PeterRS

I've gone through a few in my time. One has lasted much longer than others, though. Returning to the UK through Schipol in the early-1990s I decided to try the new Cool Water by Davidoff which was advertised virtually everywhere in the airport. Since then have used it most mornings. For evenings I have used Montblanc's Presence ever since friends gave me a bottle about a dozen years ago.

My flights between BKK and Doha in March as the first and last sectors of a round trip to the UK have been changed from A350s to A380s. Clearly a mark of increasing demand.

And the BiB perhaps?

I have no doubt that there are cheap package tours from India. But india is one of the prime target markets for the TAT and we are going to see lots more. Not all are cheap charlies by any means. Go into Central Chidlom and other major department stores and you see indian couples with several high-end boutique shopping bags. As for bars, to my understanding there are no similar bars in India. Being charitable it may just be that they do not know how to behave in a gay bar. But if that is the case, the mamasan should be pointing out the rules.

Given the huge amounts invested in real estate in Hong Kong and Singapore by wealthy Chinese, I suspect this change in the law is aimed primarily at that market.

For your list, the Taipei Gay Pride Parade in 2023 is on Saturday 28 October with a full weekend of parties around it.

Love those silly headlines. There was one in a newspaper in I believe Aberdeen Scotland as soon as news of the Titanic sinking had been announced. Despite the loss of more than 1,500 lives, the front page banner headline read "North-East Man Lost At Sea."

Very occasionally I take a double dose of antibiotics for a digestive condition. At Bumrungrad Hospital I was never given any suggestion about taking probiotics thereafter, When I moved to BNH, that was almost the first thing the doctor mentioned. A course of probiotics is essential, he said, after a course of antibiotics for gut treatment. Now I always take them.

Rees-Mogg is surely a mere caricature - a puppet with someone's hand stuck up his backside making him move and a record of 1950s BBC clipped English being played out of his mouth. A frightful man! If I recall correctly, his father was a much more intelligent and wiser man.

To that list you can add the Night Bazaar and a vast number of gay venues in Chiang Mai, sadly.

Great judgement. I always thought of Boeing as the finest aircraft company. I adored the 747 in its various versions and still miss it after hundreds of flights. But from what we now KNOW about the development of the 737 MAX, the basic premise that by not designing a new aircraft and instead yet again attempting to modify a 1960s airframe with engines too big for it, the short cuts taken virutally all aong the production line and then the introduction of the MCAS system without telling pilots about it - the company has to be viewed as far more than negligent. The bean counters knew precisely what they were doing as numberous whistle blowers eventually proved. Boeing has to pay up as criminals. But I suggest the ruling does not go far enough. The FAA thanks to its too cosy relationship conspired with Boeing and has to bear a fair degree of the blame and contribute to damages settlements. Perhaps the FAA was not part of this law suit. If not, then one has to be brought against it sooner than later IMHO. At least we now have the satisfaction of knowing that this rot in the aircraft industry and its regulators will most likely be rooted out. The skies will be safer as a result.

There is no need to rehash the story of how the grandson of the Red Bull founder, Vorayth Yoovidya, mowed down and killed a policeman while driving his Ferrari at something like 170 kph along Sukhumvit at 5:00 in the morning in 2012 with drugs and alcohol found in his system. This murderer has used his family's billions to stay ahead of the law for ten years, even though Interpol has allegedly been involved (a fact I have disputed as his name has never appeared on any Interpol list of many thousands of wanted criminals) and he has been spotted at various locations, including here in Thailand. Coming from the 2nd wealthiest family in the country, clearly no one in the government has any intention of upsetting the elite apple cart by having him found. Today's interesting fact is that this murderer's grandfather was a simple maker of pharmaceutical products that happened to include one energy drink named "Sprightly Red Bull". An Austrian businessman visiting Thailand tasted it and decided this was a product that could be marketed internationally. He took a share in the company and set about making it the world's best selling brand and himself a fortune estimated at US$25 billion. Red Bull is far more than a drink. It sponsors a vast number of major sports around the world, including ownership of the Red Bull Formula 1 racing team whose lead driver is the current World Champion. That businessman Dietrich Mateschitz died yesterday. According to sources he owned a 49% share in the company which manufactures and markets the drink. With the founder of the Thai company also passed on into pastures new, it is one of his 11 children who now controls his various companies. Overall charge is in the hands of Saipin Yoovidya, the eldest son of the founder's first wife. Vorayuth is his nephew, his father being the next younger brother from the same mother in the family hierarchy. I suppose the question now is: what becomes of Mateschitz's 49% shareholding? Presumably he has bequeathed them to friends/family/colleagues. But do we know if there was any agreement between the two families that on his death some or all would revert back to the Yoovidya family? I guess time will tell. Time will also tell is the murderer is ever going to get his hands on even part of the company. It is known his family is protecting him by all lmeans possible. But such familial agreements do not always result in harmony. One prominent example is the man known as the former Godfather and Gambling King of Macao, Stanley Ho. Polygamy was legal in Hong Kong until 1971 (a result of an ancient Qing Dynasty ruling) and Ho had 17 known children from four wives, two of whom had legal marriages, the other two were after the repeal of the Polygamy Act. After his health deteriorated in 2009, lawsuits aplenty flowed from the wives and the children. The family squabbles over his fortune of many billions of US$s were described in one news outlet as "Byzantine". I know one lawyer who made a fortune by representing Ho who had counter sued some of them. So only time will tell not only if the murderer is ever brought to justice but if he is ever allowed to rule part of the fmaily empire. https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/63100448 https://asia.ub-speeda.com/en/thailands-top-five-family-owned-businesses-future-beyond-decades-thailand/

