Finnseventy

Hi Raza.
Welcome to the board.
You are more likely to get useful help if you tell us a bit about yourself.
For instance, most people will assume that you're an older gay guy planning to use the commercial gay scene. But you could be in your twenties or thirties hoping for free encounters. You may be familiar with the Bangkok commercial scene and want just a few hints as to how Pattaya differs. Or you may be a newbie to Thailand and know nothing.
Anyway, here are a few basics. I will presume that you are an older guy looking to hire. I will talk about the bar areas rather than meeting guys off the apps, which others have mentioned.
There are three gay bar areas in Pattaya: Boyztown, Jomtien Complex, and Sunee Plaza.
Jomtien Complex, a few miles south of Pattaya city centre, is the biggest “gay zone”, but it does not have go-go bars. Boyztown and Sunee Plaza are in Pattaya city centre, and are smaller areas (Sunee Plaza is almost dead at this stage). Boyztown and Sunee Plaza have go-go bars, while Jomtien Complex specialises in host bars.
Boyztown
I won't talk about individual bars. Probably the three most popular ones at the moment are Classic Boys, X-Boys, and Toyboys. If you do a Google Map search for any of them, it will bring you to Boyztown, where they are clustered together. A search for those names in the search bar of this website will bring up reports.
In general, the go-go bars in Boyztown charge 250–300 baht for a drink. You basically watch the guys dancing on a stage in their underwear. If you see a boy you like on the stage (identified by a number), you tell the mamasan (bar manager on the floor), who will bring him over to sit with you. Since many boys are from neighboring countries like Myanmar, Laos, or Cambodia, and may not speak English well, the mamasan often acts as translator to discuss what the boy is willing to do ("top/bottom/both") and the price to hire them for Short Time (S/T- an hour or two) or Long Time (L/T - usually overnight).
However, having the mamasan involved will often raise the expected price, as the mamasan sometimes gets a commission for suggesting a higher price. If the guy speaks any reasonable level of English at all, I would be inclined to keep the mamasan out of it.
Boyztown Costs
If you bring the guy out of the bar, you will have to pay a fee to the bar, called the “off fee" (similar to the “bar fine” in straight establishments, if you are familiar with them). My understanding is that the current off fee in most Boyztown places is around 500 baht.
You will also have to pay the guy separately for his time. Compensation levels can be a contentious issue on this board, but my understanding is the current expected fee for S/T in Boyztown is 1500–2000 baht. Particularly handsome or muscular guys may expect more. Of course, if you are hiring a guy for L/T that would have a higher expectation as well.
Sunee Plaza
Sunee Plaza is a bit similar, although they have a tradition of the guys being open to being able to be “touched up”, even to the point of being made to cum, at your seat in exchange for a tip of a few hundred baht, which isn't really a thing in the other places. As this area is pretty moribund at the moment, I would leave it as your last visit. It does tend to be cheaper for than Boyztown for off fees and the payment expectations of the guys, though. The main bars in Sunee Plaza are Winner Bar (recently reported closed?) and Nice Boys Bar. Google Maps will help you find them, but be aware that at this stage, with the decline of gay establishments in the vicinity, visiting them will be more like making a trek to individual bars than being part of a "gay area."
Jomtien Complex
Jomtien Complex has a different model. The bars there are “host” bars rather than go-go bars – they are focused on bars where you can sit and drink, and fully clothed hosts will sit with you and chat in return for you buying them a drink. It has the biggest selection of bars - you really feel like you are in a “gay zone" in Jomtien Complex. Most of the bars have an outside area, which gives a nice ambience to the streets. You can sit outside and people-watch or sit inside and watch the shows. The shows are not go-go shows, but rather entertainment shows dominated by drag acts, although some shows, such as at M Bar, can get quite raunchy.
As with Boyztown, the guys are available to take off from the bar. I believe the current off fee in the complex is a bit cheaper than Boyztown, around 300 baht. The expectations of the guys for S/T or L/T may be a bit lower as well, perhaps more so 1200 or 1500 rather than 2000 for S/T, for example.
I see that @jimmie50  provided to a link to a map of the bars in Jomtien in an above post,  which is very useful.
Massage
Another aspect you could usefully search for on this board is gay massage places. Many of them are basically fronts for “sexy massage”, which can range from a hand job at the end of the massage to full sex.
 
