PeterRS2

Unless I can clearly read emergency exit signage in a relatively dark space which, on checking, is unlocked, I also leave. Even with unlocked emergency exits, though, I never know what might be blocking the other side.

These rates for the Aiden Hotel are only for an opening promotion which closes on July 31. The cheapest rate at present is Bt. 2,843 (US$85). But then it jumps dramatically for the high season. Mid-November rate on agoda is US$165. This then jumps to $440 for mid-February. But it comes down to $220 in May.

Thailand understandably has the highest number of the most mixed Thai/Chinese in the world, thanks in large part to massive immigration from China as that country was collapsing in the 19th century. Intermarriage did the rest. Most Prime Ministers and the majority of those who have served in the Thai parliament have/have had some Chinese ancestry. And they now dominate the nation's economy with 8 of the top ten richest being of Chinese descent. https://www.thebigchilli.com/feature-stories/thailands-six-pack-the-powerful-thai-chinese-families-who-dominate-the-countrys-business-scene This is similar to the private sector in Malaysia. Public sector jobs are held for the Bumiputra Malays, but it is the Chinese in the private sector who earn more. In 2015 the Forbes 50 Richest List stated eight of the top ten Malaysian nationals were of ethnic Chinese descent. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbespr/2015/02/26/robert-kuok-retains-top-spot-on-forbes-malaysia-rich-list/

This is relatively common now around the region.

I could never understand how it was that moderate senators like John McCain and Joe Lieberman formed a regular trio with a hawk like Graham. They frequently talked about their bromance. Graham was a loud-mouthed right-wing idiot who first trashed Trump in no uncertain terms and then became his best pal. That says it all.

I was travelling! The second occasion was at an airport and I had just had to show my airline card. In general, if at home the wallet is safely tucked away. When flying long distance on planes, I have always changed into looser clothes. Even then my wallet comes out of my pants and is stored safely. I heard decades ago of some passangers who go through some overhead bins looking for jeans and trousers with wallets in them.

And what is this about? On April 9 there was a pub fire. 60 escaped before the fire crews arrived and no one died. The fire was assumed to have been caused by an indoor firework. In 2023 there was a spate of fires deliberately set by teenagers but no deaths. There was also an alleged fire which resulted in a tube train being stopped at Clapham Common station and chaos as passengers tried to escape. But there was no fire. The smoke had been caused by the train's brakes. https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/incidents/2022/april/nightclub-fire-clapham-common/ https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/05/passengers-smash-windows-to-escape-tube-amid-fire-alert The last major fire in London was the 2017 Grenfell Tower disaster which killed 72 people.

Flammable material is often cited in dreadful fires like all so far mentioned. It reminds me that in the UK all materials used in a theatre stage - scenery, costumes, props etc. - have to pass fire inspections every time before a show can open. This involves taking a piece of, say, cloth scenery and setting it alight to ensure it will not burn. An officer from the fire department is always in attendance.

Good information, but still somewhat uncertain. Someone would have to stay at least 10 days to be sure of catching Bangkok's Pride Parade, and with Pattaya's being "usually" a visitor could miss it altogether. I realise there is a lot of bureaucracy to go through in order for these Parades to obtain permission. But why they cannot get through the bureaucracy earlier and do as Taipei does by having a fixed date rather beats me. Taipei is always the last Saturday in October which makes planning so much easier - but does mean you have to book flights and hotels in plenty of time as thousands fly in for the Parade and parties.

This has already been discussed in a thread at the start of this month and you posted on it there! You need to start some memory training.

Over around 35 years and way over 100 visits to Bangkok before living here since 2001, I only once had a problem with a barboy I had taken out. He was from Screwboys! I had given him a tip that was more than generous, but he would not move as he said it was not enough. He got no more from me and I never went back to that bar, although I realise I should have reported him to the mamasan.

Bar and nightclub fires are just too common in this country, leading one to believe that the authorities are far too lax in their oversight. I remember well the time of the ghastly fire at the Santika Nightclub in 2009. There has also been the more recent Mountain B nightclub fire near Satahip in August 2022 in which I believe 25 died. There was only one exit as the back entry to the club was found to be locked. I used to visit DJ Station in my younger years - and enjoyed it. But then I came to my senses and remembered the extremely narrow alley that leads on to Suriwong. I realised that a fire in that club would inevitably kill dozens in the rush to the main street. For there were also other businesses operating in that soi. I have not been back.

It sure is a pain but ever since I started traveling I have had at least 2 credit/charge cards and one is never in my wallet. So if a wallet ever disappeared, at least I could pay hotel bills etc.

