PeterRS

In another thread there are comments about a flower festival in Baguio in The Philippines. Not so well known is the one that has been held annually in Chiang Mai for more than 40 years and has become a major tourist attraction. Held next year for three days in February, the dates have not yet been set but it takes place over a week-end. Apart from seeing an abundance of flowers in the Chiang Mai area, there is always a major float parade on the Saturday. It's a bit like the summer Candle Festival in Ubon Ratchanthani except the floats are made of flowers and not wax. I have not yet attended and so these photos are from the official Flower Festival site.

The choice may seem to be between a £16,000 grant from the rowing site or £100,000 from stripping on the web. But you can strip on the web any time. The Olympics comes around once every four years. Living in such an expensive city as London is also a choice. If his dream truly is the Olympics and that is his passion, he actually has no choice. He has to go for it! If the paddle authorities deny the right for him to appear on Only Fans, he should find other sources of finance like a GoFundMe page or beg, borrow or steal from relatives and friends. Mind you, I reckon that after that excellent TV interview he's going to get a few sponsors coughing up quite a bit of cash for him.

On that long trip I was just an ordinary tourist staying in a variety of guest houses and hotels I had located on the internet. Only one high end hotel to explore the wonderful area around the Torres del Paine mountains, but that cost came along with free gourmet meals, open bar, service of multi-lingual guides and a lot more. It was quite amazing! Travelled everywhere by myself and felt no danger. Perhaps ironically the only panic moment came as I was preparing to depart from the Iguazu Falls to fly back to Buenos Aires and then the hour's transfer to the international airport for a connecting flight over to Santiago. As I was boarding the plane at the tiny airport, we were suddenly all asked to deplane. We were then stuck in the security area with no refreshments and no information. Turned out a small single seater aircraft had crash landed on the single runway. Although I had allowed about six hours for the transfer, I was using mileage tickets and if I missed the Santiago flight the rest of my trip might be cancelled. Thankfuly the authorities scraped that plane off the runway just in time and I made the Santiago flight with just minutes ro spare.

Just as google could answer quite a number of the questions raised by members on this Board, but as you have kindly done they are usually answered with civility.

Just some photos from a month long trip to South America. In all I visited four countries and wish i had had time to visit more. I particularly loved Cusco, the stopping off point for most people visiting Machu Picchu. There are so many valleys around the city that I would love to explore had I enough cash and was a few years younger! Rio with Cocacabana in the background Colonial architecture in Buenos Aires The Dutarte Mausoleum where Eva Peron is buried A small part of the breathtaking iguazu Falls. When Eleanor Roosevelt visited, she is said to have exclaimed, "Poor Niagara!" The Andes towering over Santiago If you fly down from Santiago to Punta Arenas in the far south in the daytime make sure you have a window seat on the left side of the aircraft so that the wonders of the South American Ice Sheet are easily viewed The Perito Moreno Glacier from the air - allegedly one of the few advancing glaciers in the world My favourite shop in Punta Arenas in the far south - a chocolate shop! The amazing Torres de Paine granite mountains A herd of guanaco native to South America About to enjoy a gaucho lunch The huge Perito Moreno Glacier at ground level The multi-colours of buildings in Lima The Cathedral in the town square of Cusco with the city's flag similar to the rainbow-coloured gay flag Finally the sight that everyone comes to see - Machu Picchu

I understand the concern, but while the law is the law in Malaysia it basically covers the Muslim population. In my visits I have only met up with young Chinese and never encountered any problems - and that included visits to the main gay bar Blue Boy and a couple of saunas, one of which has been going for around 30 years. Even once - but ages ago - cruising in a very cruisy shopping mall!

In terms of gay themed movies there is also "A Bigger Splash" - not the more recent one of that name but one about the life of the artist David Hockney made in 1973 and restored in 4K for re-release in 2019. I recall being surprised at one series of shots of two totally naked young men making out on a table. Not surprisingly that gave it an 'X' rating in the UK. Unless you really want to know more about the early life of Hockney, about half the film is a rather boring documentary. But after this move to California, the gay interest picks up, especially in his relationship with his model and muse Peter Schlesinger. His painting A Bigger Splash is arguably his most famous painting. The model is not seen in the painting, but as the film illustrates it was imagined after Schlesinger had dived in naked. Another painting in the same series shows Schlesinger swimming underwater, only the poster puts white shorts on the torso when he was in fact naked. Hockney's painting "A Bigger Splash" Poster featuring Peter Schlesinger Another grainy shot from the movie

Bangkok's humidity stays high virtually year round. But it always feel worse when the outside temperature is slightly lower over the 'summer' period. Only seems to fall a bit in the Nov-Jan months. My thought is it feels worse because of the increasing number of Bangkok's high rise buildings. As in Hong Kong and parts of Tokyo, they prevent air circulation and light breezes from reaching street level.