 

Good.... we should remember that , during this Very Low Season, many Pattaya people are struggling to cope. 
A propos dancing guys, may I complement the group that performs in the soi outside the JC Sunee club?  we always stop to watch their performance, whether they be in white shorts or- even better for a romantic like me- traditional Thai dress. I hope they make some cash. They must work hard at rehearsals and deserve an audience.

I wonder why you feel that way. For health reasons, several decades ago I had to stay off the booze for a year. This was a time when everyone drank considerably more than they should have - and then got into their cars to drive home! Going out with friends and work colleagues, i got so tired of being constantly encouraged to have a drink. So I hit on the idea of my ordering a ginger ale as soon as I arrived at a bar. That stopped the pestering if only because it looked like a whisky soda.

Water sports club?

At last, somebody agrees 🤩 I have been saying the same for years, From a business perspective, bars should choose between being a showbar or an offing bar. The conflict between the two business models is such that any bar that tries to do both will have to walk a very narrow line with a high risk of failure.
A showbar needs volume because putting up shows is costly. The nature of the shows also tends to feature drag queens who bring no erotic value to gay men (with only rare exceptions). They attract straight audiences, and the bars get addicted to the straight audiences because they need volume (it gets into a vicious cycle). It doesn't take long to drive away gay customers who are the backbone of any offing business model. Show bars also need floor area because they need to accommodate a surge crowd at show time (how else to monetise the hoped-for volume?), backstage space, maybe high ceilings too. Rent costs become significant as a result, yet outside of showtime, you're paying rent for under-utilised space.
Banana bar is one such bar teetering on the edge. It succeeds as a showbar but I wonder how many offs the boys there get... and if they don't get enough offs, why work there any more?
An offing bar doesn't need a show. It just needs a small, intimate space (e.g. the size of Thantawan bar) with a small stage in a corner. It needs a good slate  of boys carefully selected to suit the tastes of whatever customer/market segment the bar is aiming for, from twink to twunk to chunk to hunk. I would recommend that boys go up to the stage one at a time for a 5-minute sensual striptease act (without going "all the way") -- so that customers can see what the physique is like in order to decide on an off. Without a show, there is no need to cater for any surge crowd, so a small bar will do, keeping rent low. There is no need to hire waiters or staff associated with show production. The business focus of such a bar is to get the boys off'd.
The above (a pure offing bar) is actually a proven model. Toy Boys operates something similar except that they still have boys standing on stage bored to death. And clearly Toy Boys has staying power.
The latest post on ShamelesssMack describes a pure offing bar in Tokyo, King of College. It is a successfull, long-running business. It doesn't even have a strip show.
Many of the Sunnee bars were like Toy Boys too, with a primary focus on boys on offer. When they had dancing, my best memories were the bars where the boys moved around the room, dancing right at your table (or on it) thereby creating a personalised experience for the customer. Sunnee bars' demise was not because the model didn't work, it was because their selection of boys skewed strongly to the tasts of a particular generation of western customers and didn't evolve with demographic changes. When that generation of western retirees began dying off, the bars failed to tap into the huge growth in Asian customers in Thailand's tourism profile (which would have necessitated a revamp of the type of boys that bars had). Granted, it's a lot more complicated than that in that Asian gay males have been staying mainly in Bangkok and are much less interested in going to Pattaya. So it is a chicken-and-egg question too.
But even this tells us something else - the utter lack of any marketing. Asian gay males will go to Pattaya if businesses would only advertise. But of course, they also need to understand carefully what type of boys Asian customers like and ensure the bar has the desired type. 
Look at Bangkok's massage parlours, from low end to high end. They're in rude health! They advertise furiously. If only the bars would learn from what they're doing.
I have also previously said that an offing bar can add to its sales revenue (and the boys' earnings) by offering private dances in a cubicle: Ten minutes of stripping all the way, gyrating and inviting groping for a reasonable fee, say 500 - 600 baht. This is akin to the sort of personalised fun experience that the best Sunnee bars offered. Through private dancers, boys can earn extra income in addition to being off'd. Customers can "buy" 2 or 3 private dancers to check out 2 or 3 boys before deciding which one to off. Right now, the boys' earning model is more or less an "all or nothing" game. They're either off'd and earn big money, or they earn next to nothing during the evening. Forum members here on gayguides may say that the boys also earn drink tips or "you look handsome" tips, but boys can't earn enough from such tips alone. Furthermore, always bear in mind that fact the customer profile is mainly Asian. Look carefully and the truth is that most Asian customers don't tip as liberally. An Asian customer sees far less value in calling a boy down for a drink because it is unlikely that the boy can speak Chinese, Korean or Japanese. It's a rule of thumb: customers need to see value before they spend, and a private dance is one way of offering value.
It's a mystery to me why it is so rare for bars to think about the value proposition for the customer. They do more of the same unthinkingly, without asking themselves how to ensure that customers see value in patronising my bar. More tricky perhaps, they don't know how to analyse value conflicts. What is value to one type of customer (the straight couple that want either a drag show or a gawk show) is disvalue to the gay customer who is prepared to off a boy (but is put off by the heterosexual vibe and the very public exposure he has to endure in a bar with gawking customers). 
 