As the guest of a friend who lectured on top-of-the-line cruise liners, I did a 17 day regular cruise around the Caribbean and up the Amazon to Manaus. This was in early 2003 when there was some kind of financial recession. A couple we met from New York booked 3 months on that cruise as prices had dropped considerably and they said it was cheaper than living at home! I would probably have gone mad as 17 days was too much for me.

I had in fact used my first email address. But when hotmail was withdrawn from Thailand, it was impossible to receive or send any mails from it - and then it vanished from my screen! I hate most of the new technology. Just recently had advice from Apple that with the latest update I can no longer use Clean my Mac and just days beforehand I had paid to renew my annual subscription! And I have been twice to the main Apple store for information on messages I get on my screen - and none of the assistants there know why I get them!

I have never been on a gay cruise and would not now wish to go on one - too old! But I know they are popular and you can even get them here in Asia. Last week the 2,000 passenger Virgin Voyages ship Scarlet Lady on a 10-day chartered gay cruise around the Mediterranean from Athens to Venice was denied docking at the ports of Istanbul and Alexandria in Egypt. Alexandria had been added at the last minute after Turkey denied access when authorities published a statement online saying the cruise was chartered “by groups known for behaviours that do not align with the structure of our society and our moral values”. The ship then turned around and docked in Crete. The Broadway Tony Award winner Patti Lupone is taking part in the cruise entertainment. She wrote on Instagram - “I am furious, but I am sailing, as the ship will make other ports of call. I am ready to perform for all the wonderful men on this Atlantis cruise, who deserve so much better than this.” The Scarlet Lady outside Marseilles

In Rome it was basically my fault. I had heard about small groups of street urchins who would try to rob tourists. They were young - probably aged only between 10 and 14 - and always carried a large piece of white cardboard. As they got near an individual, the cardboard would be raised to a horizontal position so that you could not see hands. Anything in pockets was likely to disappear. I knew of this trick. When they picked my pocket I was there in the hottest month of August and so was wearing a pair of very thin cotton pants with 6 pockets. Aware of the little gangs, I spread my cash around the pockets so there was not much in each. On the Corso I saw one of these gangs approaching me. But they had regular brown cardboard. No idea why this did not ring an alarm bell, but the next thing I knew was the cardboard was horizontal and I felt a hand in one pocket. I quickly reached around to grab the hand, but of course what little Lire it had grabbed had been passed to another of the group. The hand was empty. Live and learn! In Barcelona I was at the airport waiting for a flight. I needed to go to the toilet and so was seated on a stall with my jeans around my ankles. There was a gap between the stalls and I neither saw nor felt a hand slip into a back pocket and steal my wallet. Again, live, learn and be more careful!

I recall that he chartered an Air France 747 to fly him back from Paris. Apparently he had been diagnosed a year earlier but hardly anyone knew about it. After his appearances on Dynasty when it was obvious he was ill, he and his publicist were still able to quell rumours. It was when he appeared with his former co-star Doris Day who had begged him to appear with her at a press conference in early 1985 that the world realised his gaunt look and general appearance meant he was much more seriously ill. Then it was almost impossible to disguise the truth.

One surprise of those days of Reagan's ultra conservative agenda was his late-1981 appointment of another ultra conservative as surgeon general - C. Everett Koop. That appointment was welcomed by the religious right but roundly condemned by liberals because of his very conservative views. Yet he was later to say that he had wanted to speak out much earlier about the dangers of HIV/AIDS but was prevented from doing so by the administration. Whether you actually agree with that or not - I am not sure I do because if he did feel strongly about being muzzled I think he should have resigned - the fact is that he did speak out very forcibly about how HIV was spread sexually as well as in other ways. I can recall landing in San Francisco and turning on the television once i was in my hotel room. There on screen was the rather austere face of Koop talking about AIDS transmission and specific dangers. I especially recall being astounded that he talked about rimming! I believe this was around the Spring of 1986. Something in him had definitely changed! He himself later wrote in 1987 - "I am the surgeon general of the heterosexuals and the homosexuals, of the young and the old, of the moral or the immoral, the married and the unmarried. I don't have the luxury of deciding which side I want to be on. So I can tell you how to keep yourself alive no matter what you are. That's my job."

Why limit just to four countries? I was robbed in Rome and Barcelona.

Iran's nuclear ambitions are surely in part a result of Israel having nuclear weapons. One balances the other. Exactly as India and Pakistan both openly have nuclear weapons. Although Pakistan has lost all of its wars/skirmishes with india, it has never resorted to its nuclear arsenal. Of course israel will never confirm or deny it has such weapons. Anyone who believes they do not is in some cloud cuckoo land!

