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Cliffhanger? 😵‍💫

Money talks and bullshit walks.... India to have its VFE (Visa Free Entry) status reinstated for up to 30 days. Previously, India was discriminated against when the powers that be moved them from VFE-60 to VOA-15. (Visa on Arrival - pay a fee and limit to 15 days) Consequently, Indian visits to Thailand dropped by a whopping 20% - and this is notable as India counts as Thailand's number 3 visitor to the LOS. https://thethaiger.com/guides/visa-information/thailand-considers-30-day-visa-free-entry-for-indian-tourists Cal's Youtube channel explains it very well in the below 8 minute video. I trust Cal, as his Thai spouse works for Thai immigration. Another interesting tidbit that Cal dropped in this video is that the current Thai nominee crackdown that is currently underway (mainly in Phuket, Koh Samui, and Ko Pha Ngan) is being enforced, after looking the other way for 20+ years, due to Thailand's desire to join the OECD - as they state that it is a form of tax evasion. Can anyone explain this to me? How is the Thai nominee land structure a form of tax evasion in the eyes of the OECD? https://www.oecd.org/en/about.html

Thanks Hank. I recently discovered that this is also a similar phenomena in the Philippines - with the Filipino-Chinese history thanks to a Youtube blogger that I follow regarding life in the Philippines - produced by California Expat.

Here is an update - as of July 15, 2026 regarding the Jomtien Complex, aka Supertown Pride Night scheduled for Saturday July 18, 2026. The positioning of the 2 stages has been revealed - but only in Thai and thanks to my new bowling team they helped me to decipher the positioning of the 2 stages. STAGE 1 - will be positioned between The Palace & Candy Bar - highlighted below in Red encircled in Green. STAGE 2 - will be positioned at the opposite end between Soda Massage and the MV Massage shops - highlighted below in Blue encircled in Purple. These are our best guesses from the clues that have been given The programs for both stages were also announced in Thai, so I had to use the Google Image Translate function. Both the Thai and English versions are shown below: Stage 1 vs. Stage 2 (in Thai) Stage 1 vs. Stage 2 (in English) Stage 2 Program (in Thai) Stage 2 Program (in English) As of today, there is no single program line up posted (that I am aware of) for Stage 1. However, as all of those performances are being coordinated by The Palace bar Diva Mogena - I can provide the below Facebook link where she produced 1 single promotional banner for each single performer at: https://www.facebook.com/100092155943149/posts/950713708010485/?rdid=EoPRW1AOySBaVZPt# Below is the summary from each of those individual promotional banners: The Palace - special show with Diva Mogena Special show presented by the famous Alcazar Special performance by Nadia from Tiffany's Yonce directly from Phuket - special show Miss Yoko - special show Miss Queen POK D&D Mor Lam folk dance with their sexy male dancers Special show from Nin. Mangkorn For the Jomtien Complex Pride Night festivities for 2025 and 2024 - you may remember that a HUGE stage was constructed in the empty space in front of The Venue Hotel & Cabaret - which I really liked. Due to sound logistical issues and with the huge Diva lineup being organized by the one and only Diva Mogena from The Palace bar - it made more sense to locate the Community Stage (Stage 2) further away to avoid clashes of sound.

When to Wai and when not to Wai - as per @RealThailander One of most favorite Thai Youtube bloggers has just released a guide about Wai-ing..... Do any of you follow him? I value his Thai perspective especially when it is regarding a controversial topic. I have written to him privately to ask for his enlightenment and he has been very accommodating. https://youtu.be/jdZH60i3Slw?si=IOf4dAQTW_2NXMY7

Be careful with this one. I found it to be VERY over effective and embarrassing.

And this is the BIG difference between Pattaya City's gay pride event versus Jomtien's gay pride event. One word = GRASSROOTS - Jomtien's is sponsored by the grassroot local entities that make up the Jomtien Complex, aka Supertown. I believe that the only NGO type of sponsor is SWING Pattaya. Whereas, Pattaya City's gay pride had an entirely different sponsorship / make up (see below list) - where the primary sponsor was Pattana - the corporate owner of the CENTRAL shopping malls throughout Thailand. Out of the 82 entities that participated in Pattaya's 2026 International Pride Parade - only 2 gay bars out of the 82 entities were represented = 2.4% - of which, only 1 bar participated from Boyztown and the other gay bar was from Jomtien. As Jomtien is technically part of Pattaya - this shows how 2 parts of the same city celebrate Gay Pride in very different ways.

Yikes - that news gave me the spooks. Now in 2026, in the side lobby within the Jomtien Palm Beach Hotel is the The Wave bowling alley where the Jomtien Pride Bowling Competition will take place on Tuesday July 28, 2026. After forming my team we have been over to the bowling alley 1 time so far to practice. I am happy to say that the bowling alley has an exit right next to the parking area - so easy exit - just in case....

