PeterRS

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.

I'd love to see Lhasa, Luxor and take the dawn balloon trip over Bagan. But we're all different and I have never had an interest in Easter Island, Jerusalem, the Pyramds and Tikal. Machu Picchu was amazing. Were I ever to return to South America I would love to base myself in Cusco and explore more of the surrounding valleys. I found Cusco fascinating/

With respect to @Boy69's view, I believe the real dissatisfaction was pronounced after the Elite programme had been running for about a dozen years. The first Thaksin government's Ministry of Tourism set it up specifically to attract more of the rich and famous to visit Thailand more regularly and for longer stays with less hassle. It was never intended as a replacement for a retirement visa. But that policy rarely worked and its membership remained massively behind projections. The government did consider abandoning it at that time but then decided to keep it going with some enhanced benefits. Too much loss of face would have resulted from cancellation! I believe the programme was rescued by covid. Since it was easier to get back to Thailand with an Elite visa, the number of applications mushroomed. This started just after the idiotic Immigration Director changed the rules and insisted on the 800,000/400,000 bank deposit route for those seeking retirement visas on an annual basis rather than transferring monthly payments. As a result, the Elite programme seemed a more ideal retirement route, even though it was cash out and not returned. Now, though, building on what i believe was a temporary house of cards, the management gurus have decided demand is there for them to make much more profit from the Elite programme. It's my view that they want to remove it as a retirement option and go back to the original plan of regular cash rich tourists. After all, who'd pay 900,000 baht cash with no cash return for a 5-years visa when the 800,000 route involves less outlay and money back on departure from Thailand - or death! Mind you, that presumes that the 800,000/400,000 route remains unchanged, and that is something I would never assume. As far as I can find out on the internet, the "retirement" visa programme in Thailand was introduced in 1998 after the hugely damaging effects of the Asian Economic Crisis. I do not know if the monthly incoming transfer had then to be 65K baht. If so, then I fear someone in Immigration will also be looking at ways to increase that amount. And then wait for the mandatory medical insurance! The land of smiles is certainly becoming less appealing.

It's hard to find statistics but I expect Cathay Pacific will have to continue to depend more on international transit passengers in the short- to medium-term. Heving twice visited this year, it is noticeable that tourism remains way down on pre-covid levels. Part of this is a result of the severity of the covid restrictions which led some expatriates to leave Hong Kong altogether. Another is the draconian Chinese national security law imposed a couple of years ago which makes criticism of China and its policies a jailable offence. Many Hong Kong Chinese have left for good to take up residency in other countries, especially the UK which has opened its doors to hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong citizens (albeit several decades too late). Just last month the Hong Kong government which is basically appointed by Beijing enacted the extraordinary and in my view disastrous policy of placing a bounty of HK$1 million (US$128,000) per head for the return of several of those who had been student activists. Not even after Tiananmen Square in 1989 did the Beijing government adopt such a policy. Hong Kong has become a different city. Its total population has declined for the third consecutive year. In my view it will continue to depend to an even greater extent on short-haul tourists from China which will do little for Cathay Pacific's bottom line. So the long-haul market will probably concentrate on transit passengers from Canada and the USA - and perhaps some from Europe if fares are competitive - with Thailand and other countries as their final destination.

I don't think for a list like this it matters at all what the location is. It's a destination - not a place for a two-week holiday. I adored Esfahan but three or four days is plenty of time to see it. Petra, as @hojacat points out is not more than a 2-day destination. But there are tons of other things to see if you happen to be going to Jordan. Similarly the Torres del Paine National Park is purely nature at its most stunning. You won't find any of the comforts of sights of a big city anywhere near there. But that is no reason not to visit the more so as there are many other sights within a reasonanble distance - as for example the huge Perito Moreno Glacier, one of the few actually advancing in a time of global warming.

There is a website for Thailand Elite Visa Members. Today it states that Siam Legal (presumably one of the law firms permitted to offer the visas) has confirmed that the lowest package from October 1 will be 900,000 baht for 5 years - a 50% increase. But then it says the highest one will be 5 million baht for 20 years (up 150%). I cannot work out why anyone would go for 20 years if they could purchase 4 x 5 years at 3.6 million. Presumably there will be some reason - like not possible toget back to back visas. The site also states these prices were confirmed today by two Thailand Elite staff. So I was lied to yesterday when the membership services manager said nothing had been agreed re the new pricing! Should I have expected anything else! But as @TMax pointed out, it has become a lot more expensive.

