 11:00PM. The highlight in London and what I recommend when in there is to go to the SBN&NBN naked party on Sunday afternoons. Not sure if it was because of the pride, but there might have been around 400 guys in there, so you could find any kind of age/body type/race that you wanted. They were even offering free poppers and Viagra at the entrance so pretty much everyone was walking around rock hard😂 It's also close to Waterloo station area.
  5. Royal Hammam is also the most popular with Asian twinks (Milan has one of the biggest Chinatowns in Europe and actually Hu is the most common last name in Millan) so it's definitely the place I go to when in Milan. Recommend Sunday afternoons.
  6. Thanks @vinapu So guests don't really need to check-in at any given time? How easy is get a GRAB in PP? Also, any sauna you recommend? A thai friend of mine said there is a good one. I'll have to ask him for the name of it.
  7. Did you go to any gay venue in Taipei? How did you like it compared to Bangkok?
  8. My last and only visit to Cambodia (PP and Siam Reap) dates back to 2009, while I was still in college. In Phnom Penh, I remember staying at this small hotel at an area with lots of embassies around. As apps were still not available I ended up not meeting anyone. Since I'll go back to Thailand for around 2 weeks during Songran's season, I'm thinking of stopping to PP for 4-5 days. Just wondering what' guest policy do hotels have in there? Is it pretty lax (so no check-in required, guest can come over anytime of the day and night) like they do in Thailand or is it much stricter (check-in required, no guests after a certain hour) like they do in Vietnam? If so do you guys recommend an Airbnb (like I definitely do for Vietnam)? Any difference between a small hotel or a bigger one from an international chain?
  9. CL was my main resource for sex during my college years in the late 2000s. it was CL and Adam4Adam. Even with the advent of apps CL remained the best and easier place to look for or set up any 3+/groups action. Most apps, especially Grindr make it almost impossible to have a multi-people conversation. They even took out their Group Chat capability lately. Luckily, at least in the US, sniffies.com has come to be very useful for that kind of activity. I tried using CL on my first trip to Southeast Asia in 2009. I guess I didn't do my homework to find out which were actually the best options online for that region. The place I got any lucky with it was Singapore. Still remember meeting this cute Malay Singaporean I contacted on CL. Had to take both mrt and bus to get to his place. Quite the endeavor at a time when I didn't have Google Maps on my phone. Sex was good but he kinda freaked out when offering me poppers. I didn't know their legal status in Singapore and just had heard how strict are they about drugs. His answer to the question if poppers are legal in Singapore: Who cares?!\ The only other place in Asia I got a considerable activity through CL was Seoul the year after my trip SEA. Remember there pretty much no posts on CL in Taipei in the same period.
  10. Out of curiosity went to the Singapore forum to check if anyone had reviewed any sauna there. The only one I can find dates 2012 and mentions a certain Queen Resort sauna, which looks like closed around 2014. Definitely Singapore's gay saunas have short shell life. @KeithambroseDon't be surprised if Keybox is not there when you get to Singapore😂, but if you manage to go please write a review on this site. I'll do the same if I get to visit. This site lacks reviews for saunas that are not located in Thailand, maybe with the exception of Taipei since a few us have visited Soi13 and have written about.
  11. Singapore saunas though have the tendency to close a bit abruptly, even when they are popular. I used to go to Singapore every 2-3 years and the popular sauna they recommended you to go to would change every time. Haven't been there in 7 years. Remembered that last time the place to go to was called "Cruise" sauna. You actually had to register to get in and get a pass with your ID number in it. I think I still have it somewhere. Saturdays used to fully packed and if I'm not mistaken it was naked night. Not sure if any of you guys went there. Looks like it closed around 2019-2020. Planning to go again in a few months and now the most popular one seems to be Keybox. Anyone has been there? Anyway, maybe I should post this under the Singapore thread so as not to go off-topic.
  12. Here are mine. Taken in September (very cold-adverse person in here).
  13. Chengdu is actually known in China as a very gay city, much more than other cities of similar size. Plus, there is a joke among Chinese that everyone coming from Chengdu has to be a bottom.