It depends on the way you navigate in our gayguides forum. 99% of the time I use the Unread Content feature - as shown below and I rarely use the hierarchical navigation path by country / region / threads methodology. I really like this navigation approach - as it saves me time and then I only need to click from the list topics/subjects that interest me. Hence why I did not see that there was already a Wise thread in the Cambodia channel. Sorry

Many of our forum readers are sad when they need to leave LOS and return home. Do you sometimes do the below at the gogo bar, massage shop, bar, sauna, hotel, restaurant, etc before heading off to Suvarnabhumi ? https://aseannow.com/thailand-news/foreign-men-bid-thankful-farewell-in-pattaya-r2745/

I was going to suggest that you get a Wise account and Wise debit card before you depart for Cambodia - but after checking with AI it seems that this is not a good additional alternative. In my 4 years here in Thailand - Wise has been a Godsend.

Especially when one of the agents is the same as your lovely 💓

I am the same as you. My wallet stays in my condo safe lockbox 99% of the time. It only comes out when I need to travel or go to immigration or to see my visa agent. Thanks to you Vinapu - I have implemented the different denominations are in different pockets safety protocol. One pocket is dedicated with laminated copies of original ID documents - 2 Thai driving licenses, passport ID and visa expiration pages, and global insurance card. If any are lost/stolen then the originals are safely in the condo safe box. If the police want to see the original driving license they instead get to see the legally valid digital version on the Thai DLT QR Licence app: So far so good 🤞🍀

Excellent report. They truly have a nice collection of masseurs at this specific branch. https://www.motionspa3.com/pherlatist

In my 4 years here - when I have volunteered to meetup with visiting forum members at the gay Dongtan Beach - often they are in the section that they believe is the gay zone. Dongtan Beach extends for more than 1km from where the Dongtan Beach Police Box is all the way up north towards Phratamnak at Yinyom Beach. The gay beaches are concentrated to the left and right of the core gay beach concession / station #20 - known as Rainbow Beach - as shown in the below picture. So, when forum members tell me to come and meet them at the gay beach they are often in the beginning section at concession / stations #45 - #38. Yes, gay people may be found in these sections but as you can see from the below map, these beach stations are quite far from the core gay beach section #20. When I ask why they did not walk all the way to the gay beach they often reply = "it is too far from my hotel in the Jomtien Complex, aka Supertown". I walk these sections almost every day and it is no more than 10 to 15 minutes to walk from The Venue or The Agate hotels in the complex over to beach concession / station #20 - the core gay beach section. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057525486466 If you don't like walking you can always take a Grab/Bolt motorbike or car over to the gay beach from the Jomtien Complex. And around sunset, it is also fun to walk a little bit further north to the gay volleyball section to see the guys play. It is also a fun place to meet fun guys. https://www.facebook.com/1458082509/videos/pcb.1757667478196022/1360118456116642

Thanks PeterRS for including this additional background information. I remember very well that era of Ronald Reagan and "Just Say No" Nancy Reagan. https://lgbthotline.org/documentary-review-rock-hudson-all-that-heaven-allowed/ The gay community put enormous pressure on Rock Hudson to come out of the closet and to help the larger gay AIDS research and funding movement. He was close friends with Nancy Reagan and she refused to help him - in his moment of dire need - when he went over to Europe in 1985 to continue his experimental HIV/AIDS treatments (HPA-23) when he needed urgent White House intervention which was refused. HBO produced a very illuminating Rock Hudson documentary in 2023 that discusses all of this. The trailer can be seen at:

And this is exactly why the Thai Massage Insider forums had to move over to Telegram - as they could not control what the membership might write in the LINE forum space about massage guys that might violate LINE's policy.

I have been taken to 2 specific (very small) beaches where I saw nudity being practiced with my own eyes here in the Kingdom. One was on nearby Koh Larn and I was taken there by a local Thai guy. It is a very ugly beach and there were 3 guys laying on the sand naked in a very kind of hidden way. 2 of the 3 were Russian and they were masturbating each other - it was hot to see. The other guy looked like a German or Swiss guy. Me and my Thai friend - we remained with our bathing suits on - as I am well aware that this is forbidden in the Kingdom. Behind the shoreline there was a type of bushy area where there was 1 Thai guy walking back and forth - as if he was hoping someone who was naked from the shoreline would go back into the bushes. We only stayed for about 1 hour - as that beach is unpleasant (extremely rocky) and very far from the area where you can swim. The other place that I saw nudity was on Koh Samui and I had visited a massage shop that was then owned by a Swiss guy and I told him that I was looking for any local gay tour guides to show me the more hidden parts of Koh Samui. So, on the following day he took me in his car to a remote part of the island where we walked for a long time on an abandoned boardwalk that was overgrown with bush and weeds that took us to an abandoned type of hotel near a small beautiful cove. There it was very pleasant and very remote and hidden. There I actually got naked and I joined my Swiss guide in the sea to swim naked together. There were about 3 other people there all naked. I would never be able to find this place again as it was very remote and only known to the local Koh Samui-ins. There is a gay nude resort on Koh Samui and its name is Alpha Gay Resort: https://alphagayresort.com/ I have never stayed there. Has anyone stayed there or can tell us more?

