PeterRS

More interesting is when they country will lift its quarantine requirements.

In my bar-going days, when differences arose between a farang and one of the bar boys, I usually found the bar boys' versions were correct. Years ago there was a waiter at Classic Boys whom I really liked. I asked if I could off him. He seemed pleased. I said I would like it if he would bottom. He said he had little experience but would try. Did I still want to off him? I did. He certainly did his best, but being a bottom was too painful for him. So we spent the off time doing other things and I had a really enjoyable time with him. He fully deserved his tip. A few weeks later I was chatting to him in the bar. He said another English-speaking farang had offed him, again on the basis that he'd try to bottom but again after informing the farang he was inexperienced and could not guarantee it would work. The farang took him to the Suriwong Hotel short time rooms. As with me, it didn't work. The farang became angry and told him to get dressed and leave. He did not even give this very pleasant young man a tip. I agree that there are duds amongst both some boys and some customers. But I am sure they were few and far between in those days because the boys always had the mamasans whom they could report a dud customer to. Now with the apps, things have obviously changed.

I think they had no choice but to suspend him. Anyone assuming he became PM after the coup would have to agree this. But the Court could have issued an immediate ban. It didn't. We'll soon see if the brown envelopes work this time!

Following the above posts, my father was a doctor. Prior to World War 2, he enlisted into the Royal Army Medical Corps. At the time of Dunkirk, he was one of the British troops who had earlier been commanded to move west to St. Valery. The British High Command had no additional ships to evacuate those at St. Valery. As a result 10,000 were taken prisoner. My father found himself in several POW camps over the next 5 years, most notably near Gdansk. As the camp's medical officer, he himself could not attempt to escape. But he did help others in several ways. He placed cuts on the tongues of some to persuade the Germans that they were subject to epileptic fits. He also worked out a way to elongate the skin around the penis to make it seem as though others had not in fact been circumcised. In some cases, he was successful. Not having any interest in medicine, I never bothered to find out how this was achieved.

Prayut's backers insist he was not the officially elected PM until 2017. Members of the Constitutional Court have shown before that the Court has no teeth and its members are not averse to receiving the odd brown envelope, the larger the better. I'll lay odds that his backers win and he'll be reinstated as PM at least until the next election whenever that takes place. After all he's only suspended pending the Constitutional Court making a final ruling!

What a wonderful ending to his ordeal for this young man - and a wonderful beginning, too!

In principle I agree. However, I think it is important to realise that occasionally a boy or young man will suffer from phimosis. This can cause difficulty and even pain during urination and sex. For these guys, some form of circumcision is almost essential if they are to live a healthy life. I also have no issue if it is a procedure a grown man wishes to undergo - for whatever reason. We are all in charge of our own bodies. Babies circumcised only a few days old and children not yet in their teens are given absolutely no decision on the matter. An irreversible excision of a part of their body is made without their having any say in the matter. I see much wrong in this.

Being partnered in Thailand, my bf is aware I have some apps still on my phone which I use occasionally when I travel. Yes, I know I could temporarily delete them but it's just easier to keep them there. I therefore have some experience of chatting with Thai boys as most weeks there are a few who click on me. In my limited experience can I suggest that as others have suggested unless you know a guy at least a little, joking with Thai boys often backfires. What a westerner considers a joke, very often Thais do not. Years ago I used to go out on Sundays for dinner and a visit to a bar or two with a good friend I have known for decades. He loved to joke with the boys. Although I suggested several times that he stop doing it as virtually all the boys had no idea what he was talking about, he just kept on doing it. In a bar setting he could get away with it - just. I suspect on the apps there is always a danger it will be taken the wrong way. Then if someone clicks on me whom I do not know or do not want to know, I keep everything simple and merely end the conversation as politely as I consider appropriate. So I usually say "sorry I do not know you" and then enter into no more communication. Or in the OP's case above, perhaps a "sorry I was only there for the shows and was not looking for company" might have been more effective. My feeling is that expressions of "I like/love you" or "I love your photos" rarely mean anything other than sex with you might be fun - tip or no tip depending on how the chat continues. So best to end the chat quickly and make sure nothing follows.

Surely those Thais who lost their jobs also spoke pretty good English, especially those in the higher end hotels?

Another reason I prefer not to visit The Philippines will seem strange to some gay guys and perhaps even a degree racist. To those who feel that way, I apologise in advance. I find the results of the form of circumcision practised in the country makes the male body considerably less attractive to me. I certainly did not feel that when I first visited, but then I was totally new to Asia. On later visits, I met 2 guys with dicks which seemed to have been mangled in some sort of meat grinder. Granted they were probably in a tiny minority, but I found I just could not have sex with them. I hasten to add I am not against circumcision in general - although part of me often wonders why, if we are born in the image of a God, that God should insist that men have part of their anatomy excised. It seems to stem from a command to the prophet Abraham which is why both Jews and Muslims insist on the practice. If so, why the foreskin? If it is there at birth, surely it is there for a reason?. Why not the appendix which is a useless part of the anatomy? I know it has also been practised over milllennia by certain tribes elsewhere in the world as some sort of rite of passage. But I have always been curious about this!

