anddy

Next work trip there get a local guide by the name of @numazu to help you with the fun exploits

Yes, the odds are always kinda low if you are careful - but that's not the point. The point is that in a safe place like Bangkok you don't even HAVE to be careful, and you can go out at ANY hour and even then don't have to be careful. That's the attraction of a safe place. No looking over one's shoulder, no uneasy feeling, nothing. Carefree vs careful I guess. I prefer carefree Yup, I like it too. Bali in particular has that special, laid back bali-vibe which I like. Will be there again, too, over Songkran

They may not drop at all and to the contrary, go UP. A decline in visitors means that prices MUST go up so that the remaining visitors make up the monetary shortfall - according to Thai logic. Normal supply & demand logic often does not apply here.

I think you are referring to street view in maps.... Well that quite obviously is outdated, they can't just drive around the cities every month or two. A LOT has changed in that corner of Patpong2 in the last 6 or 9 months, so google streetview will give you zero current information. I don't know what SIDE LINE is or was, it certainly doesn't exist now. Up the flight of stairs is indeed Fresh Boys. whereas below to the left, as described, Red Dragon bar. Only the girl Dragon Bar to the right is unchanged.

since this thread seems to (temporarily) have mutated into the "new Chinese virus" thread, here is one small observation: Yesterday at Prime massage, ALL staff were wearing surgical face masks. Very sensible given the amount of Chinese customers there. Speaks for the management, too, protecting their staff.

@vinapu's predictions are so detailed and range from very interesting to funny to (lot's of) wishful thinking haha. The last two are not related to Thailand, but still very plausible (especially the very last). But the most outrageously bold must be this one: My own prediction: Given the excesses of luxury condo construction there will be some kind of property market crash (not nessecarily IN 2030 but sometime between now and 2030) Oh, and of course another coup.

Interesting thread to resurrect. @z909 was pretty accurate with his predictions, though not so much with the causes of the predictions LOL 1. correct about the "anything", of which happened a lot, and the lunatics.... 2. correct about more Chinese, though not necessarily through "competent & stable management" - more like political brownnosing in China to get investments and submarines and stuff like that... 3. UK shed socialists, as z909 hoped, but got conservatives in the form of David Cameron instead who went on to ruin everything, including the pound (albeit not all the way down to 1 Baht) through his idiotic Brexit saga....

of course the study author does mention cars, but the further analysis goes to show that the MAJOR high and unhealthy pm2.5 levels were caused by the burning. Of course @DivineMadman is correct in saying if A+B=140 then A (as in Autos) is part of the problem, not just B (as in Burning). But if A is just 10, who cares? I.e. in the absence of B there would still be SOME pm2.5 particles, but they wouldn't cause that visible thick and fog-like haze we see, and nobody would really care. Well, I wouldn't.... except when riding directly behind a bus lol (I solve that by holding my breath and getting pst the bus ASAP)

Well, such measures are typical and just show some (useless) "action", while achieving absolutely ZERO. As it happens, vehicle traffic, even the ancient buses with their gigantic diesel fume clouds behind them (I know them all too well from riding my motorbike) have (almost) NOTHING to do with the pm2.5 pollution. It all comes from burning crops such as sugarcane. As there are thousands upon thousands of such fires, it is obviously very difficult to deal with, so they just revert to the easy and useless "fixes" until the problem goes away by itself in a month or two. It cannot possibly be vehicle traffic as the smog ONLY occurs during the winter months, which happens to be field burning season. If it were vehicles, it would occur outside this season every once i a while depending on weather conditions. Find an outstandingly thorough analysis from 2018 based on hard data here: part 1: https://towardsdatascience.com/identifying-the-sources-of-winter-air-pollution-in-bangkok-part-i-d4392ea608dc part 2: https://towardsdatascience.com/identifying-the-sources-of-winter-air-pollution-in-bangkok-part-ii-72539f9b767a