 
 

M Bar doesn't hire Cambodians afaik. It's a mix of Thai and Laos 
Speaking of Entrepreneurs, Charlie of M bar, Sunee Bar, Gus Bar etc all. Is quite an entrepreneur and has hit on a good formula with most of his bars

I have a working theory: the old raunchy go go bar (that is the heavy object of nostalgia on this forum) was a form that trained a certain kind of desire. It relied on darkness, anonymity, ritual cues, and a margin of social risk. Over the past 15 years that form has been hollowed out by three converging forces:
First, assimilation into respectable public life. As gay life has become more tolerated and assimilated into respectable society, the tolerance for transgressive spaces shrinks. The scene does not vanish. It is reformatted to fit bourgeois sensibilities, also in Thailand were especially Pattaya wants to be seen as respectable and not as sin city. 
Second, the phone replaced the bar as the organiser of eros. Grindr and Hornet turned chance into filtering. The bar became a lobby for pre-arranged meets rather than a theatre of discovery. Add CCTV, pocket cameras, and permanent searchability. People grow cautious. What once happened in the shadows now risks a screenshot.
Third, gentrification and liability. Rising rents favour clean, bright venues that maximise covers. 
The desire did not die. It migrated. You see it in private parties (called homepas in Thailand), pop-up nights, encrypted groups, and exclusive, ticketed  hotel gatherings with stricter boundaries, and of course in massage shops. When forms change, meanings shift. Raunch retreats from the public square to curated enclaves, and the culture loses one of its old training grounds for spontaneity and risk. The paradox of success is that it dissolves the very scene that made the success possible.

Happy Songkran 2034 !!!
on serious note it seems that increased popularity of barebacking backed up with treating PREP as cure all contributes to those increases.

Dear Old, It's called hormones my dear. They tone down after a while and sex no longer becomes the biggest driving force in one's life. When that happens you can see the world a little bit more clearly, not being clouded by continual lust and not being driven to take amazing risks which we should have avoided in the first place. Travel becomes even more sweet -- you can enjoy a flash of a smile, a sweet embrace, seeing an old friend and catching up, ... well enjoying life as a more multidimensional experience. For me Pattaya is just as exciting as it was 20+ years ago because, besides sex, I enjoy so many other things -- a 30B mango shake from the night market, a walk to the "end of the earth" (Pratumnak), the cooling off after a tropical rainstorm, ... well just so many things which I would have ignored in the past. Luckily we were young enough to enjoy the hedonistic ways of Pattaya's past. I think if I were young now I would feel cheated out of not having been able to experience Pattaya of the past (Adam and Eve bar, Memory bar, old Twilight, ...) so many things that just don't exist any more. SO I don't know if it is because _I_ changed, or because _Pattaya_ has changed, perhaps both?