  14. My point was that Pattaya being known JUST as a place for prostitution and old people going there to consume it made it much less appealing to a younger crowd who would much more go to Bangkok, Phuket, Pangan, Samui, Chiang Mai then there. This in turn made it much more difficult for the bars to attract new customers. I guess we all agree that go-go bars in Pattaya overextended during their golden years and didn't adapt to the new realities of the gay scene and the tourism in Thailand. Hence, the unavoidable decline.
  15. Something related to pint 1 and 3. I think the late 2000s and early 2010s were also the time when Pattaya became a bit unappealing to the young Western crowd, as it developed a reputation as just a place for prostitution. That's how I knew it even before my first trip to Thailand in 2009, while still in college. Also, isn't that the same period when Russians became the number one tourist group in Pattaya? I might be mistaken but I think Russians are not really into go-go bars. Maybe because of linguistic barriers, the desire to be discreet, etc but if they pay they even their hotel or going to massage places, which I've heard are actually quite popular with Russians. So I don't know how were things in the early 2000s or what the owners were seeing but 16 go-go places in such a small radius is definitely too many, especially since most of the tourists in your city doesn't care about them. The reason saunas (which I can confirm personally) and places like Soi 2 and 4 are still going very strong in BKK is exactly because their are being patronized by the main tourist group in Bangkok: Asian travelers.
  16. Yes, especially now that https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-67516777
  17. Doesn't that coincide with the coming into scene of Grindr and other gay apps? Seems like none of you guys are counting it as a factor into the decline. I mean, it was quite revolutionary. It represents the fastest way to get a guy into your bed, especially if you're willing to pay and you are offered a much larger range of choice that any bar can offer.. I guess some of the customers in those bars where not really interested in the whole shenanigans of the go-go scene, but were there mostly to off guys. If they could do that online much faster and probably cheaper , they stopped frequenting those bars and do something else with the rest of their night and maybe reduction caused that snowball effect that @macaroni21 is mentioning.
  18. You're just discussing it from an offer-side perspective. I think the main question is, will the demand still be there for this kind of entertainment? Will a generation that grew up with internet and with having things instantaneously prefer to pay overpriced drinks so he can just chat and observe a guy and only after off him when if he goes online he can get a guy straight to his bed within 5-10 minutes (paid or not). I know that for most of the people in here is definitely worth it but taste do change. If the demand stays strong then no matter how expensive rent becomes or how strict the police can be, bars will still operate or new ones will open, same as with gay saunas. If the demand starts to disappear than go-gp bars might just end up like those gay porn video stores. I'm sure some of the old timers in here have probably fond memories and stories of them, but hard to justify their existence nowadays.
  19. So I guess none in this forum went to the gay Atlantis cruise last month that started in Singapore and ended up in Pattaya. Was in BKK last month and saw a couple of people with "Atlantis" written on their profile. Kinda regret now not asking any of them how did it go and what the crowd was like. Didn't see anything about it on Twitter, so probably not many onlyfaners ended up going. It's usually the one from Florida in February that uses those big RC ships that attracts the most of them. Personally I would use cruises for destinations where a ship is the only or the best way to visit it. So my favorites have been the Norwegian fjords, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, Alaska, etc .Personally would never recommend a cruise in the Mediterranean. It's definitely the worse way to explore that region. Even in some of the smallest islands or towns like Valleta, Mykonos, Zadar, etc you would be rushed when visiting it, let alone exploring bigger cities like Marseilles, Palermo, Valencia, Barcelona, etc. It's truly like going on a buffet and just licking the food. In the non-gay cruises I have been to, I've always have some crew hit me up on Grindr, but they always make it complicated meeting them , so I have never done it. I end up hooking up with 1-2 fellow passengers each time though. The best I had was on a cruise to the Norwegian fjords. I chatted and got invited for drinks by this young Irish couple. Pretty much only interested in one of them, who was pretty twinkish, which luckily was also verse. They said the knew some executives at MSC so they were able to get a suite for a very good price. After having some champagne, we headed to their place. It was great messing around in the open air jacuzzi in their suite with the fresh air and the stars above us. Things got even more interesting the day after as this cute Asian student from Manchester joined me and them. A long but unforgettable night.