I realise few here are members of Thailand Elite. These few might be interested to know I visited the Service Centre yesterday afternoon and insisted on meeting a senior manager. Eventually I met with the Member Service Manager. I made it plain - politely - that withdrawing a key benefit from a membership which was one of the inducements to joining as a member was morally disgraceful if not technically illegal. The way it should have been done is that existing members should have had their benefits kept intact until the end of their individual membership period - not unilaterally withdrawn midway. That is what any reasonable and responsible membership organisation would do. I know of at least one lawyer who is talking about a class action suit against Thailand Elite. Such action is unlikely to have any success, but I pointed out that any legal action will inevitably find its way into major travel and international news outlets. That will put Thailand Elite very much on the PR back foot. I know from bitter experience that this can take many weeks if not months to overturn. It may also make at least some of those considering the new Thailand Elite programmes think twice before joining. All this was met with a weak smile and no response! What I did find out is that the revamping of the organisation is, as most believed, a way to raise more cash. From 8 programmes presently on offer, these will be reduced to 4. I believe these will be for 5, 10, 15 and 20 years respectively. Each will be allocated a certain number of points which can then be redeemed for a variety of lifestyle choices, like limos to/from BKK and cinema tickets. Cinema tickets? Who spends millions to get free cinema tickets? It all seems a classic case of a Board of management that just gave in to the preferences of each individual member without the Chairman saying "Stop"! And where is the Chairman at this time of major change? On holiday in Switzerland! At least I know the 5 year membership will certainly be more expensive than the present 600,000 baht. All she would say was that it would be less than 1 million. So anyone considering membership not only for 5 years but to take advantage of the longer periods still on offer should perhaps bring forward their plans.

I would not agree that apps etc. have ruined sex. But they have taken some of the enjoyment from a hoped-for sexual encounter. Times inevitably change and the experience for guys nowadays is different from what it was for those of us of an older generation. In my youth, despite my concern about appearing to be gay, I loved the 'hunt' - seeing someone in a bar or at a party whom I found aggressively attractive in the hope that we mght get together. This was never immediate but could often take weeks if not in some cases months! And not always successful! Also I love to see and know a little about who I am about to have sex with. Like many readers here, I know nothing that beat the Bangkok go-go bar experience in much earlier years. And it was not just the boys parading around in short pants or naked. My Way was a haven of cute young guys doing incredible pole dancing.

Travel & Leisure is indeed a publlication aimed primarily at the North American market, although it has been making inroads into Europe. Interestingly, I was not aware there is an Asian edition covering Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Macau. In the blurb at the start of its website it makes very clear that the Travel and Leisure readership is the luxury market. It therefore probably is of little interest to readers of gaythailand - apart ftom our @vinapu whose love of 7-star Michelin cuisine is well known "Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Macau is the Asian edition of the American luxury travel and lifestyle magazine and your go-to source of travel inspiration. Published by BurdaLuxury, a Hubert Burda Media company, the magazine comprises an audience of luxury travellers, high net worth individuals, CEOs, entrepreneurs . . . Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Macau explores destinations, ideas, and trends and celebrates people who create authentic luxury experiences. Travel + Leisure globally and in Asia enjoys a remarkable history of credibility and is the bible of luxury travel in Asia and abroad." Given that readers here are almost all residents of Thailand or visitors, I wonder what their list of top 10 destinations have been/would be on their existing budgets (excluding Thailand)? I find it incredibly difficult to limit my list to 10 but I'll start the ball rolling in no particular order (have visited all but Santorini). Tokyo, Istanbul, Petra, Paris, Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia, Madrid, Florence, Isfahan, Sydney, Santorini.