Hope your vagina tests came out ok....
I get swabbed in throat, ass, urine and blood when I get std checks in USA. They mixed up the swabs once and said I had gonorrea in the throat, I told them I hardly suck cock anymore that it must be reversed....he said it doesn't matter, same treatment for both, this happened after Cuba. So I did suck one guy while I was there, a baseball player with an amazing dick, I messaged him of the results, he freaked out and said impossible, went to be tested and said he was negative. A couple of days later someone that had fucked me, said he tested positive for gonorrea.... so the swabs were mixed up and I freaked out the baseball player for no reason.

I was tested before going to Cuba, so the guy that fucked me already had it and gave it to me....  glad they're working on a vaccine for gonorrea. 

I also wanted to mention that the consent forms that I needed to sign prior to testing had some interesting statistics:
33% of gay men in Bangkok (Thai and non-Thai) are HIV positive. Only 68% of these individuals are undergoing treatment for HIV. 
 
20% of gay men in Bangkok (Thai and non-Thai) are positive for Syphilis. 

Trip Report – Koh Chang – 15 Jan 2024 – 18 Jan 2024
 
I am behind on my trip reports.  I present this one from Koh Chang (which was easier to prepare) and then I will have a bigger one from Christmas/New Years - 17 day trip report for Songkhla.  Sorry for the delays.
 
Up to now, my favorite island in proximity of Pattaya has been Koh Samet.
Hanging out with my volleyball friends at the Dongtan beach (Sea Rescue area), we were chatting about a new island place to go to and we decided to make a 4 day / 3 night visit to Koh Chang.

Aerial shot of the Trat island archipelago
One of them has a car, so that made the transportation modality easy. Note that a quick search in Google - notes that there are many busses that also go there – primarily from Bangkok but I believe that I saw one from Pattaya as well.
    -> Please note that their facial photos are included in this trip report with their permission given as well as their contact details in case any of you would like to use their services. <-
We departed Jomtien around 9:45am and we arrived at the Ao Thammachat pier in Trat at around 14:30pm, almost 5 hours – leisurely driving with breaks for the bathroom, iced coffee, and gas.
We were able to get onto the 15:30pm car ferry at a cost of 120 baht for the car and then 80 baht for the each of us for a total of 360 baht. The ferry crossing is about 30 minutes.  Ferry info can be found here at:  Koh Chang Ferries price list 2023 / 2024 


Map of Koh Chang and surrounding islands.  As you can see there are many ferry options to arrive onto the island from the mainland.

Above places highlighted with a red circle are the places that we visited
We booked our 3 night stay at the Klong Prao Resort    Klong Prao Beach Resort webpage 
We booked 2 rooms and paid 1,840 baht per night for a total of 11,040 baht for 3 nights.

This resort is lovely and very big with a beautiful sandy beach and lush tropical plants everywhere.  As we booked kind of at the last minute we were assigned to 2 older rooms.  There are 3 distinct zones around a large pond, where the zone we stayed in is the oldest and the other 2 zones are more modern.  My only complaint about our rooms were there were hardly any electrical outlets for all of our devices (electric razor, tooth brush, boom box, mobile phones, etc.).  Other than this inconvenience the rooms were perfect – air con worked very well, shower had hot water, and unlike my stay in Koh Samet and also in Songkhla (I still need to write this trip report) there were NO noisy geckos

to wake us up in the early morning with their annoying chirping sounds.  However, they are very handy for eating any annoying mosquitos, bugs and spiders.
Note that the 2 newer zones have many electrical outlets as they were probably built after the advent of the popularity of mobile phones and all of our electrical gadgets.
The highlights of this resort for us were:
The pool and their pool bar with early evening 2 for 1 sunset happy hours – as evidenced in the below photos, The white sandy beaches and blue turquoise water.  Note that the Koh Chang municipality has strict rules that keep the noisy speed boats and jet skis away – thus rendering the beaches to be more in their wonderful natural state.
Day 1 (15 Jan 2024) itinerary
Arrive onto the island, check in unpack, enjoy the resort grounds, pool, beach, happy hour, fantastic sunset and eat at the resort dining facility = RimHad Restaurant.  Watched a great fire show performed by some hunky macho guys (similar to the familiar B-Boys, who perform all over Pattaya, Boyztown, Jomtien) on the beach in front of our resort restaurant.  Like when I visited Koh Samet, these fire show guys can be found traveling up and down the beach performing in front of the many resorts and beach restaurants.  It lasted about 10 minutes and was very entertaining.

