macaroni21

If you can make your way to VCK or Sanctuary, that would be great. We haven't had reports from there in a long while. In fact I'm not even sure that Sanctuary is still operating. I have had great massages in Sanctuary, but that was years ago. As for VCK it is always on my secondary list, i.e. places I'd go to if I run out of places on my primary list... But I don't ever seem to exhaust my primary list, so I have not been to VCK in a very long while too. Have a great trip, though I suspect it's superfluous for me to say that. Of course you will!

Oh well, perhaps we should bear in mind that being farang does not necessarily mean they know anything about how to build a business....

The above having been said, there remains one thing I still cannot explain. Why two bars would try to out-scream each other. Maybe they've already contracted the gatoeys in advance for the night and cannot cancel, even when they discover that another bar is also putting up LE at the same hour? Would cancelling be an intolerable loss of face? Sometimes, we need to think like Thais to understand behaviour.

I think I've said it before in some other thread. This tendency to reach for loud 'entertainment' (LE for short) is a sign of failing business. It's when sales turnover is poor that the managers resort to LE, not realizing that it will only accelerate the loss of customers. WHy do managers resort to LE when sales are poor? Because in the villages where they come from, it works! In rural places, quiet is the default. Boredom is another. When a fair comes to town, its bright lights and thumping music draw people in. The louder the better so that people far away can hear that a fair is in town, and to relieve boredom, they make their way over. A low-key fair playing lounge music or soft jazz would be commercial suicide. These village boys now promoted to bar managers by absent owners don't know the first thing about business, marketing, branding, customer satisfaction, etc. Most of all, they don't know what they don't know: that customers from the rich urban world have different preferences and priorities from rural Thais.

Noise was what made me give up on staying in the Boyztown hotels many years ago. I have since always chosen Jomtien. In July, I noticed the same crazy noise from one or more Jomtien bars but fortunately I was staying in Zing Resort. I could still hear the noise in my room, but at that distance, it was muted enough to not be a problem. The following day, I met someone staying at the Venue, and he was livid.

The first photo showing the red shirt says 623 km away. Was there a reason why you thought he was nearer?

No doubt you are right, but it would be a bad idea to mix the slut me with the professional role I am supposed to play. Oh well.... While on this subject, and since I cannot resist a bit of gossip, he drove me to a simple roadside restaurant for lunch one day, and I invited him to eat with me. (It was more for my benefit than his, since I needed him close by to do the ordering). The three waitresses at the restaurant were nearly throwing themselves at him - he seemed to know them from before - and he had a hard time telling them to lay off. I don't understand what he said, but the body language indicated that he might have said, "My boss is watching". Not only was I watching, I was ready to shoot darts from my eyes. Lay off my driver! If anyone were to have him, it would be me!

Ah, this is important. As idyllic as Tien beach may look, staying overnight without a good signal would almost surely frustrate me. Guess I would have to stay in NaBaan. Others may have different priorities, of course.

This is a great, very useful trip report. One small question though: how was the cellphone signal while on the island? Thanks.

Of course there are many reasons why a departure is delayed, thus depriving an incoming flight of its assigned bay. But one possibility is that with a shortage of baggage handlers, loading the departing aircraft's luggage was taking longer than planned. The shortage/incompetence of a baggage operator can have numerous knock on effects.

What time of day was that? I must have been very, very lucky. I think someone else mentioned it before but this may not be the best course of action. The newly appointed contractor will not be able to produce the hundreds or thousands of replacement workers at a snap of a finger. Furthermore they need time to train the workers. What might be better would be to reduce the area of responsibility of the existing operator to something appropriate to the number of staff he has (e.g. 50% of flights) and give the remaining flights to the new operator. If necessary, get soldiers to do the job during the bridging period.

To add to my "torture", the driver assigned to me is very good looking. But I see a wedding band on his finger.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm back for work. Am currently in neither Bangkok or Pattaya but in the boondocks for a project inspection. I may get a few days R&R in Bangkok at the end of the trip if inspection goes well and it frees up some time. Keeping fingers and penis crossed.

We should not see ourselves as representative. Our kind of travelling, to put it bluntly, is to feed an 'addiction' so naturally, we travel repeatedly and frequently. For most others, Thailand is not worth visiting for more than once in 3, 4 or 5 years. So, the fear, as expressed in the cited article, that once the pent-up demand is satiated, there will be a 'refractory period' ( to borrow an analogy we are familiar with) before enough demand builds up to visit Thailand again is quite plausible. Yet, it is also fair to say much depends on China's policies, depth of recession, etc.

Got into Suvarnabhumi yesterday afternoon around 2 pm. Amazing. Hardly any queue at immigration, at most 2 or 3 persons. In my lane, I walked straight up to the booth. The majority of the passport counters were manned, but not 100%. Luggage collection wasn't too bad. Had to wait about 15-20 minutes, which is average or above average for most airports.

Paying off the police doesn't make the extra hours legal.