I defer to @macaroni21's estimates! I ran a check on an AOT website which details all flight movements by all airlines to Thailand in 2019. There were 16 Chinese airlines (including charters) flying in to various Thailand airports that year. The total number of arriving flights was 36,389. So, even if my calculations are slightly out, the number of arriving flights was very close to 100 per day.

With the Thai tourism industry decimated as a result of covid, with millions of experienced employees laid off and expected tourism arrivals in 2023 not expected to reach even half those of 2019, what has happened to all the Thais who used to work in the hospitality industry? These men and women need jobs and should have the opportunity of being rehired. So why the need for overseas workers? Is this a ploy merely to get cheap labour, I am tempted to think?

I wholeheartedly recommend having separate flights on the same ticket. On several business trips I have had delays for one reason or another when it became the airlines' responsibility to look after me. Twice, though, I have been on separate tickets and suffered as a result. The first was a BA ticket from Edinburgh to Munich via Heathrow to connect with a Lufthansa flight to Dresden. Both were cheap tickets purchased on the net. To protect myself against delays, I allowed 4 hours for the flight change at Munich. What I was not prepared for was delays at Heathrow. In Edinburgh the 1:00 pm 767 departure was boarded on time and the doors closed. Only then were passengers advised high winds at LHR had led to delays and our take-off slot had been moved back by an hour. What was maddening was just a couple of bays away there was an Easyjet non-stop flight to Munich which I should have taken instead of BA! The cabin crew were great in checking onward boarding passes to ensure we were rebooked on the next flights. But then of course my next flight from LHR was delayed because the aircraft was still waiting to take off from Paris back to London. End result I landed in Munich as my Dresden flight was taking off. I ended up losing my LH return flights for which 'd paid €90, having to rebook full fare flights at nearly €450 (for a journey of little over 200 miles) and €85 for an airport hotel. Thankfully, I had travel insurance which reimbursed most of my costs but only with a lot of paperwork from the 2 airlines. The second was probably unique. I was in Argentina visiting the stunning Iguazu Falls. I had the cheapest Buenos Aires/Iguazu ticket on the Argentine airline. On return I would be changing airports and connecting to a business class mileage ticket on LAN Chile from BA to Santiago. Before then I had to return to my excellent guest house in BA to collect my large suitcase. So I allowed for a 6 hours changeover. When I was waiting to board at Iguazu there was a LAN Chile flight departing to BA only 5 minutes earlier. Both were in the process of boarding when we were asked to leave the aircraft. Both sets of passengers were then stuck in the departure lounge with no announcements. Eventually someone told me a single engine private plane had crash landed on the single runway. Our flights would not be departing until it had been removed. I panicked. I called the nearest One World office in Miami to try and rebook the LAN flight to the last of the day. Unsurprisingly I was informed the next available flight was in 3 weeks time! I called the guest house owners who very generously agreed to check arrival times and bring my case to the domestic airport and arrange a taxi for me. We finally boarded 2 hours late. With delays on arrival, a bus gate with no buses and being unable to find the guesthouse guys, I was in a complete panic. I finally made my LAN flight with 2 minutes to spare. Had I only booked LAN from Iguazu, I would not have needed to go through all that angst!

As a rare visitor to Pattaya, I have not even been to Jomtien Complex other to have dinner at nearby Dick's Cafe. But I do recall a great many years of visiting the gay gogo and beer bars in Bangkok. Thinking back, rarely did I ever see an individual or a small group of expat friends chat to others outside their circle. We expats were there to see the boys dancing and the shows, not to interact with foreigners we had never seen before. If I wanted to chat with someone, I'd much rather it was with a cute Thai young man! I used to happily walk through Soi Twilight or Silom Soi 4 without a care in the world that people might be watching me, let alone "judging" me. They were there for the same reason I was. Besides I was watching them! Why should I be concerned about them watching me? Why would I want to go to a beer bar and chat with a foreigner? If I were to look at my phone, it would be to check something or respond to a message or email. That's not being anti-social! And I for one do not believe that failure to make contact with another farang in a Thai beer bar has anything to do with being an introvert or an extrovert. Just my view.

