PeterRS

Since 2008 Pattaya has installed 2,418 cctv security cameras. Yet the lifespan of the cameras was designed for 7 years. Should we therefore be surprised that in November 2021 the Pattaya Mayor admitted that only 43.8% of them actually worked? Many condos have their own cctv coverage. Perhaps the incident with the Russian lady was covered by one of them. As for the rest of Thailand, I can only find some details about Bangkok. Early last year the Bangkok Governor informed the public that an additional 62,000 cctv cameras had been installed around the capital. Then later last year, the Police Chief admitted another 23,000 new devices had been installed to cover the APEC Conference. It is doubted these were thereafter removed. The only other information I can find is that 20,000 were installed by the end of 2012 and a further 27,000 by the end of 2014. Whether they work or not I have no idea, although many were found not to be working after the bombing at the Erawan Shrine in August 2015. There is one rather general article stating that in 2018 there were public 360,000 cctv cameras around the country. https://aseannow.com/topic/1239479-pattaya-less-than-half-of-cctv-cameras-actually-work-city-hall-prepares-200-million-budget-and-new-charter/ https://thethaiger.com/news/bangkok/bangkok-officials-install-more-than-62000-security-cameras-around-the-capital https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1394934/push-to-fix-integrate-security-cameras

I use Safari on all devices and have never seen any warnings.

I was living in Bangkok when this raid occurred. It was during the Interior Minister Purachai's Social Order Campaign and one of many that took place in gay venues. What gave the Babylon one so much publicity is that Purachai himself led the raid. At one point in full view of the cameras, he picked up a used condom. He then said something along the lines, "You see. Illegal prostitution takes place here." No one in the Health Ministry thought to go public by adding it was an excellent thing that condoms were actually being used! 207 patrons and staff were detained that evening and subjected to urine tests. 20 tourists tested positive for drugs. As @reader points out, Purachai's campaigns were particularly popular in the country. He himself was one of the very few politicians who was incorruptible. A devout Buddhist, he named his children after Buddhist precepts. (His boss, Thaksin, on the other hand, named his children after the word for "gold"!) Allegedly Purachai was shocked by what he found on his nighttime raids. He looked back fondly just a couple of decades when Thai children obeyed their parents and even holding hands in public was rare. He blamed the influx of western ideas for the rise in glamorous night clubs, drug use and prostitution. When criticised by the western media, he lashed out and termed his crusade a "social evils" campaign. Even the much esteemed General Manager of the Oriental Hotel, Kurt Wachtveitl, criticised Purachai's campaign and the effect he believed it would have on tourism. Ironically, as one lawyer and senator Thongbai Thongbao was quoted as telling the Los Angeles Times, "He has popular support, but no one in government is on his side!" And so we have this single individual for the laws which thereafter changed gay nightlife. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jul-07-adfg-moral7-story.html

As if that is going to result in anything changing in the future!

It is not just visa processing issues. As my friend from Shanghai informed me earlier this week, after covid many Chinese no longer have valid passports and the backlog is such they will wait many, many months for new ones. Another factor affecting Chinese demand must surely be the dreadful state of the nation's economy. It has failed to recover from covid anywhere near as quickly as most thought and 2022 saw its worst economic performance in decades. The country is now in recession. The property market is suffering massive declines, far more than in previous years. Unemployment amongst the nation's youth in the 16-24 age range rose to a record 21.3% in June. 11.58 million university graduates are about to be thrown into a job market with few jobs to go to. President XI has urged them to go work in the countryside - echoes of the Mao era. None now want to do so. Then throw in the work force that is starting to show signs of rapid ageing thanks to the now abandoned one child policy. The losses of once the largest property developer Evergrande rose to US$340 billion last year, making it the global real estate's largest indebted developer. To all intents and purposes it is bankrupt. Hot on its heels, this week now the nation's largest developer, Country Garden, warned the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it will see a $7.6 billion loss for the first 6 months of this year. No less than 30 real estate companies have already defaulted on overseas loans. The government has increased loans to the sector but they are essentially a pittance that will do nothing to stop the slide. Worse for the government, in a country where it is usual to pay much of the value up front for property, last year millions of mortage holders rioted when developers could not deliver promised apartments. Indeed, many had stopped construction altogether. Given that China's construction market accounts for a third of the nation's economic output and about 70% of personal wealth, economists agree that the present crisis affecting disruption of such a massive sector will inevitably have an affect on the global financial system. Little wonder that President Biden has warned that China is a "ticking time bomb". Clearly many Chinese will still have the desire and the funds to travel. This group will no doubt fill up quite a few aircraft. But for the next few years the Chinese travel bubble is dead. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66470170 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-62402961

