pong

Just a small note for those who are interested in such things: the town of Siem Reap (=THailand overwon after siege) had a pride week last may 19 and plans to have another one-around early may. Just read this as a note when searching for some other info on a site named movetocambodia.com, then search in the blogs. Either sponsored by gay establishments-wich means they must do pretty well or more likely-some NGO preaching and financing this.

Selamat malam dari disini. Having arrived back here a few days ago I cannot confirm around 1/1 is busiest-at the mo its even more crazy and esp. with all types of Chinese, Taiwan/Honky, and esp. the mainlanders. And of course plenty from south of the border too, the faithful and always welcome malays. You must also suffer from the bad rate for the THB-I well remember it was always 10 baht for the ringgit, but its now under 8.
There are at least 2 new HTLs under construction in the Silom area, one will be an Ibis styles. So maybe next yr more chances.
How long will it take before those prized ML-shorties are starting to appear as copynearreal on the Silom stands..........

About any of the many Thai related fora/sites will have a subsection on Thai ladies (and/or even ladyboys/katoeys). Nearly all suffer from a tremendous barrage of farang who seem to have nothing else to do as following fora and badmouthing any things Thai asap. The best known and largest is thaivisa, set up by the now defunct as printed newsppr the NATION.
some names that spring to my mind: teakdoor, thailandredcarpet, coconuts or so. More amusing were the blogs of the now ceased to do that based in Bangkok NZ guy (Post it asa I remember).
As an aside: about any of the larger/more affluent west-eur countries will have some form of forum in their own language about how to deal with/treat your newly married Thai wife and her tipical requirements. Some even stretch out to BFs. These can sometimes be very amusing.
No, I dont follow all of that for you who may wonder-in the past the job I had also required to have a look at those every now and then about current topics and trends etc. for travel. Thats grossly overtaken now by (anti)social media.

Agree with vinapu: If boys are that long in this trade they must have qualities and their looks are just a minor aspect fort hat. IMHExp. the older guys-say from 25 are so long in the trade and have so much experience they can give tremendous pleasure feelings-as indeed I had the pleasure to find out that evenng. And if they massage you most of the time you dont even see them as you lie on your front.
Arrived myself around same time the day before and was in the bus also whithin 30 mins after arrival (was directed to premium lane even though I do not yet qualify for that-and anyway you then have to wait longer for luggage to appear). Bad air here though and a really awful mass of asean and mainland China people.
Thanks for reporting that soon and hope you enjoy as much as you did already the coming day with the festive Chinese Nw Yr coming up! Dont forget to stuff the red angpao enevelopes!

Hello (sawasdee khrap in local style), Ive just returned to BKK here, KrungThep, yesterday for about the 99th time or so. Some ideas:
before: there are 2 dediciated fora like this one (one is now even married with this-haha), gayguides.com and sawasdee network, then find the fora. These have your general 1st time Qs about every month and answered-sometimes brusk as it repeats so often. Some ideas about your points:
@1.BKK has 1000s of massageshops, in the touristy Silom neighborhood at least 100. Some of those have only male masseurs and some of these offer or expect that you come for not so much the massage but other things. You always pay the normal fee to the shop (about 5/600 bt for 1 hr of oil msg-thats what you ask for, normal Thai msg is dry and in a kind of hospital gown) and besides that you have to tip your masseur for his extra sevices-often discreetly in the room so others cannot see. Some of the dedicated m2m shops state MIN tips-mostly 1000 bt (about 30 EUR or 33 US$ today), it varies a bit what you can expect for that. The more touristy and renowned the place, the higher the tip. Thus reverse also holds: in suburban BKK are also many such places with local prices and service and no foreign language at all.
There is an excellent blog about all that with more explication: linked in the sawasdee netwk forum and like ´m2m massage Bangkok/thailand´ by one of the moderators of the gayguides site this one is married to. It also has actual listings.
NOTE; here in TH/Bkk places change VERY often, relocate, close down, buildings get torned down, etc. There are tons of listing sites that are much out of date.
@2. this is a copycat of female such bars and these are copycats of the Japanese system: those workers in BARs (thus NOT sauna/shops etc.) must be ´barfined´ to get them out before closing time-mostly this is about 3/500 bt, roughly same price as a drink in these places would cost. You are also more or less expected to sit down first with the guy and offer him a drink (special prices may apply for that) and sometimes even to also ´thank´ the mamasan, who is an intermediate and can translate if so needed. Speaking english (angkrit) is not a special virtue of Thai so adapt to that. Tips for such offs in the Silom rea are now quoted to be mostly like 1500/2000 for short time and 2/3000 for overnight. If you have very specific wishes, make that clear and do not expect that anyone will agree to that-esp. bottoming for you. Also do NOT expect that all guys are gay by nature-the majority are gayforpay. Again the sites I mentioned before have all that info ad extenso.
@3 Uber has been banned here, its called GRAB. Thats most often normal taxi grabbing a fixed ride-prices may even be higher as on the meter. No lack of taxi here-though they have a sign taxiMETER on top (and yes, I know enough Thai and customs to find one that will use it) you wil probably not find them working. At the mo I do not recall where that SL is, so no good idea about how far etc. DO realise that traffic is a general nightmare-to the extent that many taxiś also simply wont take you if they feel it will take too long. Try to get used to transit like BTS=skytrain and the like.
@4. in THIS branch of bisnis, yes. Even if places accept Visa and the like, they will add 3-5% extra for the high fees attached.
PS-on the fora you can also find many tips about current apps and hookup sites that work best-many claim they are also taking over the expensive bisnis model here.
@5. tons, but as I dk you and no idea what you like-again those other sites have very detailed current reports. real SEXY men shows are rare though-its mostly ladyboys lip-synch to very old songs.
 