As with all polls, who votes and how the votes are collated are important in deciding whether the poll results are suitable for each individual. I have never purchased Travel and Leisure magazine but used to read it when magazines were available on aircraft. I know I visited two destinations simply because I had read about them in the magazine. After all its writing is principally about travel destinations. To that end, readership of Travel & Leisure has a median age of 54, 77% own their own home with a median value of US$345,809, a median household income of US$110,478 and a female to male ratio of 59/41. Clearly it is the wives who make many of the travel decisions! That said, over my many years of travelling i have visited 17 of the 25 listed cities. At the time I visited, I could not argue with any of the findings. But then I could also add several dozen more! https://meredithdirectmedia.com/magazines/travel-leisure

Who, I wonder? I have met @ChristianPFC on several occasions. He worked in Thailand for about a year but that must have been close to a decade ago. Since then he travels extensively within Thailand and within the region as all can read both in the chat forums and on his own blog. He also returns to stay in his home country of Germany. As is farily obvious from his comments on visas, he is not a resident in Thailand.

Respectfully I have to disagree. I would hardly call it a framing device although it appears throughout. We perhaps tend to forget nowadays that in the 1930s there were communists just anout everywhere. It was an appealing ideology for many who hated the Great Depression in the USA, the slaying of so many of the sons of the ruling classes in England in WWI and the rise of fascism. Then later with China falling to Mao and Stalin getting the bomb so quickly (won't say how!), the USA was paranoid with McCarthy leading his horrific witch-hunts. Not even heroes were immune.

i just returned from Taipei and learned officiallythis evening that the upgrade to 20 years with be withdrawn as reported on August 15. This is some kind of Immigration madness - but then Immigration in this country has hardly ever been considered barely sensible. When you take out a membership, it is usual in most service organisations I know of for the benefits of that membership to remain for the period of the membership - unless fees are not paid, the member commits a crime and other understanable causes. I can think of no instances where the terms of the membership are unilateraly changed during its currency. Not so Thailand Elite. I suppose its managers fail to understand that the primary reason for the spike in memberships was an understanding on behalf of a lot of people that it would be easier to enter the country during covid. No doubt they will now jack up the price and be astonished in due course when membership falls again! After all, it was such a turkey for so many years there was talk of it being cancelled altogether. And given the minuscule two-week notice of changes given by the mandarins at Thailand Elite, do not be surprised if new retirement financial regulations come in with a minimum of notice. That, if I recall correctly, is that happened when the 800,000 baht in an account for three months prior to application for a new annual visa was thrown out and it suddenly became 800,000 baht unspent in an account for 5 months reducing to 400,000 upspent for the rest of the year. Ironically we were informed in the media that this would be one way of stopping crook agents and crook Immigration officers. DId that work? Perhaps in some cases, but I suspect not many. But internet sites still talk about foreigners living on 30,000 or 40,000 baht per month! It's really all very well for those on nice pensions or good social security benefits from the USA who can pay the 65,000 per month. Many retirees and potential retirees, however, do not fall into those categories and depend on pension pots and other sources of income. Lots of cops spout all manner of silly jargon from time to time. But we were told some time ago that there is a Committee looking into long term retirement fees. Nothing has been heard from it as far as I know. Will the Thailand Elite changes herald more? No idea! But where fees have remained constant for more than a few years, I'll bet someone, somewhere is trying to work out if they ought to be raised!

A note for all Thailand Elite holders. Although there has been absolutely no notification from the Elite office, one of the legal firms authorized to handle Elite requests let the cat out of the bag last week when it stated the Elite programme is being revamped on Oct 1. The only info it contains is that the family visa is being dropped. Worse for those on the basic programme costing 600,000 baht for 5 years expecting a renewal for 15 years at 400,000 baht, it seems certain that renewal is either also being dropped or substantially modified. Try getting the Elite Visa hotline to confirm annything over the long holiday weekend and the operators were clueless. They had not even been briefed on changes. Then a number of blog sites have all written in recent days that the last date for applying and paying for existing Elite card programmes and extensions will in fact be August 15! With so many unknowns and the almost certainty of only 2 weeks formal notice of what seem to be very major changes, I have already heard from a number of furious Elite members - and I am presently in Taipei! Clearly something is about to change and it may happen very quickly. My only advice to those planning to apply for an Elite card or holding the basic 5 year card and hoping to renew is to get cash ready and stand by for a quick 15 year upgrade. I’ll post more info when Thai Elite finally get round to informing existing members.