A wonderfully inspiring vdo. Greed is such a powerful motive. It is not just the massive amount of national treasures looted from countries. There is a very large and thriving market for stolen art trsasures. There was a television prgramme recently about the heist at the Garner Museum in Boston in 1990. With apparent ease, two thieves got into the gallery at night and made off with 12 paintings and one artefact, including one of the rare 34 Vermeers then in existence, several works by Rembrandt and others by Degas and Manet. None has ever been recovered. The value today is probably somewhere near $1 billion. Given the crude way in which some of the near priceless paintings were cut form their frames, it is viewed unlikely that they were stolen "to order" by a dodgy collector. But despite the involvement of the FBI over three decades and a $10 million reward, the artworks have vanished. Some believe they may simply have been destroyed by being badly stored. But no one knows. Over time many major artworks have been stolen from museums, incuding the Mona Lisa, a Picasso, a Rembrandt, 2 Edvard Munch paintings and Goya's Portrait of the Duke of Wellington which was famously included in a short scene in the first James Bond movie. All were eventually located and returned. The Garner Museum heist remains the largest of all - and the most mysterious.

Anyone depending on stated readership of the site is probably on the wrong Board. Does it matter how many readers a thread gets? When you open a newspaper do you look for a specific section? Readership provides a guide as we have no idea who is actually doing the reading and whether or not they have a special interest. I read some threads on gay bars in Thailand even though it is years since I have been in one. I still maintain that it is the variety that makes this Board special, not the likes and dislikes of one group who happen to post or merely happen to read. If this Board was primarily for those visitors interested in gay bars, saunas, spas and other gay events, some posters would certainly disappear. And as i stated earlier, your claim is absolutely nowhere in the Board's Mission Statement.

Sorry, but "no". That said, I think there are definitely two basic and important discussion issues - one primarily for those visiting and one for those actually living in Thailand. We have a pretty good idea of how many posters belong to each camp. But do we have any real idea of total readership and their prorities? Now, of course, with the expansion of the site, we have the Latin America sections. I have surprised myself as I find quite a few posts there really interesting. I suggest it's both the variety and volume of the posts that keep this Board interesting. I note that on other similar Thai-based Boards, the volume of posts is now reduced to 1 or 2 per day, with some days when there are no new posts. We should consider ourselves very fortunate that this Board is alive and well whatever one's particular interests may be.

In all my dozens of visits to Singapore I have had the same thought. In my case, though, it would be expense. Assuming there is ever a way around the visa issue, no way could I afford to live there. Although it is around 5 years since my last trip, I have always found it extremely cruisy with some of the best looking guys in Asia. But there is also something about the attitude of Singaporeans in general. None that I know seem particularly happy there. Too much of the nanny state is a common complaint. I have read many of the books on the Vietnam War and remain horrified at how that country suffered. Yet i only started visiting Vietnam a few years ago. Loved Hanoi, disliked HCMC, adored the island of Phu Quoc and had a ball in the central area of Danang, Hoi An and Hue. There used to be a long term visa and I know of someone then in Chiang Mai who had purchased a seaside home near Danang for retirement. Then the long stay visa was withdrawn. He is now back in Australia and extremely unhappy. If the visa situation changed, I would certainly consider the country.

Where did you get that idea? It is nowhere in the Board regulations. Indeed the mission statement reads, "The Gay Guides Message Center forums are provided as a venue for the discussion and exchange of information about Thailand and other related issues. It is a place to submit queries and share experiences, information, concerns, news, and views, and maybe even a little humor for the benefit of members" Looking through a variety of pages at random, I cnnot see that your assumption is correct. This Board works because there is such a variety of opinions on so many issues unrelated to "paid sex".