Some time ago I did a day trip to Koh Phangan. Even in the daytime the beaches were nothing special and certainly not gay. I'll put in another plug for the beaches at Khao Lak about 80 kms north of Phuket airport. Don't expect much gay life, if any, but it's a great quiet location to bring a young gay friend. Totally wiped out in the 2004 tsunami, Khao Lak is now a string of hotels set mercifully apart from each other along the most stunning beach. We spent a great 5 days there.

I sometimes use the word boys in posts and must start changing that habit for I do refer to young men. As for posting nude photos, I for one cannot find any reason why this should interest or excite anyone. But then I totally avoid social media. As I recently wrote, to me it should be renamed "unsocial media." Be careful. 16 years is certainy not the universal age of consent. And don't trust what anyone says or anyone posts. Can you ever be certain it is not a troll or someone out to do harm? I still get the occasional spam email allegedly from friends. How do you know that friend on facebook or whatever is really your friend and not someone posting as your friend?

Fascinating post! I agree with @macaroni21 that it is less to do with Asian religions as it is to the influence -the negative influence - of western religions. The fact is that most countries in Asia had a remarkable tolerance towards sex and sexuality compared to the west. I have referred before to the book by Dominique Fernandez A Hidden Love: Art and Homosexuality. In the section dealing with Asia he makes it clear - as do other writers - that homosexuality was far from uncommon amongst the Chinese Emperors. He maintains that China had "a glorious erotic culture, largely but by no means exclusively heterosexual." Some readers will have heard of the Long Yang clubs where gay men can meet and mingle. I remember attending one meeting in Bangkok in the mid-1990s which was held in an apartment on Soi Sribumphen not far from the Malaysia Hotel. Long Yang was a courtier in the 4th century BC allegedly with special skills that endeared him to the Emperor. Another Emperor Wu Ti around 100 BC surrounded himself with boys as well as women as his concubines and is even known to have engaged in occasional menages a trois with two of his favourite boys. Best known perhaps is the tale of the Han Dynasty Emperor Ai Ti a century later who had numerous male lovers. Sharing his counch with his favourite Dong Xian, the young man fell asleep across the Emperor's sleeve. Rather than awaken him, the Emperor merely took his sword and cut off the sleeve. Even today, "cut sleeve" (黄九郎) is a commonly used euphemism for homosexual love. As late as the 18th century, the book Passions of the Cut Sleeve recounts 50 of the most famous cases of male love throughout Chinese history. From China, a bonze took this love and caring for younger boys to his native Japan around 800CE where it soon became the custom. During the three great dynasties in Korean history, homosexuality was never far from the ruling Courts. King Hyegong kept a group of elite warriors known for their homoeroticism and femininity called the "Flower Boys". When King Gongmin's wife died, he created a new Ministry whose sole duty was to roam the Kingdom and seek out beautiful young men to serve at Court. His sexual partners were called "little brother attendants." Even in South East Asia where Islam had taken hold after many centuries of Hinduism, sex was still regarded as a healthier outlet than it seems to be today, unless it is now almost exlcusively for procreation. Yet I found it interesting in Iran 4 years ago that my guide, a tall, good looking 40ish man, had a regular hooker in every town we visited. If there was one Asian influence that helped reduce the degree of homosexuality it was Confucianism with its strong emphasis on family. The main driving force historically, though, was surely the European colonial powers. Not the traders. It was the missionaries who followed closely in their wake who then caused havoc with societal norms up till then. In China the Taiping Rebellion effectvely became a civil war between about 1850 to 64. Fed with the all the bs in the religious pamphlets being spread by the missionaires, Hong Xiuquan believed he was the brother of Jesus Christ and amassed a large number of followers. The civil war which erupted killed 20 million, a huge massacre and one of the bloodiest in history, before it was finally put down. In Japan, it was the American missionaries who followed Commander Perry who forced the shoguns out and Japan to open up. But only to open up to western religious ideals at the expense of many centuries-old Japanese customs. It is thanks to the American influence after WWII that Japanese pornography to this day uses pixillation. Finally in Thailand. In the 1880s, one American visiter was so shocked by the nudity of the population that he remarked, "Not until Thailand is clothed need she expect a place among the respectable, civilized nations." Even though Thailand is one of the few nations never to have been colonised, the forces of democracy in the 1930s saw to it that attitudes gradually changed to fall much more in line with western thinking. The west has a great deal to answer for!