EU has also banned that years ago, but shops may sell sturdier bags. As always those least inclined to do that are the Brits-probably happy to reestablish all that when finally out. Some African countries even ban all plastics and search for it when you arrive at airports-Ruanda and/or Burundi, also ZA.
From what Ive noted the 3 days Iam here again: 7s, tesco and BigC will not do bags anymore. 7 still does if you buy heated mealboxes and all their straws and cutlery is plastic and in plastic covers too. The streetvendors still happily put anything in a bag, perhaps they have large stacks anyway.

Just a small note for those who are interested in such things: the town of Siem Reap (=THailand overwon after siege) had a pride week last may 19 and plans to have another one-around early may. Just read this as a note when searching for some other info on a site named movetocambodia.com, then search in the blogs. Either sponsored by gay establishments-wich means they must do pretty well or more likely-some NGO preaching and financing this.

Sawasdee phimai, or selamat tahun baru for the Or. poster. Happy Nw Yr for all the rest.
First: not all Chinese, luckily, come from mainland China. Many more come as tourists from Malaysia, Taiwan or SIN-they will speekee the ingriss, in a slightly different way as most Thai (guys), lah!
Mainland Chinese visiting gay bars are as such still a fairly rare fenomenon, and as they seem to do with HTLs and places-to-eat, they all seem to stick to the same places. Modern China all works on apps-on their very own non-google versions, weibo and alipay to pay and the like. So thats what they know.
In the area where I mostly stay a surprising nr of Thai in the ´hospitality´ industry deal with non-Thai speaking tourists since many yrs and are also well versed with many who do not even or hardly speekee the ankrit-think of many italians, Russki or Spanish. Also quite a large nr of those Thai are of former Chinese descent and can at least master one Chinese dialect-mostly Cantonnese or Fuzhou or Fuxian. That helps with HKGers and those from there. State-ruled mandarin is quite rare though, but not impossible to find. n the past i was often surprised at how well and how many of the guys could speak Japanese, but as the tourists from there this seems waning.

Yes and no-depends on what tips they receive, and these may very well be from competitors facing declining bisnis. Most raids in the more distant past were for drugs includsing sometimes custoimers-as mgb above also writes for SIN. This may of course also very well apply to str8 places. In the days of yore it was a common sight in the well known Thai gutter Press (Thai Rath and the like) to see pix of bargirls all trying to hide their faces being paraded out of such bars-more likely out of the patpong area. That they specifically aim for foreign workers is a bit of a new thing, but then its always Burmese/Khmer they find, quite logically, and in this m2m also now the VNese. I highly doubt though if the nr of such foreign ladies is as big in the str8 bisnis, Burmese are certainly not known for that at all.