Way back in the mid-1990s when I decided I should start thinking about where I might eventually wish to retire and consider purchasing a small condo, I looked more closely at several of the Asian countries. I had been in love with much of the continent since 1979 and already knew several countries extremely well. One factor was wherever I chose, it had to be within relatively easy flying time of Hong Kong where I expected to continue running my own small company for the first 2 decades of the new century. Eventually i narrowed the options down to 2 - Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. At one moment of near madness I considered Penang. When the Asian Economic crisis hit, developers were left with large blocks of unsold ocean-facing apartments just off the road between Georgetown and the main beach area at Batu Ferringhi. These were all but being given away. But I knew I could easily end up becoming something of a beach bum and resisted the temptation. Yet KL was a city I really enjoyed then. Much less so now. Thankfully therefore I chose Bangkok which I knew extremely well. The Asian Economic crisis took 3 years before it hit Hong Kong. When it did, it experienced its worst recession since WWII. The finances of my company crashed. I could no longer afford actually to live there and so I decided to relocate to my Bangkok apartment and just commute. (Anyone who has tried to open a small service business working internationally in Thailand is aware that the regulations are a minefield - hence I had no intention of relocating the business here). I even found I enjoyed the regular monthly commuting and so did not bother to relocate back to Hong Kong after business finally picked up after SARS in 2003/04. The one city that I now kick myself was never on my radar was Taipei. I had been frequently in the city since the last year of marital law in 1986/87. A small gay scene had started developing by the mid-1990s but the city was very different from the one we know today. Sadly, it has also become considerably more expensive, especially in terms of real estate. I did think about a move there about 7 years ago. Now it would be too much of a financial stretch. I may well end up just staying in Thailand. But just the thought that a complete break with a move back to Europe and the possibility of continuing to explore so many more parts of that fascinating continent has given me a bit of a buzz. I do know two people who have moved there, one a good friend from Hong Kong who had been living with a boyfriend in Auckland for 15 years before they split up. He wanted to come and live in Chiang Mai but is not yet of an age where he could get a retirement visa. So friends persuaded him to move to Portugal. He enjoys it a lot.

As may have been obvious, I have the basic Elite 5-year visa. Although it was more expensive in the long run than continuing with the 800,000 baht retirement route, it involved far less hassle, required no cash lock up and, as I travel frequently, lots of free airport limousine transfers and special treatment once at BKK. The option to upgrade for up to 15 years during the currency of the membership for a similar amount was also very appealing. Now that I have been through all the palaver of the disgraceful cancellation of this upgrade during the currency of a membership and not at the end of the actual membership period - something I believe no reputable service oriented company anywhere in the civilised world would tolerate, I have been robbed of my option to decide on final retirement location prior to expiry of my membership in July 2025. I have made my feelings clear in emails and in two meetings with the management. Did they give a fuck? Of course not! By withdrawing the option now and forcing existing members to pay for upgrades now, they make a ton of cash in a country where "cash is increasingly king". Although I made my decision that Thailand would be where I wished to retire way back in 1995, since learning of the Thailand Elite latest money grab, I had started to consider if there might be other options. With a partner with excellent qualifications who is quite keen to work in Europe, I had begun to consider Portugal which, as @reader kindly pointed out in the Thailand Named Ninth-Best Retirement Destination thread, has come top of retirement polls for several years. I have been to Lisbon and Porto and enjoyed the cities a lot. For retirement I'd have to consider a town probably midway between where rents etc. would be less expensive. But the more I have thought about it, the more attractive it seems. My partner could probably end up with a decent job in Germany or Switzerland as he speaks German extremely well. He's never lived in either country but quite likes the idea, the more so if I am based relatively nearby and within easy flying distance. Having handed in my papers for the 15 year extension this afternoon, I was informed it could be up to 3 months before the extension was granted and then another month before payment was required. So I do not have to make any decision now. It also means I have time to make another trip to Portugal in the next couple of months to look at possible locations and meet with estate agents, lawyers etc. In the past 25 years I never once considered not living in Thailand. Oddly, it feels quite liberating to be considering another option even without bars, saunas and the Asian gay environment.

That is certainly the general consensus. But there are always exceptions and I have to say here that I am one. I am closer to 70 than 60 and my partner of 4 years is still in his 20s. I have told him many times that I will never stand in his way should he find someone younger who can offer him the chance of a longer life together. He refuses to consider it! Not only have I never taken him abroad, he has said he has no desire to travel abroad other than one day to visit Europe!

Isn't the rooftop bar historically interesting as it is where many international journalists hung out for drinks during much of the Vietnam War?