I realized that I did not take any still photos so the above photo is from a movie clip that I made.
 
Then before going to sleep I received my customary massage – as both of these volleyball friends are also masseurs.
Day 2 (16 Jan 2024) itinerary
After the great resort buffet breakfast (an enormous selection of Western and Thai foods were available) we headed off to the Khlong Phlu Waterfall in the National Park.  It was nearby, and perhaps after 30 minutes by car we were already at the trailhead for our hike.  The hike took about 30 minutes and was rather easy. 
Explore Koh Chang - description of Koh Chang waterfalls  

As it was not rainy season, the waterfall was a little bit subdued, but it was still cool and refreshing to take a dip and to swim with the millions of fish that were in the water.  You need to resist their lite nibbles at your skin – kind of like those tourist places that you see all over Thailand where the tourists put their feet into a fish tank to get their dead skin nibbled off.

There were about 20 to 25 people there when we visited with about half of them brave enough to enter the chilly refreshing water.  There is a lifeguard off to the left up on the rocks to prevent that tourists climb up onto the waterfall, as it can be quite dangerous as it is very slippery.

And there I am trying to acclimate myself to the lite nibbles by the fish before I dove in and swam
over to where the water was cascading down – as that end is very deep.
 
Entrance fee to the waterfall (which is part of the national park system) was 40 baht for each of my 2 Thai friends and 200 baht for me for a total cost of 280 baht.
Afterwards, back to our resort to relax, swim in the pool, take advantage of the 2-for-1 drink specials at the pool bar, and to watch the sunset.
For that night’s dinner we drove over to the popular White Sands Beach area – full of restaurants, hotels, resorts, markets, etc. to eat at the Beach Tango restaurant 
     Beach Tango restaurant Facebook page  
which became our favorite go-to place to eat.
Why?
The food and drinks were good.  There was interesting eye candy – one of the wait staff had our constant attention.  Plus, there were many interesting people walking up and down the beach – as there are many, many, bars and restaurants in this area.  Beach Tango is smack in the middle of all of the fun and is an entertaining place to be situated.

Then after dinner back to the room to relax for my nightly massage.  Life is good.
 
Day 3 (17 Jan 2024) itinerary
Enjoy the buffet breakfast and then head down to the extreme southern part of Koh Chang (on the opposite side of the island) to visit the very famous Koh Ngam beach.  It was a very long drive as we needed to cross the island to the other side (mainland facing), and this part of the island is not built up like the other side, so consequently, the main road became narrower and narrower up into the mountains to the point where there was only room for 1 car to pass one way with very steep curvy roads.  Scary, but well worth the reward to arrive at the tiny boat station to take the 10 minute boat to cross over to the breath taking Koh Ngam.

You can choose your mode of transportation – by kayak or by motorboat.  We chose by motorboat as we were too excited to already be on Koh Ngam.  I believe that we paid 80 baht for each Thai person, and I as a farang had to pay 200 baht, which included the boat ride over to the island.  Fee is paid to a ranger on Koh Ngam – as it is now part of the Thailand National Park system.

Here is a good short video with some drone footage of Koh Ngam:  Youtube video with drone footage of Koh Ngam 
And here is what awaits you on Koh Ngam – truly amazing.

After enjoying Koh Ngam (swimming, relaxing, and enjoying the view and the nature) – back on the boat to Koh Chang and then back in the car for the 1 hour trip back to our resort for those 2-for-1 pool bar cocktails and amazing sunsets.