From other sources:
Thai immi/customs is to start screening all luggage, thus also from farang/tourists, by having them at least put it through the X-ray as per 1/1/20=63. Also that idiot card to fill out, system 1950ies, is to be scrapped and to go digital. MY and SIN have already switched to it, so it seems possible in ASEAN. One major reason: it seems they have now 3 or 4 warehouses full of those cards and are not willing to build/hire another one just for this silly thing.
 The tipical Thai does not care about il/legal or not, I hear that word in fact only from USAers. For Thai it mostly is perceived as yet another way of the nasty rattabaan=govmt. to suck money out of pleasure seeking people by those BiBs with too tight brown shirts.
Quite another topic the very first time for me for a Lao (really from there) guy in a msg shop, both stark naked as he was walking around the table with a strong and very willing member all the time and kept on talking in incomprehensible Lao about how much fun he got here in BKK what he could not get @ home. One of the guys Iĺl never forget. Many years ago.

Make it lah at the end, this is the ultimate sign of aseanness from our southern neighbours, Malaysia and Singy.AND it means something different as this Thai khrap.
But nice to read you enjoy yourself, also nice to see that the 3 cheap but not so cheerful bars have finally taken the chance to renovate. Did you not all take a deep and intense look at all those massageshopguys you need to passby to get there? GC=golden cock (kuoy thong in Thai) is with telefone the only gay place still in same place since 30 yrs, Tawan has moved round the corner, superA was relocated at least 3 times in that period. On the corner with that sushi restrt beside GC now was once a gay sauna.

And as I dont come there that often: a fairly big beer ´garden´ in concrete is running at the corner of Satorn and Narathiwat, close by King Power Mahanakorn Seeing glass and the BRT and BTS stops, but its Federbrau, the probably least known among Thai beers. Ground level in front of old WTC is now a giant foodpark, mostly aiming Chinese and asean foodbloggers.
Also remarkable how once empty dead sidesois like Satorn 10 with the short time Niagara HTL (was there more as a few times long ago) now blossomed to life and are now full of hypertrendy places-that are thus also destined to die pretty soon once that hype is over. They call that bustling in tipical touristy brochures.

Make it lah at the end, this is the ultimate sign of aseanness from our southern neighbours, Malaysia and Singy.AND it means something different as this Thai khrap.
But nice to read you enjoy yourself, also nice to see that the 3 cheap but not so cheerful bars have finally taken the chance to renovate. Did you not all take a deep and intense look at all those massageshopguys you need to passby to get there? GC=golden cock (kuoy thong in Thai) is with telefone the only gay place still in same place since 30 yrs, Tawan has moved round the corner, superA was relocated at least 3 times in that period. On the corner with that sushi restrt beside GC now was once a gay sauna.

Make it lah at the end, this is the ultimate sign of aseanness from our southern neighbours, Malaysia and Singy.AND it means something different as this Thai khrap.
But nice to read you enjoy yourself, also nice to see that the 3 cheap but not so cheerful bars have finally taken the chance to renovate. Did you not all take a deep and intense look at all those massageshopguys you need to passby to get there? GC=golden cock (kuoy thong in Thai) is with telefone the only gay place still in same place since 30 yrs, Tawan has moved round the corner, superA was relocated at least 3 times in that period. On the corner with that sushi restrt beside GC now was once a gay sauna.

Wow, 10 days ago already and noone answered. Cannot give any rec from myself, but you will be spoilt for choice, that is, at least in the touristy parts of BKK-big city. Prices vary (a lot) and do not reflect any better experience-as with about anything here in TH. They reflect nicer and shinier and thus more costly surroundings. But I´ve seen many with advertised prices in roughly the 3-700 Thb range for such parts. IF the place advertises in gay media or so, add a few 100 extra just for this and do not expect anything better treatment, but more handsome guys to do the job.
FRankly, I think its just as massage: its just a lotteree and you dont knwo what you get untill its done. It might be an awfully long ago well-trained (and thus likely beyond prime years) older lady or someone fresh on the job without a clue what to do.
(I once was surprised that whithin a down market Thai ex-dept.store turned into a shopping paradise some 20 kms away from Silom, there was such a shop also advertsing ´bum crack´ in its pricelist with brazil wax for I think it was 300 bt.