Given that Chiang Mai did not have a Pride Parade for almost ten years, the tourist director's comments are something of a joke! He clearly forgets that the 2009 Pride Parade had to be called off due to harrassment from local protest groups and near violence from hundreds of thugs wearing red shirts as the police stood by watching and doing nothing. Through megaphones, one group of citizens shouted that the "Parades destroy our beautiful culture." Parades restarted in 2019 but I am told on a relatively small scale. Add to that general feeling of local hostility towards the LGBT community, many dozens of gay venues have closed in recent years that virtually all Chiang Mai has to offer is local culture. That certainly is worth exploring and enjoying, but gay tourists want something to do in the evenings. Having visited the bars now almost all located on the street across from Le Meridien, I cannot believe most tourists would enjoy them. Hence my view that the local tourist director is talking through a hole in his head. The emphasis here is clearly in "wealthy". I was an occasional patient at Bumrungrad off and on for about 20 years. During that time I have seen what the concentration on medical tourism has done. Bumrungrad can now give you a feeling more like a hospital might be in Saudi Arabia given the influx of medical tourists from Middle Eastern countries. Call me racist but i still feel something is wrong when you see a couple with the woman wearing a full black burka covering even her face and the husband in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. There is no doubt it is an excellent hospital but prices have risen very dramatically, especially in recent years. BNH (Bangkok Nursing Home) on Soi Convent is another excellent hospital and I find its prices almost half those at Bumrungrad. But even these cannot match those in the best hospitals in India which I believe are around half for equally fine facilities and equally trained doctors. Almost all East Asian countries are after the medical tourism dollar. Thailand may win out on reputation and the enjoyment of recovery from a procedure at a nice beach resort. But have your Platinum card at the ready!

This has been a recurrent theme over the years and it is sometimes derided by some posters. The fact is, as I can well attest, in many Asian countries there are some younger guys who only want an older "daddy" type. Not in the sense of being a sugar daddy (although I am sure there is any number of these guys) - merely because they 'love' being in love with older men. I have a farang friend here in Thailand who is legally married to his partner of 20 years and their age difference is 36 years. Another met his student Thai partner in DJ Station 26 years ago. They too are legally married and the younger Thai has an excellent and well-paid job in London. In the first case the young Thai had left school early but ran a small business. With his partner's help in marketing, especially overseas, that business has been booming for years and his income considerably exceeds the income enjoyed by the farang. Although I do not use the apps in Thailand, they are on my phone for my regular sorties out of the country. Even here, though, I occasionally get guys in their 20s seeking to meet up with much older farang. Overseas, I recently wrote about my experience in a Taipei sauna. A young 22 year old recent graduate recognised me simply from one visit I had made to a hot spring 4 years earlier! We had not spoken at that time as his English was then non-existent. Now it is near perfect. I later noticed his app profile states he is only interested in an ltr with someone 50+.

Thanks for bringing up the point about the devices having to be around 33 ft from an Apple device.

Malaysia just cannot leave an issue alone! The government has now decreed that anyone who owns or sells the rainbow colour Swatch watches will face three years in jail, according to a statement from the law enforcement agency of the Interior Ministry today. Be caught wearing one for whatever reason and you get slapped with an additional 20,000 Ringgit fine (US$4,375). The statement claimed that the watches "may harm . . . the interests of the nation by promoting, supporting and normalising the LGBTQ+ movement that is not accepted by the general public." What is so ridiculous about that statement is that both Hong Kong and Singapore had the same British colonial anti-sodomy law on their statute books and both governments claimed for decades their populations would never accept a change in the law. Yet Hong Kong changed the law when it introduced a Bill of Rights in 1990 and not one of the many dozens of Chinese media outlets even commented negatively on it. After years of saying it needed to retain the law on the grounds of racial harmony within the city state, Singapore finally repealed the law earlier this year. In fact it was left with no grounds for maintaining it since the highest court ruled a year ago that aspects of the law could not in fact be enforced. So, despite the outrage shown by the small but very vocal evangelical Christian movement - but perhaps surprisingly not the far larger Muslim community - the government moved swiftly to change the law. 93 MPs voted for the repeal with only 3 voting against. One therefore wonders why it took Singapore so long to make that change! What is so idotic about Sections 377A and 377B of the Penal Code in Malaysia, just as it was in Hong Kong and Singapore, is that they do not exclusively apply to homosexuality. The interpretation of the law is discriminatory because oral sex and anal sex are totally banned irrespective of whether it is between two men, two women or a man and a woman. Now if the Malaysian government were to adhere to the law, every straight couple who indulged in oral sex would be contravening that law. And if it actually stated that men and women never practise either oral or anal sex, the world would surely laugh at it! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/10/owners-lgbt-swatch-watches-could-jailed-malaysia