Red Dragon is the very tiny bar DIRECTLY in front of Screwboys door and TO THE LEFT of the the staircase leading up to Fresh Boys (when standing in the soi looking at the staircase). When you exit Screwboys, just take two steps (literally two steps) staight ahead and you are already in the bar. There is also an auntie bar to the right of the staircase, which is arguably also red Dragon, but the name sign of "our" Red Dragon bar actually says "Red Dragon", whereas the girl bar's sign says "Dragon Bar" with a very small red image of a dragon to the left of the words. Both name signs are rather small and on the wall inside the bars and thus almost invisible, so not a good guidance to find the bar lol. Our new member @Milk78 made the mistake going to the bar on the right (not left) for our meetup, but I spotted him easily Note: female waitresses = wrong bar single male bartender = correct bar LOL

That's a great idea and recommendation, for a first timer such individual guided tours are a great way to see much, much more than what one would do alone, not knowing the lay of the land. Even more so if the guide is gay, needless to say. An alternative would of course be a guy from "our own" https://siamroads.com/ though i do not know if they'd have their own car.

it was certainly my pleasure and a great, fun evening which was really a very big surprise to me as it was not even 10pm when we entered the bar. The idea was to get there BEFORE show time to see the boys first, and then check out the show. So it was kinda in between, which was still good. The subsequent show, apart from a a couple of lipsynching numbers, was all naked numbers with hard-ons. hadn't seen an early pre-midnight Screwboys show in ages (ever?), so didn't know what to expect. We left before the show finished though. maybe a slight clarification on what "limited" was in this case: it wasn't really the (limited) number of boys, there were easily 30 boys or more floating around in the bar, if only about a dozen+ on stage at any given time (no stage overcrowding as a Lucky Boys lol). What made the selection "limited" was they all seemed the same type: super skinny and mostly light-skinned, with of course a handful of exceptions (including mine who was the ONLY one sporting some real muscles and a ripped six pack, very hard to the touch; guess he'd fall in the category "twunk". Couldn't agree more. The boy looked very cute up close, and then even cuter after he had changed into his street clothes AND wearing glasses! Looked totally adorable. The same "change of look up close" was true for mine, he looked kinda rough on stage from the distance, but wasn't as much up close, especially with a smile . Cambodian, by the way. Speaking of Nationalities: I asked by boy about Viet boys in the bars, ad he said not as many really any more, most moved on to other bars. Now mostly Laos, Cambodia, Burma. That's what he said, of course I couldn't verify that.

Gosh, what a stressful departure from KL! Grab issues, check-in issues, hold up at security, running to the gate, losing phone.... doesn't get more hectic than that! But for future trips remember that boarding almost NEVER starts at the time stated on the boarding pass. In my experience in at least 90% of the cases it starts at least 10 minutes, often 20 minutes later than stated, which is still enough time for an on time departure. I'm a little confused though with this: On the one hand, you said "already checked in, so rush to the gate", but then it sounds you were actually at the check-in counter, not the flight gate, checking bag weights and reprinting boarding pass. Couldn't you really go straight through security & immigration with your own mobile (or home-printed) boarding pass?

I haven't been in quite some time (almost a year maybe), but as far as I remember from the various times I haven been it gets busy reasonably early (10 or so). The highlights are the drag show(s) and the trivia questions for the audience. The host drag queen asks questions and the person giving a correct answer gets a shot of vodka (or something). It's all done in a high energy kind of way and the host kind of doubles as a comedian.

Maybe it was the sheer number of boys on stage? That's what caused an insurmountable indecisiveness in fellow forum member numazu recently on his first visit to Lucky Boys. He managed to overcome that though on another visit to the bar. So maybe just give it another try. As for adding variety and spice, yes that's true, but on the other hand it's all about having the best time and the best encounters. If you are able to get that from just one bar, so be it, nothing wrong or to regret. As it happens, on one of his many trips another esteemed member, @vinapu , went to one and ONLY one bar (Tawan, not for you though haha) the entire time of that trip. He called it the "Tawan mono diet"

interesting, and the good news is it is now easily reachable by the new blue line extension of the MRT