Bangkok Arts&Cultural Centre is that snail-lookalike building on Patumwan corner, with MBK and SIAM at other sides, near BTS Siam.
From a week or so ago till 1/3 it has a LGBT-inspired exhibition by various artists from ASEAN. Admission is free, but with any bags you have to use a locker for it for 10 bt. Open daily, except monday from 10-20.00. Have not been there to look yet, but will likely pas by next week or so. If youre havig to time to spare daytime and want to get out of silom area.
site: en.bacc.or.th

and penny-pinchers; anyone from 60+ can get 50% DIScount on MRT-fares by just showing any ID at the booth and buy token there.
Foodcourts come 13 in the dozen anywhere in BKK, but agreed, in the Silom area there are actually not that many-afte the one of top floor of old Robinson dept. store on corner ram IV closed.

A HOST bar is a gay bar that has (some of its) staff for rent (called off, or pay barfine).
They may be waiters or not. In Pattaya pretty common and called bar beer.
This however has never been the practice on soi 4, though many a freelancer used to hang out there. Comes to the same-you have a temporary willing BF, but there is no barfine/off to be paid to bar.
If those hosts are also dancing, or pretending to, its usually called aGOGO. This is/was the most common format in Silom/around Patpong bars.
Thai style bars sometimes have friendly guys for rent as company during your stay in the bar, pay by the minute! Quite uncommon though for usual gay bars and for farang. Much more common for str8 ladies and also in Japan. Much more common in Thai bars is the KaraOK concept, not really beoved by farang.
As usual about all these concepts are imitations of how the much larger str8 bars work and ofte were initiated in Japan.

Having now also been there; its MITR town, which means friendship in Thai. Owned as was the former wet market and foodcourt by CHULA uni opposite. Chula also owns much of Siam centre and thus makes pretty money. It is always among TH 3 best uniś, if not the best in some subjects (with Thammasat and Kasert). Fairly unique to normal Thai customs many of its students are even eager to study and curious to discover new things. Thus no surprise that 99% of them are Chinese, though due to their rich income they also give grants to poor Thai students who pass the heavy exams.
There are 2 floors of food outlets: below ground connects to MRT/BEM and has loads of he usual chains, just like T21 on Asoke and a BigC food-only supermarket. Sadly no Jeffer or so.
4th floor has more outlets and a Thai stye foodcrt, where many of the old stalls have gotten new squeaky clean and well-organised stands. You pay by card, which only last 1 day!! UNcommon is that there are large tables to share with strangers and that anyone even brings back his tablet to stands-as you would do in IKEA or McDo. Lots of variety and among the costliest items for 100 bt is beef penis soup. I did not try but went for khao moo daeng. There is no free drink water,as is the case with BigC or Tesco. The usual 7 is on ground floor/backside and is also heavy on fresh and microwave food and here are even some seats/tables for that across.
Throughout is good strong free WiFi thus loads of students and others sit there to use that. Strange for a uni-owned centre is that there was not a single book/printed reading matter outlet. But then Chula itself has of course a large bookshop just 200 mtr away. Part of this complek is open 24 hrs.
You can connect via a concrete metro-lookalike round tube to the other side and MRT. This is slightly older Chamchuree complek with a tesco on below ground and also yet another foodcourt with higher prices-from 60 bt for most. Also loads of Chula-students there.
Nearly forgotten and not that friendly to penny pinching farang: a large covered but openair foodcourt is in the soi just beyond Golden Cock and former new old Barbiery buidling, no signs, no prices advertised-rhis is mostly a sign that you will be cheated in TH and as can be expected the usual foodplace for loads of bargirls and the odd barboy too. And the old stalls-evenings along Lumpini park are also still there.

ARENA states to open by 14.00, so there will not be that many customers then yet.
Last week there were some 30+ when I came around 16.30 and apparently I was also 1st to come then.
It is a common feature of many of those m2m msg shops that the so prized BTC (big thai cock, BBC is more commonly known) is hung from not the prettiest guys. You might even conclude the opposite too. But then Thai style such shops many of the workers ahev normal daytime jobs and come to the shop after 20.00.