Rinse and repeat the previous night at Beach Tango for dinner and drinks and then back to the resort for my nightly good-night massage.
Day 4 (18 Jan 2024) itinerary
Enjoy the last breakfast buffet and check-out of the resort for the long 5 hour drive back to Pattaya (Jomtien).
Phong says to me – do you want to see one more exciting place before we head back?  I say, sure, why not.  So, we drive over to the Kai Bae Viewpoint, which is famous for its spectacular view of 4 of the Koh Chang archipelago islands, Koh Yuak, Koh Man Noi, Koh Pli and Koh Man Nok.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kai+Bae+Viewpoint/@12.0205768,102.2919516,15z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x3104105179b452c7:0x2b4a04572dce185b!8m2!3d12.0205768!4d102.2919516!16s%2Fg%2F11b6tz721w?hl=en&entry=ttu
Note that there is excellent coffee available at this Kai Bae viewpoint.

Before almost reaching Pattaya, my 2 tour guides noticed that we were all sad that our 4 day trip was coming to a quick end, so they said do you want to eat at a fun place that is near Pattaya (about 1 hour away) before we call it a day?  I said sure – as I really like to see and experience new places.
So, we stopped off at the Tamnanpar Resort & Restaurant – one of these many nearby Pattaya / Rayong restaurants that are tucked away in a jungle theme – various Thai friends have taken me to different ones as each Thai person swears that his/her’s is the best.
Tamnanpar resort and restaurant Facebook page 


This place is famous for their unique game cuisine where you can eat ostrich, crocodile, snake, and deer. All was good and our random waiter was someone that my 2 tour guides already knew and were teasing him about his in-the-bed attributes – he was quite shy but willing to tease back my 2 Thai friends.  I truly enjoy when the Thais do this to each other as it is very entertaining.
Then they dropped me off at my condo room in Jomtien and our trip concluded.
 
 
Trip summary:
Would I go back to Koh Chang?  Most certainly – it is a large island and there is still more to see. Especially to visit many of the many off-shore islands in the archipelago. Maybe stay for one more additional day to take some time to do kayaking.
Any regrets?  Yes, we did not have time to see the famous abandoned boat “ghost” hotel.   Nation Thailand article on the famous "ghost" ship on Koh Chang
 
Contact details (HORNET and Line) for my 2 Thai tour guides from the Dongtan volleyball field in Jomtien.  They can be available to be a tour guide, companion, or masseur. 
 permission was granted to me by the both of them to publish their details for all of you Also, come and visit them at volleyball (nightly from about 5:30 pm until 8pm to 9pm daily) – right next to the Sea Rescue in front of the Pattaya Park Tower on the beach road of our Dongtan beach. 
Phong Hornet ID is:  @m-thailand
Boat Hornet ID is:  @13hq91


 

I do a lot of threesomes. Some boys I already know work happily together. But generally my MO is to pick the boy that I want as second, and we discuss and then invite the third.
Sometimes in a bar there are a number of boys around the table and I might just jokingly point at two of them and count 1-2-3 on my fingers and see what their reaction is. Sometimes it is just laughed off, sometimes it is met with enthusiastic nodding, then it is 'game-on'.
I also find it helpful to have discussed with the boys who might do what to whom? 
The first time in the room for a new threesome might be a bit slow as the boys are often shy of one another. But with the lights lowered, and a little gentle direction from me and it usually works out ok, although obviously some better than others.
Once a threesome has been established it usually just gets better and better. Perhaps with food offered afterwards as they chat and get to know one another.
Winner Boys should be excellent for threesomes, established boys like Nam and Bank are usually totally at ease with them, Nam in particular is usually very proactive in getting the 'party' started!

Latest batch of pics from the Winner Boys FaceBook page.
Having visited the bar several times last month I can confirm a number of new boys and overall a more lively and positive vibe about the bar than I remember for a number of years.





