macaroni21

Hmmm... The clues: 1. Soi Nana. 2. Five a.m. 3. Ability to mobilise 100 sisters within a day. Professional jealousy perhaps?

So, the next time we use OneSpa's rooms, we may meet a woman in the corridor? Or we may hear a woman moaning away in the next room? Hmmm. I think I will pass

I am more concerned about short transit times than about overnight flights. Nowadays, some airports can be terribly congested and there are infinite reasons for delays. I've had an occasion when I had to run to the departing gate because the arriving flight was late. I made it and was proud of myself. But at the final destination, I was told my luggage didn't make it. "Maybe it will arrive tomorrow". So if needed to avoid a short transit time, I would even choose an overnight flight.

I was going to say that one reason might be that many of the gay bars are owned or run by western expats and they don't want their hobby projects overrun by Asian customers. But then I realised that such a theory won't explain why they don't actively market themselves on social media to western tourists. So yup, I am just as puzzled why the gay businesses are so bad at, well, business.

Sadly, @Riobard is referring to the tops of the beer bottles. The boys' tops (Tshirts) often stay on. Remind me again - why are we paying money?

IMHO not at all, but the only choice we have is either to enter+pay or not step foot in a bar at all. However, to be fair, 500 is not the price of the beer. It is a combo price for the following: 1. The beer. 2. The waiter's effort bringing it to you and watching you like a hawk for the rest of the evening in case you leave without settling the tab ("check bin"). 3. The gogo boys' pittance of a salary for being there on stage. 4. The extra allowances paid to those boys who participate in shows. 5. Your share of rent and utilities. 6. Your share of the brown envelope money that even permits the bar to operate the way it does. 7. Costs of other staff such as the DJ who does not know what tolerable volume level means. 8. Management profit. All the above add up to 250 baht, which would be more or less what the girl gogo bars charge. It is 500 baht because each customer who steps into a boy bar has to pay the share of the missing customer who, having seen the fast declining quality of the boys and their undress (less undressed than before), the boring shows, and the escalating prices, have since stopped to the bars or much less frequently than before. If not for paying the share of the missing customer, there won't be enough revenue to keep the bars going. Enjoy 😛

See https://www.justia.com/criminal/offenses/homicide/second-degree-murder/#:~:text=Second-degree murder requires that,and understanding of his actions. I quote from above "Second-degree murder requires that the defendant acted impulsively, and without premeditation, but with an intent and understanding of his actions" The article makes clear that she was convicted of second degree murder. She might have acted impulsively in speeding, but she sped intentionally, and she would have an understanding of the risks and consequences of her decision to speed. Thus I think the verdict is justified.

Wait... You don't use the ticket vending machines, but instead have to rely on people? 😛

If you took a quick look at the Gay Pattaya section, you'd see that I asked the same question late last year and @floridarob was kind enough to reply. See I used the shop's services and found them to be good. The clothese were ready the next day. I have marked the location of Nok Laundry on my map of Pattaya Boyztown/Pattayaland https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2023/12/14/map-of-pattayaland-area-december-2023/

I'm kinda shocked too 😲 I thought us temporary tourists are automatons, rushing from one rentboy to another. Some of us (wink wink, we know who) have inhuman levels of energy, hitting up to four boys a day.

A wee bit tacky, no?

Let's assume the story is true, even if there is some exaggeration or missing elements. I for one am not surprised. Rightwing nuts live in their own bubble, consume their own media and therefore see the world through absurdly distorted lenses. They believe what they want to believe. Out of the millions of rightwing nuts, there will surely be some who act on those beliefs, like this man and his family.

I had exactly the same question and doubletake moment as @Riobard

@Japan lover Trying to call or speak is not a good idea unless you speak Japanese. They are not likely to manage English at the other end, with the odd exception. As @fedssocr mentioned, most of the businesses that serve foreigners have online forms on their websites. It is best to use them, because the shop can then do Google Translate with whatever you have written and understand you that way. Naturally, you should keep your sentences simple and avoid slang, abbreviations, or expresssions unique to your country, which Google translate may not be able to handle.

Eh? As ASEAN citizens, don't the Burmese get into Thailand visa-exempt? Or are these guys looking for longer term visas, in which case why didn't the reporter say so?

It's very hard to visualise how much labour and skill went into building these monuments and sculptures. It's no easy thing to shape stone and rock into these complex forms.

Someone mentioned to me that the owners of existing shops believe that all they need to do after any new legislation is to hire a pharmacist to certify every sale as medically necessary.

Haha, that is an age-old tradition.🤣

Hang on.... I have seen from time to time over the years mention of a toilet block. I know only one (a hexagonal or octagonal one) which scent can be detected from some distance. But my memory is that the gay section isn't near it. It's at least 200m further on, almost to Rabbit Resort. Have you guys been sitting at the wrong part? The nearest toilets to the gay section are found in a white building with rooms to let, formerly known as White House (don't know what it's called now) Much cleaner facilities.