A HOST bar is a gay bar that has (some of its) staff for rent (called off, or pay barfine).
They may be waiters or not. In Pattaya pretty common and called bar beer.
This however has never been the practice on soi 4, though many a freelancer used to hang out there. Comes to the same-you have a temporary willing BF, but there is no barfine/off to be paid to bar.
If those hosts are also dancing, or pretending to, its usually called aGOGO. This is/was the most common format in Silom/around Patpong bars.
Thai style bars sometimes have friendly guys for rent as company during your stay in the bar, pay by the minute! Quite uncommon though for usual gay bars and for farang. Much more common for str8 ladies and also in Japan. Much more common in Thai bars is the KaraOK concept, not really beoved by farang.
As usual about all these concepts are imitations of how the much larger str8 bars work and ofte were initiated in Japan.

Bangkok Arts&Cultural Centre is that snail-lookalike building on Patumwan corner, with MBK and SIAM at other sides, near BTS Siam.
From a week or so ago till 1/3 it has a LGBT-inspired exhibition by various artists from ASEAN. Admission is free, but with any bags you have to use a locker for it for 10 bt. Open daily, except monday from 10-20.00. Have not been there to look yet, but will likely pas by next week or so. If youre havig to time to spare daytime and want to get out of silom area.
site: en.bacc.or.th

KSR is not just that road but a every week wider area around where also about every day new Hotels/guesthouses/hoStels open en some also close or finally get renovate. Most of them in fact -also in private rooms, do NOT allow Thai visitors, even sometimes barring neatly married farang-Thai couples. But the days it was all dirt cheap sweaty prison-cell type rooms is long gone, there are dozens of swish, stylish and not so cheap anymore places with room prices between 1/2000 and some even higher. IHoStel/dorm rooms are also only there since few yrs apparently as young psns seem to think that should be cheap-many are not and cost more per bed as a single room in an old-style guesthse. In fact there also used to be a bit hidden but fairly extensive gay scene-all those 10.000s of workers there are also after some R&R after their very long duties have been done for work. Dont bother about finding it-they will find you. But you have competition from also a few 1000 of young farangy girls also out on the prowl to try out some Thai guys.
To me it completely escapes what a young person has to do arond Silom daytime, except getting out on the BTS or bus 15. Plus that the food scene is grave there and near unaccessible for cheapo Thai grabs for farang. However, I just perused soi 2 this afternoon and did as ..also states the sign that ID is checked and MIn age 20 and that there is now also a hoStel above paradise on floor 6-I assume if you stay there they have to let you pass by.

KSR is not just that road but a every week wider area around where also about every day new Hotels/guesthouses/hoStels open en some also close or finally get renovate. Most of them in fact -also in private rooms, do NOT allow Thai visitors, even sometimes barring neatly married farang-Thai couples. But the days it was all dirt cheap sweaty prison-cell type rooms is long gone, there are dozens of swish, stylish and not so cheap anymore places with room prices between 1/2000 and some even higher. IHoStel/dorm rooms are also only there since few yrs apparently as young psns seem to think that should be cheap-many are not and cost more per bed as a single room in an old-style guesthse. In fact there also used to be a bit hidden but fairly extensive gay scene-all those 10.000s of workers there are also after some R&R after their very long duties have been done for work. Dont bother about finding it-they will find you. But you have competition from also a few 1000 of young farangy girls also out on the prowl to try out some Thai guys.
To me it completely escapes what a young person has to do arond Silom daytime, except getting out on the BTS or bus 15. Plus that the food scene is grave there and near unaccessible for cheapo Thai grabs for farang. However, I just perused soi 2 this afternoon and did as ..also states the sign that ID is checked and MIn age 20 and that there is now also a hoStel above paradise on floor 6-I assume if you stay there they have to let you pass by.

For anyone with same problem since:
For most of the guys from shops thats also a very far way out of town.
Cannot think of any closeby-those that were have been closed after succesfull drugraids some time ago (8 1/2 along Sri Nakarin)
Best bet is likely to take ARL to end and walk over to Ganymede, but it may also close by 23.00, come back by taximeter, trains all stop from 24.00 start from begin for last ride.