These are the REALLY high pressure ones, the pressure achievable with ones you showed pales in comparison: Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/easy/288250/ban-on-high-pressure-water-guns Like I said, they are essentially oversized syringes and you can put as much pressure on the plunger as you like, achieving rather extreme pressures. Seriously dangerous, you can probably shoot out a person's eye with that. You cannot with the regular pumpguns

your experience is way more recent and thus more relevant than mine, so when you say goggles have been available for many years (and necessary given the tactics you describe) I believe you. When I said goggles weren't available "in the past" I meant my own Songkran experiences 15-20 years ago, quite a distant past haha. Back then, there were still these super high power things, dunno what they're called. They were essentially a HUGE syringe, with a plunger you could push in with as much force as you liked, thus generating immense and dangerous pressure. They were then banned, rightly so. Still, I don't recall anyone wearing the protective goggles despite such danger.

that's true, but a newbie to Songkran doesn't necessarily know just HOW wet things get. Hence your appropriate tips about protecting eyes and wallet - both less critical than the phone Well eyes as such are, but the protection is not a real necessity, the majority of people don't and in the past those goggles weren't even available.

most? I doubt that.... The newer iphones may be, but others? Plus you can't assume everyone has the latest model, some people will still use dinosaurs from, gosh, two years ago! lol

and most importantly a waterproof transparent pouch for your PHONE!! Sold everywhere along the streets around Songkran time.

actually I wouldn't bother with biodegradable trash bags. As you say, they (hopefully) end up in a landfill and it doesn't really matter if the degrade or not in that endless sea of trash there, plastic and otherwise. The real problem with the much-lamented plastic trash is not the plastic, and the single use supermarket bag (even less so the humble plastic straw, which has attracted an overblown and unproportionate hype), itself, but trash collection and management. In Europe everything is clean and tidy, but the less developed a country is, the less they will have proper trash collection and disposal in landfills (or burning). PLUS a gross lack of education about these issues means people in such countries simply don't care if there is trash all around them. I was shocked to see trash everywhere when traveling to Sulawesi some years ago. THAT is the problem, not the plastic itself. Of course, in the absence of trash collection and education, less plastic also helps to reduce the problem. But it attempts to cure the symptom more than the cause, and unless collection and education are improved the problem will remain.

From stinky (for me non-existent) tap water to plastic bags lol. A comment on that too, from a personal perspective: I fully agree that plastic bag use is out of control especially in Thailand. The ban on supermarket plastic bags however makes no sense at all FOR MY PERSONAL plastic-life. I have always used those very plastic bags as trash bags. Now, in their absence, I will be forced to purchase plastic trash bags specifically made for the purpose to land in the trash. That is rather ironic to me. The good old supermarket, so-called single-use bag actually had a double use for me. First to carry home my groceries, second as trash bag. Now the trash bags will be truly single use.

You won't regret it. Apparently, you are of a younger age (may I ask how old?) and sure able and willing to party. And one big party Songkran is. Everyone is just in great spirits and the water fun in the streets is just that - great fun. For perspective: when I visited Thailand for the first time and accidentally and totally unknowingly stumbled into it, I came back I think about three times specifically to partake in the Songkran madness. So much fun and, needless to say, so many hookups! Back then (early 00-years) it was much wilder than today, even INSIDE DJ Station was a wet zone, a favorite being water thrown down from the top floor onto the dance floor. All speakers and electrical equipment were wrapped in plastic, but still how that could possibly be fully waterproof and not lead to short circuits and power outage I don't know, but it did happen with no problems at all. Anyway, for you the past is irrelevant and you first Songkran will be a blast. So do not let the naysayers deter you. Nowadays I actually do leave the country over Songkran because I've played it often enough and just want don't want to get wet all the time anymore. But people who tell you ONLY the "annoying" side of getting wet all the time are just one sided and suppress the fun that can be had *IF* you let your hair down and go into it full throttle.

you mean on the rabbit card? Of course it does, every time you swipe it at the turnstyles the display will say how much the balance is. To OP: great report, lovely style