Having taken Concorde only once, I'm not sure that comment is entirely true. At least it wasn't for me. I found the seat itself very comfortable for a short flight (in the mid-1990s). It had been well designed, fitted the contours of my body well and was better than the Premium Economy seats I have flown in. They are certainly nothing like today's business class seats and I would easily prefer 10 hours with a flat bed seat than 6 hours in more cramped supersonic seating. I think the main point about Concorde is that no one wanted to sleep. BA had two daily flights to and from New York. The 10:00 am flight got you to JFK by around 08:30 in time for a full day's business. The midday return arrived at LHR around 8:30 pm. For those not yacking about business all the time, the drinks and meal service took up most of the flight time.

For years the Singapore government has been downplaying the effect of Section 377A. The Prime Minster had even stated it would be kept on the statute books but not enacted. If there is ever a reason for not having a particular law, that surely is it! As the eminent French statesman Jean Baptiste Colbert wrote in the 17th century, “If you enact a law and do not enforce it, you are condoning what you condemn.” The basis for keeping it was basically a nonsensical argument that its repeal would be harmful to Singapore's multi racial society. As Hong Kong and Taiwan had shown over the last 30 years a Chinese society as a whole is not against homosexuality - the argument used for many years by Hong Kong's colonial government for not repealing its colonial law until 1990. And with Chinese making up by far the largest ethnic group in Singapore it seeems to have raised little objection over the years. The main fiercely anti-repeal group has been the evangelical Christian churches. It was the same in Taiwan when gay marriage was being discussed. Yet those professing to be Christians make up less than 19% of the population. I am reminded of the great actor Sir Ian McKellen who visited Singapore in 2007 when giving performances of Shakesepeare's King Lear with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Appearing on a 'live' television morning programme, the host asked him if there was anything he would particularly like to see in Singapore. He replied, "Well, if someone could show me the way to a nice gay bar, that would be lovely!" The programme controllers were apparently very worried by this remark, which was stupid given that Singapore already had several gay bars, one which I had often visited named rather appropriately given Sir Ian's remark - Backstage! But the past is the past and Singapore is finally taking some positive steps forward on the LGBT front.

Not sure why I do not follow your logic. The topic is about the increase in numbers of flights, not tourists. I can see that 30,137 Chinese per day is accurate but in terms of flights per day, I cannot see that this therefore means 150 flights per day. With your average of 200 passengers per flight, you surely assume merely a one night stay for each Chinese tourist to fill up all those seats. If the average length of stay per Chinese tourist is, say, 5 nights, then you surely have to divide the number of flights by number of nights stayed. Hence my 30 flights from China per day rather than your suggestion of 200.

I guess the best answer I can give is - been there, done that! I was a regular in The Philippines way back in the early 1980s when it was then far more of a gay sex destination than Bangkok and Pattaya. But the desperate poverty both in Manila and the countryside was a real downer. For a newcomer to Asia, it was certainly lively and fun, although parts like the famous Pagsanjan Falls area had a bad reputation with some parents even offering their underage kids to a certain nasty type of western tourist. I believe that has thankfully stopped. Soon, though, I discovered Bangkok and the early years of the gogo bars which were such fun. Later I was to discover the gay scenes in Tokyo and then Taipei. Nothing will now stop my regular visits to those two fascinating cities, both with a thriving gay scene offering much that can be found in Thailand. Also many young guys are keen to meet up with older westerners and will never accept a ¥ or an NT$. Plus I find most Japanese and Taiwan Chinese more fun and interesting to be with than Filippinos. But that's merely a personal preference. Thankfully we are all different.

Unless my maths are very rusty, your calculations assume each Chinese visitor stays only one night. The majority are on some kind of package tour which I assume lasts for several nights. I know other Chinese who travel individually and like to stay at least 5 nights each visit. Much more likely the number of flights was closer to 30 per day split between BKK, DMK, CNX and HKT.

Having lived far from my family for 4 decades, Christmas has come to mean very little to me. Great for kids, but for those without kids it's just a peg on which to hang a great deal of outright commercialism. It's also an excuse for the travel industry and others to raise prices. I think most Chinese around the region are much more practical in celebrating the winter equinox a few days prior to Christmas with family dinners.

We will have to agree to disagree because there is no way I can agree with that comment. The man has been virtually free for a quarter of a century without police protection - at least in the UK and I cannot imagine other countries are going to pay for such protection. If he is invited to address an event in a part of the world he probably does not know well, how can you seriously expect him to be responsible in any way for his own safety? I assume he was put up in a hotel. Would you expect him to inspect every entrance and exit and ask the front desk for a list of all guests in case one might be out to harm him? With respect that's just plain ridiculous! How about the fact that he has openly lived in New York since 2000. His address in Lower Manhattan near Union Square is not difficult to find. Do the New York police offer him round the clock protection? Of course not. He's a private citizen. The simple fact is he was invited by the Chautaqua Institution and his presence in that part of the world was advertised to the world well in advance. The organisers thus became totally responsible for ensuring his safety. I doubt if he actually goes around on his travels announcing his presence in advance. Therefore it would be much more difficult for a potential trouble maker to find out his location. Certainly they failed to find it for decades until last week.