Having been to 7 previous Parades, I had hoped so much to be there. But the covid regulations were just not eased in time. So I am going for 16 days in November. Still plenty of gorgeous young Taiwanese to meet and of course my favourite hot springs to visit. So many totally naked young men parading around and enjoying themselves (although these are not saunas).

With respect, I'm not sure that is entirely correct. The Americans leased U-tapao for their B52 bombers during the Vietnam War. With so many randy young men, they naturally wanted an outlet for their sexual urges. It was I believe this group that resulted in the sex scene in nearby Pattaya. R&R quickly became known within the forces as I&I (intoxication and intercourse) in of course the girlie bars for which Thai enterpreneurs had noticed a big demand and the big profits that could accrue! That war ended in 1973. Some GIs no doubt visited Bangkok and helped develop the commercial girlie bar scene here in Patpong. But the numbers were I believe far fewer than in Pattaya. Bangkok has had a sex scene for gays and straights from time immemorial. Foreigners rarely get near it for the very simple reason we are not wanted there. With the adoption of democracy in 1932, we know that several gay groups did then develop, but they were condemned by society as a whole. With so many gay personalities visiting Thailand from around World War I - Somerset Maugham, Noel Coward and the at least bisexual Joseph Conrad etc. - there may have been a gay haunt or two, or did these men either stay with their partners of the day or just find young Thais happy to spend time with them? After WWII we know that there was a farang gay group which included Jim Thomson, the Thai Silk King, and which did meet quite regularly. Eventually there was a gay bar. I have seen its name as Sea Hag but can not be sure. But this was also a time when the Thai media was very anti-gay and outed quite a number of well-known gay personalities. This lasted well into the 1960s. Although the original Twilight (not in its later Soi Twilight location) and one of two other gay venues started in the late 1960s, it was not tilll the late 1970s that the gay explosion started. And as stated earlier, most of the clientele in those days were Thai.

How about those in Asia getting to Taipei for its great Gay Pride Parade and associated party week-end on October 29? Much closer and cheaper - and a barrel load of fun.

The nonsense just gets worse. Now the dreadful Boris Johnson is being considered by some as the ideal candidate to restore the fortunes of the ruling Conservative Party. This despite the rules of his party forbidding a PM who has resigned from standing again. But then Johnson never bothered with rules. This is the man who was kicked out of the PM job when much of his cabinet resigned not so long ago and for the litany of untruths he had inflicted not only on the UK people but worse on his fellow parliamentarians. Britain's only PM found guilty in a police prosecution. For decades those in the UK have laughed when talking about the chaos of multi-party politics of Italy. Funny how Italy has always survived quite well whereas the UK now is in a state of near total meltdown. As we have seen in the USA, a two party system - or one where two parties have the vast majority of seats - becomes a mockery when the very people elected only want to hang on to their seats and their salaries. Or as with Trump to avoid a litany of illegal deeds.

It looks very nice if you are happy with the price. I don't know that chain at all.

I am sure you are correct becuase Chiang Rai is in a different Province from Chiang Mai. The most serious damage was done to the famous White Temple which its architect fered would have to be demoloished. Fortunately they were able to save it. Photo: Dreamstime https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1755-6724.14775

Isn't a key part of life to be happy, however we achieve that happiness - barring robbing bank or something similar, of course? Keep enjoying it.

Sorry but I have written before that some newspapers like the NYT and the SCMP in Hong Kong are behind a paywall. It would really help if articles were posted verbatim if that's possible. Thank you.

Thanks for clarifying the issue re Super Lex. (Not sure if the name was LEK or LEX - it does seem it was run by Lex Matsuda but that would not prevent his naming the bar LEK). You are indeed correct. It was a different sort of bar. I recall the boys did often appear naked on stage but with their bodies partially hidden behind light gauzes.

I have never found any problem with guests at other hotels - perhaps because they tend to be so much bigger and its difficult for staff to spot guests. I also use my trusted atlas mostly because I sometimes want to visit friends and Japanese addresses are notoriously difficult as they are totally different from western addresses. But I'll try google maps when I return next year. I wonder if google provides all the info on the underground many passageways. Forgot I also stayed once about 5 years ago at the Gracery Hotel in Shinjuku and enjoyed it. The important thing to remember is that there are two sides to Shinjuku station and preferably you want a hotel on the east or south side.