  20. It would probably be easier and shorter to just list the hotels that are NON-gust friendly, as almost all the hotels in those areas mentioned in the article tend to be very liberal when it comes to having guests in your room. I would also specify when mentioning an hotel, if a key is required for the elevator or not. Pretty much, do you want the guy to come straight to your room or you don't mind pick him down at the lobby. I would also add Pullman and W Hotel (this one popular especially with Asian gay travelers) in the list of "gay-friendly" hotels, which I guess means an hotel were a good part of the crowd is gay. If so, during NYE or Songran pretty much every hotel in Silom becomes one.
  21. I believe we are saying the same thing. The owners might prefer Thai boys as it means less hassle with the police because of their immigration status, but on the other hand they enjoy the lower price they can pay to this immigrants compared to Thai guys. Yes, the economy has improved, so guys from Issan and other provinces can come to BKK and work in hotels and malls, but offer them 5-6 times that they are making in those places, and a good number will parade for you however you like. I mean , lots of them are already prostituting themselves online for some extra money. Also, personally witnessing each time I'm in Thailand, the amount of bb sex happening with the under-25 crowd (and I'm talking about free sex) I don't feel there is an STD panic going on right now within the young people in there, much less so worrying about HIV. What I think happened is: there is definitely a contraction in the demand for go-go bars. As the first post of this thread said, go-go bars are not as popular as they used to. So, owners can't really increase their price, or risk alienating even more customers, especially given the high availability of guys online. The large numbers of Burmese, Laos and Cambodians has really served as safety valve for them. Afterall, most customers in those bars can't even tell the difference if the guy is Thai or not. So, I still think it has mostly to do with economic reasons and not really because of any big cultural or sociological changes in the mores of Thai society. However other long-time residents of Thailand can chip in with their thoughts.
  22. Isn't that the same reason you see mostly foreigners working in certain industries like fast food, constructions, etc even in Western countries?! Owners prefer foreign workers with sometimes dubious work permits, so that they can pay them less, offer no benefits and have bigger control. If thy government cracks down on immigrants then those owners will have to offer more to attract the local boys if they want to stay in business. so I think that's because of economical reasons, instead of cultural ones. I'm sure there are plenty of local boys working as freelancers online.
  23. Yeah, they tried but even then they weren't able to shut it down. Why? Because there was too much money to be made by that very same elite. so, I don't government intervention as the main factor in the change of BKK's gay scene. It's not like Thai society has become more conservative, actually the opposite is true, especially among young people. Plus, that kind of crackdown would have a much higher global resonance today that they had more than 20 years ago. It would definitely scare lots of people. I still think that actually "market" forces will drive the change. Even among the gay tourist crowd, westerners represent a much smaller percentage compared to 30-40 years ago. It's the Asian, primarily the Chinese, that make up the majority. so, it's only logical that a lot of venues will cater to their taste and way of doing things.
  24. They say prostitution is the oldest profession right? so, it was the first one and it's going to be the last one in this world. It's definitely not going away anytime soon. Actually, a higher number and percentage of younger people are visiting Thailand and the countries around, compared to when most of you guys where in the 20s and 30s. Lots of them are enjoying the free company of Asian guys they find online or through bars. Now imagine the same people going back to the same places in 25-30 years. I'm sure that when they don't get the same rate of success, lots of them wouldn't mind splurging a little bit to relive those happy moments from their youth with an Asian twink body next to them. That said I'm sure most of that transactional activity will take place online. I'm in my mid 30s, and pretty much through all my life I always found most of sex online, first through internet sites and then came the apps. I imagine it's even more common for people younger than me. However, as online shopping didn't fully eliminate brick and mortar stores, so I think go go boys aren't fully going away. There is some advantage in actually seeing and touching your "merchandise" in person, than just ordering it online. They might change in form and they way they operate but hasn't that always happened? Were the go-go bars in BKK and Pattaya in the 80s and 90s same as the ones we see today?
×
×
  • Create New...