What a load of utter trash! Troubled personalities a result of their governments? Absolute nonsense! Which planet do you live on?

There is little doubt that larger-than-life Leonard Bernstein was one of the great figures in music - classical and popular - of the 20th century. During and after his 12-year tenure as Music Director at the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from 1957, he conducted all the world's major orchestras and was one of the favourite conductors of the notoriously picky Vienna Philharmonic. His music for West Side Story remains popular around the world as do some numbers from other musicals like On The Town and Wonderful Town. His operetta Candide is still regularly performed. Less well known is that he was gay throughout his life. As he emerged as a musician in his late teens, he mixed with a crowd of American composers almost all of whom were gay - Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Mark Blitztein and Samuel Barber. Indeed, some have written that gay composers gave America its music! [Barber's most famous work Adagio for Strings was performed on national radio following the assassination of President Kennedy, at the funeral of Princess Grace of Monaco in 1982, and features in a number of movies, especially Oliver Stone's Platoon]. But Bernstein wanted to be a conductor. One distinguished conductor impressed on Bernstein that he would get nowhere as an orchestra conductor unless he was married. The new movie titled Bernstein premieres at the Venice FIlm Festival in September and will also be due some time later on Netflix. The producers include Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. It is directed by Bradley Cooper who also plays Bernstein. How much of his gay life will be included, though, must be doubtful for it concentrates on his marriage to his wife, the Chilean actor Felicia Montealegre. For decades during his life and after his death, his estate and then his three children made every attempt to deflect and deny allegations of his homosexuality, even though it was well known in the music profession and in many parts of the gay world. But they finally gave up and in 2014 allowed correspondence between him and his wife to be pubished. Very soon after their 1951 marriage, his wife wrote to him, "You are a homosexual and may never change . . . I am willing to accept you for who you are as I happen to love you very much." Throughout that marriage, he continued to have affairs with many men, some of whom were aspiring conductors who studied with him and are now very well known. But even his wife could not have realised that in 1976 he would finally abandon her to live in San Francisco with his male lover, Tommy Cochrane (since Cochrane is a character in the movie, that relationship wtih Bernstein must at least be mentioned). Then fate intervened. In 1977 Felicia developed cancer. Immediately Bernstein returned to New York to look after her until her death. Thereafter, while remaining one of the most in demand conductors of the time, he descended into alcohol, drugs and yet more young men. I had no idea he had been gay until I started visiting Tokyo where he was a regular in one of the gay bars on his many professional visits to the city. A heavy cigarette smoker all his life, he died in 1990 from a heart attack partly induced by his emphysema.

Even if the guy is a prime douchebag as my friend claims, that does not make him a sexual molester or rapist. Let's not forget that this is not the first sexual charge against Spacey. One taken out in 2017 by actor Anthony Rapp alleged he had been sexually assualted aged 14. Rapp claimed US$40 million in damages! That case went to court in New York and was dismissed Another actor claimed that Spacey raped him in 1983 when he was also 14. He joined Rapp's case but eventually dropped out of the lawsuit, allegedly because he did not want his name publicised! The fact is there have been quite a number of sexual misconduct allegations against Spacey, but none has yet been proved in a court of law! I hope that if the guys who lost their case in London do take out civil procedings, they have a lot of financial backing. It will prove horribly expensive - especially if they lose.

With my partner spending some time looking at Colombian boys on chaturbate, I became interested when looking over his shoulder. Now I will sometimes open a site on my own. Some of those boys look amazing, and many being all but hairless makes them even more so!

Generally with so much innuendo and gossip, I would agree. But when a close friend I had known for almost 40 years and actually worked with the guy tells me about his experience, I do not believe he lies!

Bush and the neocons have a great deal to answer for. The refusal to allow the UN to have a second vote, conning Blair and other leaders with lies which at least Blair had the decency to apologise for, albeit many years later, their determination to get rid of Saddam etc. And once they won the war, the absolute shambles they left behind led by the gung-ho idiot Paul Bremer, a total mess including the disbandment of the Ba'athist army which led directly to the creation of ISIS. Notable too were the huge amounts of cash that just happened to disappear during his administration. That Iraq remains a failed state is directly due to Bush.