The gay section was predominantly farang. It was supported mainly by the winter exiles from Europe and North America, who would stay two or three months each time. Their headcount was never that many, but because they were temporarily resident, they could make frequent visits and so the gay section looked well patronised. On a typical high season day, there might have been 10-15 gay farangs per concession stand at any one time. Multiply that by about 6 concession stands, and there would have been 60-90 gay men on the beach at any one time, many with twinky companions from Sunnee as well. That was what made the scene. Of course there were also those who made shorter trips to Thailand (like me) and spent a few days on the beach, adding variety to the mix of clients. Short visitors also helped during the middle of the year when the winter exiles returned home. However, because of the rainy season, the crowd was always thin between May and Sept, perhaps 3-4 clients per concession stand at midday. So even back then, it looked half dead some months of the year. So, what happened? Well, some of those farangs have since gone over to the big beach in the sky. Others, and potential replacements of a younger generation, no longer find it affordable to stay 3 months in Thailand. Costs in Thailand have changed considerably. Thailand has, over the past 20-25 years seen the rise of the gay Asian tourist. They have different tastes from the gay farang. Asians are less into sun and beaches and they're mostly not into fem twinks either, so Pattaya and Sunnee held little interest. But most important of all, they do not stay 2-3 months. They make short trips instead, and stick mostly to Bangkok. Paralleling the decline of the numbers of long-stay winter exile farangs have been the decline of Sunnee and the Chiang Mai tourist scene (which got life from the side trips that the winter exiles used to make to break the monotony of staying in Pattaya). There are plenty of retired Asians. Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China and Singapore are aging societies. Besides the non-interest in beach and fem twinks, I have explained in previous posts additional reasons why retired Asians don't mirror the same pattern of spending winters in Pattaya. Three reasons: these countries don't have generous pension schemes like in the West; their winters are relatively mild (or like Singapore, no winter) so less need to flee; don't speak English.

As @omega says, there are still several flying the rainbow flag and these stands have more gay clients and straight. But it's true that they're not exclusively gay. They never were but where in the old days there would be perhaps one woman in ten clients, now there are probably three.

The Space Hair boys are yummy. But we need some definitive reports of successful in-room rendezvous to be confident that they are really available. Who will volunteer to do the research 🤓 ?

After a short ride, I think about 5 minutes, the shuttle train arrives at another shockingly sterile station on the satellite terminal end. Go up the escalators. Once up, the first thing that you see is a phalanx of duty-free shops, But of course. Actually, they're not that many. Perhaps more will open when passenger traffic increases, but.... Here's a map of the satellite terminal. The commercial spaces are coloured in tan or dun. As you can see there are not that many spaces earmarked and most of those lots in the middle part of the terminal are already occupied. So I don't think there will ever be many more of these duty-free and brandname shops. In any case, I have long wondered who the heck goes to airports to buy fancy brand merchandise. But then, Thailand has long been a bit behind in its thinking, still catering to glamour travel when the age of mass travel (complete with football yobs) has been upon us for decades. They did learn from the mistakes when the main terminal was first built- which for some mysterious reason had next to no toilets for the public or passengers. In the main terminal, they went totally overboard in allocating spaces for commerical use (RENTAL INCOME!!!) such that basic amenities like toilets and sitting areas were totally sacrificed. Looking at the map above, the toilets appear to be plentiful in the satellite terminal. The floor above the concourse level has lounges. Or maybe just the one lounge "Miracle Lounge". As members of the board may know, I don't fly business class (waste of money, and not being plus-sized, no need for larger seats) or care for lounges, so I didn't go up to explore. There were only four F&B outlets in the staellite terminal. Fortunately, I was flying on a full-service airline. If one were on a low-cost airline that does not serve meals on board (other than instant noodles, etc, at ridiculous prices) and needed to eat before boarding, options would be limited to McDonalds, Burgerking, Ginger Farm Kitchen and Koh Hup (which also serves burgers + some Thai dishes). The airport authority does not look very smart in its choices of F&B; they could have had a wider range of food. Another difference from the main terminal is the way the gates now do not come with them own designated waiting rooms. It's open-plan now. There were few flights out of the satellite terminal, so it was mostly deserted. Another proof as to how behind the curve the airport designers/authority are lies in the provision of charging points. These are few and far between. You would think that every row of seats should be equipped with them, but no, only about one in five or six rows. So that means roughly one set of outlets for every 50 seats. I tried to charge my phone just to test them out (I really didn't need charging, but just wanted to try) and guess what? There was no juice. The electrical outlets, even when installed, had no electricity! I tried another one. Also dead. In this picture, notice how only the front row has charging points. The rows behind do not.

On a related note, I departed Bangkok last month via the satellite terminal. Here are some pictures I took, which should give you an idea of the shiny new addition to the airport. The gates for the satellite terminal are numbered starting with the letter "S", as you can see from the sign hanging from the ceiling in the main terminal. Follow the signs and they will lead you to a set of escalators going down deep into the basement. More escalators, but this time there are staff to make sure that you're headed in the right direction. Then you're down into an utterly sterile space where you wait for the shuttle train. To be continued.

You've only noticed it now? I've been saying this for years now. It's also been there in the official tourism statistics for over a decade. Asian tourists far outnumber westerners in both the general as well as gay traffic. And here I qualify that I am not using "asian" in the UK sense where it means indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi, but I mean the oriental Asian (what a quaint term).