You're kind of confirming what I thought you meant. The trouble is that both your "outright gay" and "normal" definitions contain two conditions each. What if one condition applies and the other does not apply? Let me describe the scenarios and you try to work them out: Senso and Arena might be your first ("oh, please God, no!") type. The boys line up in front of you and you choose one of them. I think they will have a minimum tip though I haven't been to either since Covid. However the outside of the shop is quite discrete, and no boys are hanging out front (though in Arena's case, they might be one or two outside on the balcony taking a smoke). But in Senso's case - as I recall, though other posters may update us - there s a rainbow flag out front. So, are these two "outright gay" places, by your definition? KK Massage and Sawatdee Massage do not have boys sitting out front. Nor do they even have boys lining up in front of you, or behind one-way mirrors, inside the shop. Nonetheless, you're expected to choose your masseur (from photos) and there is a minimum tip. Does this make them "outright gay"? Green Massage on Surawong and Paradis on Silom both have boys (and almost always boys) sitting out front. They may hail you as you walk past ("You want massage, sir?"). They kind of self-select rather than you choose the masseur and the price board does not indicate any minimum tip. However, both are on busy streets with lots of passers-by, and anyone seeing a male customer go into a shop with a male service provider will easily draw the conclusion that the customer is gay. (heterosexual customers generally choose shops with women masseuses out front).Not just passers-by, they usually would have other customers getting a foot massage in the downstairs lounge who have nothing better to do than to eye and judge every other customer walking in. In other words, the sexual orientation of the customer is actually much more visible to the public in such a shop as opposed to, say, Arena or Senso. The masseur may or may not do anything erotic inside the massage room. If they do choose to provide extra services, they may enter into a price negotiation with you inside the room halfway through the massage since no minimum tip was indicated by management. Some of us dislike such interruption. In any case, because of the constraints of three-quarter height partitions in some establishments, leading to loss of auditory privacy, they may not want to do insertive sex. Would Green and Pradis be "outright gay" places or "normal" places by your reckoning? (also, they almost never have in-room showers). Olivia Massage on both Surawong and Silom have a mix of men and women sitting out front. They therefore do not look like exclusively gay male establishments. However, it becomes even more starkly obvious that even when women are available out front, the customer is still walking in with a male service provider. "Aha, that's a gay bloke". Both are on busy streets with foot massage lounges on the ground floor. All the other issues I mentioned above (negotiation in situ, lack of auditory privacy, no in-room showers) also apply here. So - "outright gay" or "normal"? In short, why not use an app, and make sure the hotel does not have a joiner fee policy. But wait, the people in the lobby will see you having a male visitor....

@young11, your repeated use of the terms "outright gay" and "normal" is a source of confusion here (especially as you are likely applying meanings to those terms which are not clear to others in this forum) and, more importantly, a stumbling block for yourself. For example, I get the feeling that when you say "gay" you actually mean the act of homosex and you're not using the word to mean sexual orientation, gender presentation or identity. By that measure your use of the term "normal" implies a massage place that has no sexual offerings on its advertised menu, nor any hint/scent of sex, e.g. a five star hotel's in-house spa? Is your aversion to "outright gay" places because you don't want to be seen walking into a massage shop that has homosex vibes? If you could rephrase your questions or comments without using those terms, it might be clearer. Bear in mind the possibility though that your imagined ideal may not exist as a business in Thailand. As with so many facets of commerce, if there isn't enough demand for a certain type/profile of business, it simply won't be viable for one to exist.

@young11, in Thailand, the western notion of gay/straight is not often a useful way to navigate many issues. In massage places, that may not be the most helpful way to read the shop's offerings. Instead, try to see things this way: if a massage place offers you, without asking, a selection of masseurs to choose from, you can assume that at least soft sex (handjob) will be an expected finish. Insertive sex will depend on the chosen masseur. If the shop does not, by default, offer you a selection, then it's much more dependent on the guy. The shop may operate a kind of rotation system, so the guy assigned to you may not even want to do soft sex. But boundaries are often blurred. Even if a shop normally operates by rotation, you may still (sometimes) ask for a particular masseur. Or, the masseur in such a shop, even if assigned by rotation, may prove very willing, in the room, to provide the full works - though you should be careful not to 'out' him to his colleagues. Gay or straight? Don't even ask. Thais use different concepts. In fact, few countries in the world adopt western concepts.

Indeed, by the time the bars are supposed to close, I should be in bed, either slumbering or enjoying the company of someone. I am no party animal.

Interesting that at 2 min 15 secs, visitors are advised to image their passports and visas onto their phones. This seems to be good enough instead of having to carry passports with us all the time. Not sure where this "advice" comes from or whether it's authoritative.

Besides the mystery, as Reader pointed out, of the purpose of the flight, these other things stood out to me: 1. It was not a commerical flight and so probably had a light payload - easy to fly further this way. 2. Not a successful aircraft type, abandoned by Thai Airways ten years ago in 2012.

Any chance of a map? 🤪

I agree with pong2, vinapu and gerefan change at Suvarnabhumi airport only what you need to get through your first 12 hours. Thereafter whether in Bkk or Pattaya, look out for exchange kiosks (not banks). Super rich is almost always good. In Pattaya TT Exchange is the one I usually visit. Don't fret too much about getting the absolute best rate. The differences aren't that significant in the larger scheme of things.