There is always a tendency when considering what a country is doing today to forget its relatively recent history. Less than 50 years ago Thailand was a low income economy. I'd hardly call it third world, but it was pretty close. In the intervening years and in little more than a generation it has risen to become an upper-middle income country. I can remember being encouraged to invest a very small amount in a Thai mutual fund in the 1980s. The returns were very impressive but then the these were boom years with the economy growing at an average rate of 7.5%. Much of that income ended up in the hands of the elite, especially a smallish group of families - but then is that not very much the worldwide trend with developing countries? On the other hand, according World Bank statistics, Thailand has an impressive record in poverty reduction - from 58% of the population in 1990 to just 6.8% in 2020. (And we still question why the Thai boys have largely disappeared from the Bangkok gay bars!) We should also never forget the effect on the psyche of the elite of the Asian Economic Crisis of 1997. As the economy nose-dived, all Thais suffered, many greatly, but it was many in the upper levels of society who came off worst, relatively speaking. Former Chief Executives were even reduced to work similar to one individual who ended up going around offices selling home-made sandwiches to survive. That the crisis was entirely man-made within Thailand with an over-heated economy, a much over-valued currency, sky high interest rates to avoid currency outflows, lax government oversight and a host of dodgy financial companies is nowadays all but forgotten! With proper economic management between 1993 and 1996, the crisis could have probably been avoided - if not, its effect certainly lessened. But due to dreadful governance, the country was bankrupt, all its foreign exchange reserves wiped out. The strictures imposed by the IMF in return for loans of almost US$18 billion and the reluctance of some in government to take the necessary steps delayed recovery by some years and paved the way to Thaksin to find his way to power. During those post 1997 years, anyone was welcome in Thailand. The country needed money - any money - and fast. I believe this was the main reason for the expat retirement scheme and welcoming all manner of toursts, even those primarily interested in sex. On the other hand, having been so severely affected, the elite in particular never wanted to see a similar sitation arise in future. That meant once the country's finances had been stabilised, changing the face of tourism. But what Thailand could not control were external factors. The SARS epidemic in 2003 had a major short-term impact on tourism. The world financial crisis of 2008 had a worse effect on much of the economy. Then the disaster of the covid years. Every time there has been an external crisis, though, Thailand has bounced back. And at the core of its view from the top virtually since the first Thaksin government, rightly or wrongly, is that high-end tourism and the luxury market is what will ensure greater sustainability in future. Is it any surprise that all five new hotels in the massive One Bangkok development on Rama 4 will be in the luxury category? Many would assume that Bangkok already has more 5-star hotels than necessary! (Incidentally, I had drinks and snacks with a friend from Shanghai yesterday evening in one of the city's top hotels, the Sukhothai on Sathorn. Over 4 hours, the bar was totally empty apart from the two of us. And we saw virtually no guests either entering or leaving the hotel. It was more 'dead' than I have ever seen it in more than 20 years!) Generally though, when you look into a crystal ball, you see, as I now tend to, a country where, as @reader points out in his earlier post, cash will be king and those visiting and/or intending to retire had better have plenty of it! Other crystal balls may reveal a different scenario. After all, the next economic or covid disaster could be just around the corner. Perhaps, though, that is sufficient reason for the elite to make as much cash as they can before than happens.

As has been stated quite a few times in this forum over the years, there is plenty of free sex in Thailand. The problem for tourists is they want/need almost instant gratification. So either they pay or they take precious time out of their vacations to find the guys that want to meet up without any issue of cash involved (apart perhaps from for transport as, in a large city like Bangkok with hotels in the centre, many of the students and young guys live and spend their time relatively far out). Many willing gay Thais study and work and so instant hook-ups are less common.

A follow-on documentary to Oppenheimer has just been released in cinemas in the UK. A Compassionate Spy is the tale of Ted Hall, the 19 year old and youngest scientist who was part of the Los Alamos team (how on earth did they permit someone so young, I wonder?). Like more than at least one other scientist at Los Alamos, including Klaus Fuchs who is mentioned in the Oppenheimer movie, Hall became a spy for the Soviet Union. Steve James, the director of the documentary, states that what people later accused Oppenheimer of doing was mostly Ted Hall's work. "Unsettled by the US government’s refusal to share atomic intelligence with its allies and the prospect of a US monopoly on the bomb, Hall shared aspects of the project at Los Alamos with Soviet intelligence – a secret that went largely unknown for nearly 50 years, and is left out of the hit movie." Historian Joseph Albright, the co-author on a book about Hall, estimates that his spying accelerated Soviet progress on their own weapons by about 5 years. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/aug/07/compassionate-spy-documentary-ted-hall

