hojacat

Well even before the war started, the phenomena of young Russians/Belarusians/ Ukrainians moving into southeast Asia was quite diffuse. The three main destinations were and I think still are Thailand (especially Pattaya), Vietnam (especially Nha Trang) and Indonesia( mostly Bali)Some of them actually moved over there legally and acquire job permits (the easiest is in Vietnam where lots of them end up being, believe it or not, English teachers). Some, just overstay their tourist period. I guess the police doesn't bother them as much as immigrants from the other SE Asian countries. It's true that lots of them, both females and males, end up engaging in prostitution and actually some of them resort to plain begging on the streets. I think actually the war and the pandemic pushed the more educated and professional kind of people to move to SE Asia. The main factor as you said are weather and the low cost of living. I was in KL last month and was surprised to hear so many people speaking Russian around the city. Even the Airbnb tower I stayed at, was full of them. Now if you're looking to find some of them engaging in transactional sex while visiting Asia, I would say Hornet is the place to start, as that is actually the most used app in Russian speaking countries, so even when they move, they still use that. Another alternative, if you really want to find them, is asking a local mb if they know any of them. they usually do, especially in those cities I mentioned above.

Trying to bring this discussion back on-topic, instead of arguing back and forth if Taipei is a worthy destination (which can be done in its own thread) I think travel gay sites, in their hotel section, should mention clearly (though unfortunately almost none does) what's the general guest policy for hotels in a given city/country and mention if there is any hotel that goes against it. A paragraph should also mention if the same applies to Airbnbs and if there is any trade-off with going with the latter like ex: security (though this might be more relevant in South American than Asia). Instead, they just come with a list of places, slammed with overused "gay-friendly" label, which at best sounds limited and at worst just plain paid advertisement. If you really want to mention names at least provide some actual and concrete info relevant to gays, ex: Gryand Hyatt Bangkok is a popular place for homepas during the White party nights. Info about the high and low season in a particular place will also be very useful, but unfortunately in none of the gay travel sites I consult before visiting a new place, you can find this type of information. So, usually the hotel section is the one even I completely skip or just give it a very quick glance. On the positive side, I guess that's what makes sites like this portal useful and have people come to it often.

Only been to Krubb once. Their facilities are great and the crowd is pretty hot. A bit of a sticky-rice vibe but you can still have lots of fun. It was during once of their group action nights. Felt the event was a bit disorganized and the room where it was held was too small and dark. They had some performers in there, same as R3 does. It was in August of 2022 though, so 90-95% had a mask on, which was really a turn-off. Never been to Chakrain , even though I tell myself I will go each time i'm in BKK. Maybe it's because of its reputation being too sticky-rice or the location or maybe I just go to the others once I know I will have fun. Didn't know they had special events. Would definitely go, especially on a foam party. Talking about foam parties I definitely recommend the ones at Mania but especially at the ones at R3 sauna. went there last month with a Thai twink who wanted to some group action in the dark room and who usually goes to Krubb and we both had a blast. The performers were hot and the crowd was quite big and wild. R3 is bigger than mania so the foam tends to be also better. Met even this guy who used to be a performer over there before Covid. Asked him if he was still working there but he said he said no and was there just to see his friends and have fun. At the end of the party, he came over me and asked if I had cummed. I had but said. Asked me and then said he can take care of it. we went to a cabin and had a pretty good ride. So I definitely recommend R3. check their Twitter account to see when the next party is. Going to be in BKK for most of December, so hoping to finally go to Chakran, give Krubb and enjoy the foam parties in Mania and R3. It's gonna be good especially on NYE/White party weekend. Last year they had foam parties on both saunas everyday from Friday-Sunday.

I wasn't really trying to give my judgment on anything specific about Taipei nightlife but just that it fits perfectly my taste and desires. Evidently it doesn't for you and that's totally fine. I'm in the same boat with some of the places mentioned by you like Bogota and Medellin. Been there, done that. Can't really say I enjoyed them, even though I can speak Spanish and had a good amount of sex while there, so no plans to return to those places. You gave Taiwan a fair number of chances. I don't think you will get charmed if you go for a 3rd time. Would be better if you just avoid it as it doesn't really suits you for all those reasons you mentioned and I think you're honest when you're saying that they bothered or made the place unappealing to you, even though I don't agree or share them. Nonetheless, Taipei is going to be remain a great gay destination for most, including lots of people in this forum. Same as will Columbia or Brazil, even though I wouldn't return there even if getting paid to do so.