 

Olddaddy - some time ago you wrote something in one of your posts that really bothered me -
something like - what do all of the farang retirees do in Jomtien to pass the day - sit on their balconies looking out onto the sea.....
Well, I moved to Jomtien from the EU in September 2022 as a new retiree - and after 6 months I became bored looking out onto the sea from my balcony.
That was the HARDEST part of being a new retiree - how to repurpose ourselves?  What is our new purpose in life.
Out of the blue - my ex-boss from the EU called me on a day that I was really bored - he asked me what I was doing.
I replied, I am busy counting endless seashells on the seashore.....
He laughed and said to me - "Do you want a NEW chance to use your brain and be intellectual again?"
I jumped at the opportunity and I replied with a resounding = YES.
So, within a month I was back in the EU in early 2023 on a 4.5 month short retiree consulting contract using my brain and it felt so good to have purpose again.....
After night after night sitting in the Supertown Jomtien Complex sitting and drinking I was rapidly becoming more and more depressed and becoming negative - and that is not me - I am usually a happy lucky guy with a lot of energy.
The Supertown Jomtien Complex is made in a way that does not allow us to expend energy - the mantra is:
"falang sit - falang drink"  ==> and it you go against this program they get upset as I tried on many occasions to stand and even dance....The preferred Supertown program is for us to be sedentary and to spend our money....and I find this program SO boring and not stimulating....
So Olddaddy - I did not like what you wrote some time ago about retiring in Jomtien as I was SO confident that I would find a way after my new retirement to BOTH use my little brain down on the 3rd leg (which I did and often with great satisfaction) --> but the joy from using your 3rd leg brain does NOTHING for stimulating the real brain.
Anyone who is already retired in Jomtien - what is your secret to find ways to stimulate your brain to give it intellectual input and challenges??

On 1-2-2-4, A or B?
[43 seconds]

My Movie.mov

Observing current situation in Pattaya, I think idea to open nursing home is quite interesting idea. Bungalows in the garden, skilled chief at the kitchen, cute "nurses", doctor's patronage, legal adviser for to fill all these govt's forms for your clients, and group excursions around from time to time - islands, concerts, museums. 

Daytime temperatures in Bangkok's 'winter season' very rarely fall below around 28. It will be a little cooler in the evenings and can drop down 4 or 5 degrees. Chiang Mai is certainly cooler, especially in the evenings when you will almost certainly need a sweater.
As @reader's article points out, much depends on China. If it is below freezing in Beijing, the winter monsoon will ensure that some of those cold winds will extend down as far as Thailand leading to cooler weather. I was once having a short vacation in Hua Hin bewteen Christmas and New Year when it was pretty cool just lying by the pool.
But the winter monsoon can blow in at any time. I recall one late November spell in Hong Kong, normally one of the loveliest months weather-wise, when daytime temperatures dropped to what felt like a bitterly cold 12 degrees. Check what is happening temperature-wise in Beijing in the winter period and you can be sure this will have some effect on Thailand a few days later.

time to join EU, see how Central European countries were lifted up after joining 

Excited by Aussie's post about the two poles erected in BN Bar, I have been sitting opposite like a dog waiting for a bone, but so far no bone.
Hopefully, the boys will spring into action sooner or later, until then the poles will continue to act as ceiling supports.
The Complex continues to be awash with rumours of "The Return to Sunnee Plaza" with several bar owners being name-checked as potential movers. All will become clear by the time high season returns, I am assured.
The Complex itself is awash with boys, as noted by previous posters, and that's no bad thing. What is perhaps noteworthy is that the influx of boys is concentrated among the bars with young Thai owners, such as BN, 69 and Sunnee/Dodo Bars. The hobby bars owned by retirees are clearly lagging behind as they continue to try to pass off middle-aged bar staff as "boys".
As a regular low season visitor, this year does not appear to be exceptionally quiet, despite some reports to the contrary, but perhaps the customers are more spread out among the many available bars. 
Word of the day: The standard collective nouns for a group of boys are: a blush of boys a leer of boys a passel of boys and a rascal of boys.

Charlie, the owner of Dodo and Sunee Intimate bars is joining the management team of M Bar and told me that he will soon fix the air conditioning. It has been very warm inside the bar which has made me avoid going there. One advantage of M Bar besides the boys is the low volume level of the music compared to being blasted by noise in the main Complex Soi most nights.

Or just another closet gay pushing out homophobic vibes to protect his hetero image while checking out the boys in the gay area.

The Dodo boys love dancing. The bar has a constant flow of customers and it was diffcult to find a seat last night but much easier to find a boy to have a drink with.

20230830_225322_1.mp4

Last night in Dodo bar...
20230821_235834.mp4