When i was buying RTW tickets in Bangkok, I'd often be stopped by the customs lot at JFK. I would be directed to a separate line, my bag opened and asked to switch on my computer, although I was never asked to open a photo file. It was clearly because Bangkok was the origin of the ticket and BKK then had a dodgy reputation. Never happened with tickets purchased out of Hong Kong!

As @Moses points out, poisoned drinks are not limited to Laos. Besides, the six who died last year were in the backpackers hangout of Vang Vieng, a known party town about 140 kms south of Luang Prabang. I am not aware there have ever been reports of any similar deaths in Luang Prabang. Vang Vieng is a bit closer to Vientiane and easily accessible as the first major stop on the Laos/China railway. Moral is absolutely don't accept drinks from strangers.

I have never counted the steps up from the street (if that is to what you were referring!!) but doubt there are more than 10-12 of them. Assuming you do not want a private room, all you need do after depositing your shoes, putting in your 10¥ coin, closing the door and taking the key is go to the machine literally across from the recepetion desk. It has a series of press buttoms with a list of prices which covers the cost of the various facilities - from a basic entrance to the washing area, hot/cold tubs, steam room, saunas, rainshower room and other bathing facilities on floor 3 as well as the cruising areas on floors 4 and 5 (all I have ever needed there), to the largest and most expensive private room. I just press the cheapest (provided it is not to suggest I am a student!), pay using ¥, pick up any change and then take the ticket to the reception guys. They take my ticket and shoe locker key in return for which I get the full changing room locker key and a bag with towels. These used also to have bath robes, but seems robes will now cost extra. I always gave them my real name but I expect any name works. After you have bathed from head to toe Japanese stye, the whole of the shower area after you come through the curtain from the bathing area can often be cruisy. I once even had a guy say my name! Turned out he'd been a boyfriend for a couple of years! Try just to get rid of any inhibitions you may have and join the fun. I agree with @joizy that the back section of the steam room furthest from the curtain (it's next to the rainshower room) is where there can often be action between two or more guys. Just be a little careful. It has some dim light and you should note that there is a small step between the front and back sections. On my last visit, the fourth and fifth floors had large open cruising areas, each with some two-tier bunk beds from which you are likely to hear quite a bit of moaning! There are also large mattresses spread on much of the rest of the floor area. These are not separated and so there is often some action going on. As it is pretty dark it is quite difficult to see what action (!) but you are likely to notice that other customers are kneeling around the two guys and just watching. This is perfectly common. Lastly I would say some Japanese are reluctant to go up to a foreigner. If you see someone you like, just move towards him and perhaps gently touch his arm or his thigh. If he backs away, you know for sure he is not interested. On the other hand, if all you want is to relieve yourself of sexual stress, lie down on one of the mattresses and see what happens. Just note that condoms are not all that common.

Roomy sofa seating or banquettes used to be quite common back in olden days. These still enabled lots of chairs to be added for the larger week-end trade. Although not a regular visiting Pattaya, didn't Nice Boys have that sort of seating around the wall areas?

Back in the day, I also hired a Purple Dragon guy for a night tour. Before he came to my very nice guest house on the banks of the Mekong, I had gone around the corner for dinner where the two waiters were quite stunning and i suspected both gay. When my evening guide arrived, I was very pleasantly surprised to see that it was one of the waiters! He took me to the night market (which I had already visited) and then to what he said were a gay bar and a gay disco. Both were virtually empty. I had hoped he might join me in the guest house but for whatever reason he could not. But on my last afternoon as I was sitting having a coffee looking over the river and killing time before going to the airport, a group of senior schoolboys came and sat at an adjoining table. All were cute and we exchanged smiles. After about 5 minutes one came over and asked if I liked the friend he sat next to. He said he liked me! But I had checked out of my room and in any case had no time. But it indicated that there was then certainly some gay activity in LP. I loved my four days in the small city. I wonder how @AndyUK found it.

Purely judging from that video, it seems a little more like a Japanese sauna where the dark areas for action are quite large and open so that other patrons can get up close to inspect if that turns them on! Very few private rooms, it would seem.

As a non-technical guy and just out of curiosity, for what reason did QR codes succeed bar codes?

In an earlier post i suggested the comment by @Keithambrose was probably the longest he had ever contributed. This beats it by a mile.

Ha! That's almost certainly the longest sentence @Keithambrose has ever written on this Gay Guides Board. Usually about 5 or 6 words are his maximum. Funny he talks about PMs. It was one! Lawyer speak!