I think for younger readers of this forum who may not be fully aware of the detail, a very brief history might be useful. In the 1980s I was visiting New York for 3 or 4 days' business every year. Understandably there was a major fear of AIDS after the first outbreak was discovered among gay men in 1981, initially in New York and soon after on the west coast. (I realise there was a 14-year old boy from St. Louis who was actually the first to experience symptoms of HIV in 1966 and who died in 1969. His symptoms mystified doctors. It was not until 1987 that he was discovered to have died of AIDS). Although the doctors had noticed several opportunistic infections in patients, Kaposi's Sarcoma became the generic name for the first few months. In May 1982 the New York Times changed this to GRID - Gay-Related Immune Deficiency - significantly reinforcing in the public's mind that this was an illness that affected only gay men, a sentiment that became stuck in the public mind even as it soon became apparent that HIV was spread by bodily fluids in the whole population. It was only in September that the CDC used the acronym AIDS. That same month the US Congress denied funding for research. By December it was realised that a baby had died of AIDS after one of its blood donors had died of AIDS. By 1985 gay men were prohibited from donating blood. It was in May 1983 that candlelight vigils were held in San Francisco and New York by AIDS patients. The photographs which appeared around the world finally brought a knowledge and eventually an understanding of AIDS to many countries. It was not until October 1984 that San Francisco ordered all gay bath houses closed. New York followed in 1985. When Los Angeles tried to enforce a ban in 1985, the owners took legal action to try and keep them open. The court sided with the owners in 1986. Long before this it had become obvious early on in The New York Times that obituaries placed by the families of those who died never mentioned AIDS. "After a long illness" became one common description. AIDS would have been a ghastly pandemic at any time. Yet for gay men especially the timing could hardly have been worse. The Stonewall Riots had taken place in 1969 quickly followed by the Gay Liberation movement. Although initially limited to the USA, gay men finally began to feel a degree of freedom they had been denied for so long. Many moved from the more conservative central USA states to San Francisco where gay men were much more welcome. With the advent of HIV/AIDS, many in the gay movement were against any of their new freedoms being curtailed. Hence the strong advocacy that bath houses should remain open. Here in Asia there used to be a weekly magazine AsiaWeek. Sometime around 1985 it devoted a major double page article to HIV/AIDS, no doubt inspired by the Hong Kong government's first official reporting of its HIV cases. In that year, one Thai student was known to have contracted AIDS but he had studied abroad. That AsiaWeek article implied that, like Japan, AIDS was a foreign import. There was even a paragraph suggesting that owners of Thai gay venues were considering banning entry to Hong Kong residents (although how that could have been enforced was never spelled out)! It was, though, indicative of the fear that was now rampaging around the world. A disease which, if caught, meant certain death was not what anyone wanted to hear. The advent of various drugs was fast tracked. It still took until 1996 when a Taiwanese-American scientist/virologist discovered the combination antiretroviral therapy that would finally transform AIDS from a deadly to a chronic illness. A question that is often posed concerns the attitude of President Ronald Reagan to AIDS and whether, had his administration acted more quickly, the effect of AIDS could have been considerably reduced. Reagan's cabinet was ultra-conservative and refused to act on what it also considered a gay illness. It rejected the CDC request for new funding and at the same time severaly reduced the CDC's budget. It was only in October 1985 when Rock Hudson, the closet gay actor friend of former actor Reagan, died of AIDS that the president mentioned AIDS for the first time. By then over 12,000 Americans had died and there were another 15,000 cases in the USA.

Sadly nudity on beaches is forbidden by law in Thailand. But I often wonder how those western ladies get away with topless bathing.

I consider @Ruthrieston and @bkkmfj2648 angels for all they did in those dreadful years. I am sure there may have been others on this forum who did as much - and they too are angels. Thank you with all my heart.

So true! I lived and was sexually active throughout those ghastly years. But I was living in Asia where there was not the same bombardment of news about AIDS and all the newspaper obituaries as in the USA. I do not know how many Asians died but the safe sex message did eventually get out and a great many gay men paid attention to it. I was based in Hong Kong and visiting Bangkok at least half a dozen times a year. The bars were all open and some packed at the week-ends. The boys in those I attended had all been instructed about condom use being vital. After a few years, I was saddened when i learned that one guy I had met years earlier had died of AIDS. The situation in Japan was different. Japanese sauna owners, for example, considered AIDS a western disease that would not affect them, even though westerners like me were often there. There was no safe sex message that I noticed (although I could not read Japanese). Eventually the owners took note and the government finally decided in 1985 to close all the gay saunas. But it was way too late. I had three friends who all had birthdays around the same day in October. I attended their birthday party in, I think it was, 1987. It was a wonderful evening and I paired off with a really hot young Japanese. Two or three years later I was totally shocked to learn that four who attended that party - included all three of the birthday boys - had died of AIDS.