I have frequently noticed rats but not that the numbers have increased in recent years.

To a certain extent I agree. On the other hand, why was the Manhattan project initiated? I have explained Einstein's view. But let's not forget that even in August 1943, Oppenheimer himself said, "It is possible that the Germans will have, by the end of this year, enough material accumulated to make a large number of gadgets [atomic bombs] which they will release at the same time on England, Russia, and this country." Indeed, Oppenheimer was only involved in the Manhattan Project because he believed Germany would develop the bomb. It was this repeated fear of what the Germans might have achieved up to that point, given their head start, that prompted the US to build Los Alamos. But (and this is not in the movie - so no spoier) there remain doubts that the German scientists were anywhere near as motivated as their American colleagues. Heisenberg met with Niels Bohr at a September 1941 Conference in Copenhagen. Prior to the meeting Heisenberg had discussed the possible meeting with other scientists involved in nuclear research including Carl von Weizsacker and Karl Wirtz. For thanks to the discovery of another nuclear team in Berlin working under Fritz Houtermans, as Heisenberg recalled years later, “It was from September 1941 that we saw an open road ahead of us, leading to the atomic bomb.” At that time, of course, it seemed that Germany was going to win the war. While accounts of that meeting weeks later held in the open air to avoid spies remain uncertain due to the differing accounts later provided by the two men, there seems little doubt now that Heisenberg was actually committing treason by providing Bohr with some information about German nuclear progress. According to the memoir of Heisenberg's wife, "The truth was that Heisenberg saw himself confronted with the specter of the atomic bomb, and he wanted to signal to Bohr that Germany neither would nor could build a bomb. That was his central motive. He hoped that the Americans, if Bohr could tell them this, would perhaps abandon their own incredibly expensive development." Yet we now know that Frau Heisenberg was either gilding the lily in sugesting the Germans "could not" build a bomb or was merely unaware of what Heisenberg knew about Houterman's research. The meeting was unsuccessful and Bohr allegedly walked away. Nevertheless, this meeting did succeed again in confirming to the Americans that Germany was actively involved in research into an atomic bomb. After the war, it sparked controversy over what Heisenberg was actually trying to achieve. The British interred most of the leading German scientists at a place named Farm Hall in England. All the rooms were bugged. Much of what the British heard indicated that Germany could have produced the bomb, but that it was the German scientists themselves who managed to delay these efforts as they did not morally want Hitler to win the war. This conclusion has become known as the "Heisenberg Version". Even after the scientists were repatriated, some continued to reiterate the view that a German bomb had been possible. Yet other scientists like Erich Bagge and Paul Harteck were under no illusions that they could have been successful. They and many of their colleagues realised that with a budget estimated at not much more than US$1 million, success could never be achieved. It was fact that the scientists themselves were mostly not Nazi sympathisers and believed in Hitler's vision. They were out and out German nationalists who believed early in the war that the future of Europe would be based on German or Soviet domination. Heisenberg certainly had no love for the Nazis. In 1937 he had been accused of being a "white Jew". He was interrogated by the Gestapo for a year until he was finally exonerated by Himmler of all accsations against him. But he was a true German nationalist and refused to join his former jewish colleagues abroad. But much remains conjecture. The fact is that for a variety of reasons no German bomb was developed.

When Spacey was still Artistic Director of London's Old Vic Theatre, I remember visiting Singapore to see him in a production of Shakespeare's Richard III. I doubted if he could bring it off but he was in fact excellent in the role. Thereafter the company went to Australia. One of my good friends there is a theatre Production Manager. What he told me about Spacey and the way he treated people in general (non-sexually) does not bear repeating. I cannot imagine what people in Hollywood actually think of him.

OMG! How old would he be now? I remember lapping up his latest vdos back in the 1990s. That face and gorgeous body, the way he seemed so natural in front of the camera . . . But that photo! Even without the facial hair I'm not sure I'd want to enjoy a coffee with him. But it happens to us all. We cannot beat back time - unless constantly resorting to plastic surgery. I'm glad for him that Bel Ami kept him on in a managerial capacity. Of the current crop I like Jorik Tautou.