I was never a fan of Chicago, the movie or the Broadway show, but loved Cabaret. It was nearly in my top five. Liza Minelli and Joel Gray were both amazing. The film encouraged me to learn more about Christopher Isherwood and (1) his stories about gay life in the Weimar Republic, and then (2) the freedom and openness of gay life in California. For one still hovering in and out of the closet, Isherwood made it easier to open the door. Sunday Bloody Sunday Talking of the gay influence of movies, I have written before about this John Schlesinger movie filmed in 1970 London. It features the intertwining lives of an openly gay doctor (played by the very heterosexual Peter Finch), his occasional bisexual lover (played by Murray Head) who also has flings with a rather wacky character played superbly by Glenda Jackson. The gay elements in the film meant it died in the USA but was widely praised elsewhere. When Shlesinger showed it to a bunch of executives from United Artists in New York, they are allegedly appalled! A number of actors including Dame Edith Evans turned down the role of Finch's mother as she thought the subject matter too risque. But gay men loved the movie, and not only because it features cinema's first full-on male to make kiss. The soundtrack also features the glorious trio "Soave il vento" from Mozart's opera Cosi fan tutte. And on a side note, I think it's interesting that another excellent movie The Shawshank Redemption mentioned by @unixmad gives major prominence to another excerpt from a Mozart opera - the letter duet from "The Marriage of Figaro". And then there is the composer's Clarinet Concerto featured in The King's Speech starring Colin Firth.

It is nearing its end.

Thanks for those excellent points. Did you really feel that Chalamet was too old? He was 20 when the movie was filmed and is supposed to be 17. I thought his part worked, although Hammer at 31 was clearly older and more sophisticated than the 24 year old he was portraying.

First I asked for those making negative coments about the first post in this thread, and you have done so. I thank you for that. I do take what you write on board. And I think you make a very valid point when you write - "it's not a competition, it's a conversation." You may find this difficult to accept, but I agree. That said, If I might ask you to put aside these comments about the first post above and my posting in general for a moment, and then ask you to look back at the three posts made in the Dangers of Colombia thread. You clearly consider it is acceptable for @bkkmfj2648 to attack me when all I asked in the first post was a very simple question re the actual dangers which the OP had discussed at length. @bkkmfj2648 responded that this was why he avoided countries in South America. To my simple question asking if sex is an essential part of his travel experiences - which I followed up writing about my month in South America with only travel to see the natural wonders of the continent being my intention and then amplified that with the comment, as regular readers of this forum know very well, that sex is usually part of my regular overseas travelling - you clearly, and for a reason unknown to me, accept that the attack made on me in the 10th post on the second page of the thread as merely part of a conversation. It was not and it is not! As for my posts, you have clearly read many of mine over a period of at least several years. You know their content, their number and my writing style. You also are perfectly well aware that you and others have absolutely no obligation to read them. You always have the option to put me on your ignore list. Equally you have the option to register a formal complaint to the Moderator. Now, I wonder why over the long period you refer to you have done neither? Does your cynicism extend to actually liking some of my previous posting? That's what this implies. 1. What comments about other active posters have been "snide and vindictive? How have they dimished the forum? Which interesting participants have been discouraged from contributing? 2. As a considerable number of others have written precisely the opposite in quite a number of posts, that is just patent nonsense! And I suspect the comment itself is against the Board rules in terms of the Code of Conduct. And perhaps we should recall that you yourself are not immune to making comments which others might consider snide despite the caveat at the start. In other words, you accept a caveat in your thread but not a simple question in mine! After all, you wrote of @bkkmfj2648's Vietnam trip on 18 May - "Forgive the cynic in me, and it is nothing personal, however reduced to it’s bare bones and in abstract……. A Farang newly retired to Pattaya meets a Rent Boy, who becomes his Fuck Buddy, who becomes his Pimp, who becomes his Boy Friend. Sounds like Boy Friend, not in the first bloom of youth, starts to become financially dependent on his Farang. Farang decides to break up with Boyfriend but as a breakup gift provides Boyfriend with wherewithal to set up his own business. The business is selling fruit salad which requires the boyfriend, who likes to party until dawn on Jomtien beach, to get up early to purchase fruit in the market and then be in attendance to run the business. After a few weeks of the business(which is not going well) being set up Boyfriend persuades Farang that perhaps their relationship may still have a future after all so is ready to walk away from the business for a few weeks to be with Farang. Farang meanwhile is putting time, and probably more money sooner or later, into correcting the Boyfriends mismanagement of the business."

I read my kindle copy and was surprised that there are parts and key elements which are quite different from the movie. Naturally any screenwriter, especially one as talented as James Ivory, has to take quite a number of liberties in adapting a novel for the sreen. Shortening a long story to make it fit a 2 hour time slot being just the least, I expect. But what surprised me is that in the book, it is Elio who is lusting after Oliver, whereas in the movie it seemed to me to be almost the other way around. The book also gives a tantalising suggestion that this may not have been Elio's first such longing, as there is a passing reference to another visiting scholar two years earlier. The book also has a much longer ending when it takes us on Elio's journey over several decades. While I found that interesting, I thought the very, very long shot of the young Elio gently weeping while looking into the fire in the movie was perfect ending.

Apologies. I had only just realised the lack of media excerpts which always seemed to be quite regular. I hope all is well with him.

Perhaps you can explain of what you suggest @reader might be bored given that he has not posted for months and his basic love, as he has himself explained, was posting cuttings from various media outlets? There has been a lot in the media worth posting here. Hopefully he is in good health.