I find that hard to believe. It would certainly be nice to see some facts. As for the mental health issue, I draw your attention to this 2016 CNN article - "The difficulty is that policies intended to keep guns away from mentally ill people who are likely to be violent depend on clinicians' ability to accurately identify them. Research shows that risk prediction, especially for statistically rare events like mass shootings, is an inexact science, 'only slightly more accurate than flipping a coin.'" https://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/25/health/gun-violence-mental-health-issue/index.html I don't like the idea the idea of those odds that I might be shot being the equivalent of flipping a coin! In the absence of proof, there is plenty of proof that reducing gun ownership significantly reduces gun violence. Following the horrific school shoooting in Dunblane in 1996, the UK enacted much tighter gun laws. Private ownership of handguns was banned and the UK now has one of the lowest levels of gun violence in the world. Australia is the same. Following a spate of gun violence in 1996 and 1997, legislation was enacted which included much stricter registration on ownership of guns, as well as a total ban on private ownership of automatic and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns. Additionally a mandatory programme bought back roughly 650,000 privately held guns. As a result, suicide and gun violence rates dropped by somewhere around between 45% and 55%. Meantime, there is evidence to illustrate that the degree of shootinig, especially mass shootings including those in the USA, is having an effect on young people with a propensity for violence (for one reason or another) in other countries. The UK has a problem with youths being radicalized. In a police raid on a private home last July, one 13-year old was found to have " a military uniform, a Confederate flag, a hard drive filled with evidence of white nationalist radicalization and a guide to making bombs . . . A youth court heard that police raided the boy’s home after he had sent messages on Instagram saying he wanted to replicate the 1999 Columbine school massacre in Colorado and attack an orphanage." https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/uk-problem-radicalization-not-shootings-difference-gun-access-rcna30611 He is a free man who has lived as a free man ever since his contentious book was published. If I happened to be in his shoes and was invited to address a conference, I would totally expect the event to take appropriate care for my safety. I have no hesitation in saying again, any suggestion that he is the one who should have been more careful is twisting the fact 180 degrees!

Glandular fever/Epstein Barr virus can easily be spread through a carrier handling food like salad which you then eat. The difference between this and covid is, I believe, the possibility that glandular fever often has a slight effect on the liver. In a serious case, this can result in jaundice and a slight yellowing of the whites of the eyes. The good thing is that a great many people all around the world get glandular fever in their late teens/early 20s, are virtually unaware of it and it then becomes inactive in the body. I believe it is rare for it then to reappear in one's later life. The major problem is that the period between infection and symptoms being felt is measured in weeks. During this time the infected person can easily infect others. The virus is present in saliva and so kissing an infected person will almost certainly transmit the virus to you. But as with all illnesses, this information should be checked with a recognised medical professional. As for poppers, I have never used them but as I travel regularly I have occasionally brought them in for friends. When I have done so, I usually try to strip the labelling off the bottle and then either put it in my toiletries bag or stuff it into a shoe along with some dirty socks!

Let's remember that when the concept for Concorde was announced and during its development, 18 airlines placed options or orders for the aircraft. These included American, Pan Am, Continental, TWA, United, Eastern, Braniff, Qantas, Japan, Air India and others. I wonder how many of those airlines now takng options on Boom's new product will actually convert them to purchases.

Again the Swiss argument - and sorry to say again it is a false analogy. 25% or thereabouts of Swiss HAVE to own guns for military reasons. Most do not wish to own a gun - it is a legal requirement. In the USA the vast majority of people who own guns - some as many as six guns or more(!) - do so because they WISH to own guns. Now, I accept there are several reasons for this and protection against the prevalence of urban and other violence is definitely one, but that does not negate the fact that there is little or no comparison to Switzerland. You seem to be very selective about where is safe and where could be unsafe. Mr. Rushdie has spent almost 3 1/2 decades as a marked man. For the ten years he was under that Islamic fatwa, he was protected by the UK police (few of whom are armed with more than a truncheon). Since then he has travelled, given talks in several parts of the world and lived his life as best he can as a free man, despite some nut jobs wanting him dead. You state that it was Rushdie himself who "should have known that his life was threatened from showing up at a poorly-guarded even." That is definitely twisting fact 180 degrees. It was the event - one to which he was invited, let us recall - that was perfectly aware of the background to his life and yet made no attempt to boost security in case there was some attempt on his life at THEIR event!