@Ruthrieston - wow many thanks for sharing those incredible memories. I remember seeing different variations of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The closest interaction that I had with them was during my years when I lived in Denver, Colorado and I was a member of the local RMR - Rocky Mountain Rainbeaus. A couple times during the year there would be a Square Dancing convention and/or Gay Rodeo events, and often members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence would show up at these events. I personally was able to Square Dance with some of them and I saw with my own eyes some of them riding animals at the Gay Rodeo events. It was something that you could never forget.

And the winner is = Sudjai Massage shop - which just opened. I inserted the store marque on top of the photo as the real one is still inside the shop https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61591910247066 extracted from their FB page Everything is sparkling clean and brand new (see FB images). There were 2 masseur guys there waiting for you. I truly wish them luck - because inside the Jomtien Complex as well as outside on the exterior perimeter - there is now a plethora of massage shops for us to all enjoy.

SWING Pattaya published this promotional video today to promote the upcoming Pride Night and Parade in the Jomtien Complex, aka Supertown on Saturday July 18, 2026: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1664592091292372

You are not alone @Mavica. I totally empathize with your sentiment. That was an AWFUL period to live through. I lost around 50% of my friends in those years and spent many a visit at Sloan Kettering, St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village, Mount Sinai, and many others. You had to helplessly watch your friends die a painful death because in those years there was only FDA approved AZT available - which was very toxic. Alternative solutions were only available in Mexico or over in Europe - If you haven't seen the movie, Dallas Buyers Club, I highly recommend it as it dives into this dilemma. Fortunately (or unfortunately) my sex life in those years (1982 - 1990) was stunted, because the bath houses, saunas, sex clubs, warehouse district venues that were used for sex were already closed down by the NYC Health Department. The only type of venues that were allowed were safe sex clubs and that is how I started my coming out years - at the New York Jacks - which probably saved my life. So, in those formative years, I became a part-time activist - fighting with the government to obtain proper AIDS research funding and to get the FDA to allow for alternatives to the toxic AZT. Eventually we prevailed, but after much death, heartache and frustration. @Mavica I also went through this pain and I discovered that there were therapy groups that were created to deal with this dilemma - which was given the label; "survivor's remorse" or "survivor's guilt". This guilt lingered with me for so many years that when in 1998 I saw that the Denver Public Health was looking for volunteers for a potential AIDS vaccine - I jumped at the chance to volunteer my body to participate. It lasted for 3 years and I had to conclude the last year of the trials in Amsterdam (which was administered by the GG&GD), because in May 1999 I had left the USA for Rome, Italy. My trial participation ended in November 2001. Then in early 2002, it was revealed to us if we received the placebo or the vaccine, AIDSVAX B/B. I was told that I received the vaccine. Unfortunately, the vaccine was deemed to not demonstrate protective efficacy. By participating in this vaccine trial it greatly helped reduce my survivor's guilt. I was asked by Denver Public Health if I would volunteer to go on the 9News (KUSA) to state to the media why I would volunteer to do this. At the time I worked for a conservative bank - so we braced the clients who were assigned to me about this news interview (as it would be like a public coming out and to reinforce that I was not HIV positive to said clients). On TV I simply stated, "I am volunteering myself to this vaccine trial because I want to give back to the 50% of my friends who died from AIDS". VaxGen gave all of us participants a card that we were to show to HIV testing centers in rare cases that we would falsely test positive - as they would then be instructed to perform a different type of test which would reveal our true HIV status. In all of the years that I was tested for HIV I never tested "falsely positive" or "positive". Hallelujah!

Thanks for this update Jimmie. I am biting my nails about this informal border crossing that Cam needs to make. Please let us know that Cam safely gets to the other side. 🙏😇👍🤩

Many versions of what happened being posted: https://thepattayanews.com/2026/07/08/fitness-influencer-connor-murphy-dies-at-32-in-thailand-lake-drowning-prior-2024-pattaya-assault-allegations-resurface/ https://aseannow.com/topic/1398258-american-dies-after-jumping-into-bang-phli-lake/ @Suckrates or @unicorn - do either of you have any more photos of this guy in your collections? He seems to allegedly have had a sordid past here.

Excellent post @macaroni21. 🤩 I wish there was a way within our board to post your very well written reply at the TOP of all of the threads. If only, our board/forum was reorganized by categories; massage, gogo bars, saunas, restaurants, hotels, etc. for a given city - then this post could be at the TOP of the massage thread for all of the City/Massage combinations in our forum. I would add one more additional information point. This forum is very useful when our forum members post their trip reports and often reveal what took place in the massage room with a certain masseur. That type of intelligence can help you better choose your masseur. Another useful information source (about what a masseur will and will not do) can be found within the Thai run massage forums. I wrote about them in the below thread (look for my reply to MichaelJay70). The forum owners review random massage shops with a specific masseur and often allude to what the masseur is willing to do behind closed doors. Also, within the new Telegram chat group feature, the members share masseur and massage shop details and opinions amongst each other. Note that everything is written in Thai, but if you activate the AI auto translate feature then you can follow along in English. Also, once you are in the room with your masseur - if he cannot understand/speak your language feel free to use Google translate on your phone to create the possibility for a good session - but remembering what macaroni21 wrote above = give face.