It's a pretty comprehensive and well-summarized list of venues. Quite good for a generic website focused mostly on selling tours. if it had included the saunas the hot springs would have been pretty much complete.

That's for sure. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gone there more than 15 times.

Maybe he was referring to a post about Candy Land ( a dance party held monthly in Taipei) that I did posted in another thread. It's a short Youtube video I found of it. Now about the debate regarding gay venues in Taipei: when it comes to bars, dance clubs, drag shows, circuit parties, I have zero or almost zero interest in them, no matter the size or quality so will let others argue about them. Yeah, I have been to most of the bars and clubs in Taipei(Abrazo, G*star, etc) but that's because I have been so many times and can't say no to my local friends when they want to bring me with them. The only two types of gay venues I really care about in Taipei and every other city I visit are: saunas and cruise/sex clubs. Now, I guess there is general consensus that Soi13 can compete against the best saunas of any Asian city like BKK (R3, Krubb), HK (Hutong), Tokyo (24 Kaikan), etc in terms of size, venues, quality of guys, action happening, etc. Also while it is true that cruising clubs like Commander or the Hunt are much smaller and less hardcore than the same kind of venues in other places like The Lab in Berlin, SBN in London, GBU parties in NYC and LA, given that in those places I'm only into 10-15% of the crowd while in Taipei that number goes to 80-85% (yes, a shameless and unrepented rice queen in here) I still find patronizing those venues in Taipei a damn good way of spending my time. At the end, I guess, different strokes for different folks. Taipei has a good and solid base of admirers which is only getting bigger (witnessed first-hand during pride the enthusiastic reactions to the city of people visiting for the first time). On a note, is there a proper sex/cruising bar in BKK (not counting go-go bars)?

Wondered how much the attendance was in concrete numbers and if it can rivaled with Taipei pride. Among the people I met during Taipei pride only one was planning to go there. Nonetheless, a first for Asia.

Personally, spent around 6 days in Kaohsiung this January. Loved the city and its people. even in Taiwan, people from that area have the reputation being overly friendly. Stayed at Indigo hotel near Central Park. Modern hotel that offers great vies and a very convenient location. Didn't have a problem meeting 1-2 guys every day and not just for sex. a couple of them took me around the city on their motorbike and at their favorites cafe and dining places. You can check my reviews about Hi-Man sauna in a previous post. It's kinda small but has theme nights. Friday was so-so but Saturday was actually quite decent. A good number of twinks. I still keep in touch with a guy I met in there and he even came to meet me in Taipei last month. Didn't explore much bars or gay clubs as I'm not usually into them. Should you go or not? Depends on you. Not sure about your age and body type but if you're popular in Taipei, rest assured you will be in Kaohsiung also. If it's your first time in Taiwan, i would just spend more time exploring Taipei and enjoying the pleasures that the gay venues and apps can bring you in that city. However, Kaohsiung is definitely a valid destination that I recommend to all the Taiwan-lovers in this forum.

Quite a few airlines have implemented facial recognition solutions, when you can go from checking your bags to boarding the plane without having to take a boarding pass out. Emirates and Delta are two that come to my mind right now. At The international terminal at LAX, where I usually fly from, most of the times you board the plane just by having a picture taken. Yeah, leaving TPE is usually a quick process. They take a picture of your face and scan two fingerprints at an automated gate. Entering through TPE though is such a pain. The immigration process is extremely slow. I've had to wait between 30-75 minutes during day hours. They should automatize that process, especially for countries that don't require a visa or at least increase the number of immigration agents. Such a shame for an advanced country like Taiwan. Makes BKK looks quite well-run in comparison.