There’s an interesting story on the CNN website. A passenger travelling from Baltimore to her home in Denver via Chicago had her one checked bag fail to turn up. She had had the sense (have any of us done this, I wonder?) to purchase an AirTag, Apple’s tracking device for luggage. Although United Airlines kept advising that the bag would turn up, she knew that the bag was actually at O’Hare. She also saw it was eventually moved 50 yards. After days United still denied any knowledge of the bag suggesting instead she just register a claim for financial compensation. But the content of the bag was very important to her. So she finally spent 30,000 air miles and flew herself to Chicago where she quickly found her bag! United eventually refunded her 30,000 miles. As air travel has increased dramatically, so have the number of lost bags. In this case, the problem had occurred because the bag had been wrongly tagged. To me the moral is pretty simple. Always check that your bag has been correctly tagged (which I do) and attach it to an Air Tag (which I am now about to buy). These can be purchased in Thailand and from amazon and are cheap. I’m not sure how effective those for US$10 are, but the first pair of waterproof ones developed by Elevation Lab for Apple for $30 get almost exclusively extremely good reviews. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/airtag-lost-luggage-flight/index.html https://www.amazon.com/TagVault-Waterproof-Keychain-Ultra-Durable-Elevation/dp/B09CC4T49N/ref=sxin_16_pa_sp_search_thematic_sspa?adgrpid=82658710798&content-id=amzn1.sym.1c86ab1a-a73c-4131-85f1-15bd92ae152d%3Aamzn1.sym.1c86ab1a-a73c-4131-85f1-15bd92ae152d&cv_ct_cx=airtags%2B2%2Bpack&hvadid=585475089740&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=1012728&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=b&hvrand=16817201679711258651&hvtargid=kwd-1263104292419&hydadcr=744_1014988874&keywords=airtags%2B2%2Bpack&pd_rd_i=B09CC4T49N&pd_rd_r=3a526715-a932-4320-a600-297acbd5160b&pd_rd_w=nfTLA&pd_rd_wg=kRa0D&pf_rd_p=1c86ab1a-a73c-4131-85f1-15bd92ae152d&pf_rd_r=XYMH5CFTRWQE1RGX3J97&qid=1691386006&sbo=RZvfv%2F%2FHxDF%2BO5021pAnSA%3D%3D&sr=1-3-364cf978-ce2a-480a-9bb0-bdb96faa0f61-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9zZWFyY2hfdGhlbWF0aWM&th=1

Other than checking with insurance companies both in Thaland and overseas, I just don't know. The cut off date for most medical insurance seems to be 65 but there are travel companies that offer short-term insurance for travellers into their 80s. I found this company on the internet which implies it offers insurance for older people. I know nothing about it, though. Checking any policy is obviously important as many add additional restrictions for over-65's and if you need a policy that is in effect also outside Thailand. https://sbc-insurance.live/zurich_coris?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc_poisk&utm_campaign=TRAVELES_CORIS_Search&utm_adgroupid=Traveles_Coris_Zurich&utm_content=ob'avlenie_1&utm_placement=&utm_term=senior citizen travel insurance&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3rrWqOvJgAMVHtMWBR0A0gUrEAAYASAAEgInZ_D_BwE

Sorry can't help with tailors and agree about the lack of a gay scene. But as soon as my flight had arrived at Danang in early 2020, getting into my car to Hoi An I had several hits on one of the apps (sorry cannot remember which). This resulted in two days with a really lovely Vietnamese guy.

Depite the doom and gloom in my earlier post, I do think Hong Kong is still worth visiting for stopovers or short trips, the more so as there are fewer tourists and crowds. The sights are still well worth seeing, shopping remains competitive with most Asian cities due to the absence of any sales tax (except on perfumes, liquor and tobacco products), the gay bars and saunas are especially busy at the week-ends and some of the guys are stunning. Historically It also remains a fascinating city. As for Cathay Pacific, it opted out of the mega aircraft market by not replacing any of its 747 fleet with A380s. Consequently, for example, pre-coved it ran 5 services daily to London and 4 to New York. Whereas many airlines dependant on long-haul services have brought their once thought of as obsolete A380s back into service (Singapore Airlines has 12 of which 10 are now operating again), CX depends on ageing and smaller A330s and 777s complemented by the newer A350s as its long haul fleet. Stil, wth an average age of 11 years, its fleet is still relatively young compared to some of the behemoths of the sky.