There is a known belief among the students of the University of Bologna ( the oldest continuing one in the world). Never climb la torre degli Asinelli (the taller one) before an exam, as you will never be able to graduate. For the older crowd though, it's probably not recommended to climb as you might never be making it down. Even being from that region, I only been on top of the tower once, in high school and found it exhausting.

Here are some of the pics I took of the event. will talk more about it when I have more free time.

I still can't believe they didn't break the record of 2019. Both me and my Taiwanese friends agreed that they have never seen so many tourists going to the pride: https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/10/29/taiwan-pride-march-east-asia/

The world pride has been held every other year pretty much in the last 10 years or so. There is none in 2024. It already happened in 2023 in Sydney and it was so much fun. Before that , it was held in Copenhagen in 2021. It's going to be in Washington DC in 2025, though they first assigned it to Kaohsiung, Taiwan. It got stripped because of naming issue. They are going to have one in Amsterdam in 2026, which kinda deviates from the usual cadence. Not sure what's the reason for that. Maybe some special anniversary like it was in NYC in 2019 (50 years of the Stonewall revolt). Anyway, I guess we all in here are for BKK in 2028. Asia definitely deserves one. Taipei would be probably the best choice, but unfortunately we know why it can't happen.

I would also recommend the area around BCG. It's super popular with young people. Some of my Pinoy fwb both in the Philippines and at home have recommended me to stay there next time. I stayed in Makati last year, at a small hotel. They was never a problem getting guests in. some got registered at the check-in, some didn't. I think Malate has ceased being a gay area in the last 10 years. I still remember the go-go bars though on my first trip to Manila in 2009. The gay venues in Manila are kinda spread out, so you don't have something like Silom. none of my friends recommended saunas in Manila, so I didn't check any out.

Here is the first episode of the show for the one interested in it:

Well, Taipei has quite a few clubs that host monthly dance parties with go-go boys, like C.U.M at Pipe Live Music, WERK! at Triangle, G Star or Candy Land at Studio 9. Pretty much something like this:https://youtube.com/shorts/LxXmutu0_Ig?feature=share Not sure if you meant places where you can actually transact a meeting outside the club with the go-go boys. I don't think many of them do that in Taipei and for those that do, you are expected to fork out way much more than you do in Thailand.

Thanks for the website @PeterRS. It has a pretty good summary with all the info you would want to know especially for saunas and clubs (what kind of crowd, any special event and what's the best time to go). There are some small things missing here and there ( like not mentioning that R3 in BKK is mostly famous for it's O-parties) but overall can be very useful. Reading the descriptions felt more like first-hand notes from a person visiting those venues, so i might be wrong and I know the site is based in London but I think the creator is probably a Taiwanese guy (the site is also offered in Chinese) and the venues listed there are mostly from his personal experience. If that's the case the only essential thing lacking from those reviews is the degree of "sticky rice" or "potato queen" found in the crowd of each of those places. Anyway, I'm surprised I haven't heard of XL Club sauna in Taipei. Probably because it's not really close to Ximending. Have to ask my friends and maybe give it a try since I''ll be there for more than a week at the end of this month for the pride parade.

Yeah, I’ve heard the same thing. Almost all of them from Eastern Europe, especially Russia and Ukraine. A Thai friend of mine who is upper-middle class told me last time that he hired two white mb for his birthday.

As you said the preference for lighter skin is not found just in Thailand, but it’s pretty common all over Southeast Asia, including a good portion of southern China. I think most of the Chinese guy probably are after fair-skin Thais. I’ve known a few darker ones who go with foreigners mostly because the locals look a bit down on them, but they usually go after Westerners, as the success rate is usually much higher than pursuing other Asians. I think the high number of “ foreign only” profiles you see on gay apps in Thailand has more to do with the high presence of xenophilia among gays in there, which is usually taken to more extremes that in neighboring countries. Most of my fwbs in places like Vietnam, Taiwan, HK, etc don’t mind messing around with both foreigners and locals but in Thailand I only know 1-2 guys that play with other Thai guys, The others straight out say that they don’t like Thais and most of them are tall, fair skin guys who wouldn’t have problems getting other locals.

I've been quite surprised in my last 2-3 visits to Thailand of how much popular Chinese guys are on gay apps. Not just on Blued but even on Grindr which tend to be more used by Thais looking for Westerners, I see every time profiles with "Looking for Chinese only" on them. Have to agree though that a large number of Chinese guys coming from big cities from a middle or upper-middle-class background can be quite sexy and attractive. They definitely take care of themselves and their bodies.

It's a tough race to determine who is the most submissive between Thai or Taiwanese twinks. I'm surprised no one has mentioned HCMC so far. I don't really engage into paying sex, but I'm always surprised to see so many mbs profiles on Grindr and Blued when I'm in Saigon, definitely way more than in KL or Singapore. Also, to the best of my knowledge, the rates tend to be even lower than in Thailand.

I just spent around 10 days in HK at the end of May of this year. Last time I was there it was a few years ago and I remembered how great Hutong was. So i definitely wanted to check it out again. My impression is that the facilities continue to remain top-notch and really clean. Crowd-wise though, that allure of exclusivity that Hutong used to have ( and the discriminatory entry policy that came with it) are now gone. Out-of-shape or guys in their 40s and 50s make up a good chunk of the crowd now. (A local twink I hooked up with told me explicitly: "I don't go to Hutong anymore, too many uncles in there"), Having said that, it still attracts a huge crowd, so you can find plenty of cute local twinks, if you're into that. Plenty of group action or just watching in the inner dark rooms. Price is a bit steep, around 258 HKD. Went there on a Saturday night at around 7:45 PM. It was already quite full. Peak crowd was reached around 9:00PM. It got so packed, almost should-to-shoulder. People started to leave from around 10-10:30PM. Had fun with 3 guys in cabins but played with 3-4 more in the dark rooms. Overall, I would still rank it in my top 5 saunas and definitely the best in HK. A note of interest about Hutong: it has one night when guys U-25 can enter for free. I saw the sign at the entrance advertising that. Most of it was in Chinese, so I just assumed that day was actually Saturday. However, I was with a local guy on Monday night and as were on the bed talking, i mentioned Hutong and he goes and says: "well, you should have gone tonight, young guys enter for free" I replied by saying that I saw the sign and that I assumed that was on Saturday. He replies: "It's definitely not Saturday, I think it's Monday" So If I was you I would do more research and then maybe try to also go on a Monday, beside the weekend. The next day after Hutong, I also visited two more saunas in HK, both near Causeway Bay. The first one, My Way sauna, according to what I read online was supposed to be popular with the young and in-shape crowd that weren't happy anymore with Hutong. They recommend to go on a Sunday evening as it's naked night. The reviews also mentioned that it was the most "sticky rice" of all the saunas. I get there around 6:00PM. The place is actually quite small, but what was worse was that there weren't more than 15 people in the whole sauna and around 5-6 of them were definitely not young but more around in their late 40s. Everyone was in-shape at least. Stayed there around 1.5 hours. Only 3 more people came during that period. There was pretty much no action in the whole sauna. Just people standing and walking around. Left a bit disappointed and decided to head to Soda Sauna, 5 minutes walk from My Way. The online reviews for it were also very good. Found the place not much bigger than the previous sauna but there were around 50 people in there. However, I ended up being the youngest guy in there. Mostly were mid-to-late 40s, but you could see some in their 60s. Stayed only around 35 minutes in there. Only when I was all dressed up and handled my key, a cute twink enters the sauna. We exchange looks for a good minute but it was already too late for me. So it's clearly I had the best time at hutong but there is a chance than the other two saunas are also good ( and cheap, in both I paid only 100HKD) and I just went at the wrong time or day so you might want to try them for yourself. I have read that Gateway sauna is also quite popular. HK has quite a high number of gay saunas actually, quite the opposite to Taipei where Soi13 has no direct rivals (Han's Men aims mostly to mature guys). This though sometimes it's not advantageous as it just spreads out the crowd, while in Taipei you know where to go if you are into local young guys. Anyway, if you end up going to any sauna in HK, please write a report on this site, as it's definitely lacking that kind of info for a great city like HK.