macaroni21

Most of us knew Sol Club wasn't going to survive. It had no imagination. Also, in its brief existence, did it even invest one baht in advertising and marketing? Even that huge column could have been turned into an asset if they knew how. I described a different floorplan and business model last November. https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2023/12/13/how-to-take-in-that-massive-thing/

Not sure I understand what you mean by "2 to 6+". Could you speak in terms of %, like what % of Chinese or Chinese-looking customers who walk through the door decide to turn around and leave? And are these more male or female?

Are you forgetting India and Kazakhstan? And if latest reports about bars being full of Chinese tourists are any indication, China too.

You could be on to something - Thai ways can be a total mystery to us outsiders. That said, to a western mind that relies on this strange thing called logic, I can't imagine what boundaries are left to be imposed by the cops. After all, the gogo bars already have full on f**king acts on stage, plus the conjoined couple then circulate among the audience, often with one partner on a customer's lap while the other partner pounds away. As @bkkmfj2648 mentioned a few days ago in this same thread, a good bar "creates customer participation in the bar and can allow for you to get up close and personal with the bar staff". I have long spoken about the need for smaller, more intimate environments, options for lap dancing in private booths (or at least curtained-off corners) and more joke-y performances that either pull members of the audience onto the stage or the performer(s) go down to a lucky customer. I have also spoken about the need for more exclusive male environments (as opposed to one with screaming girls in the audience) though such a suggestion makes @reader go apoplectic about discrimination. Instead, these bars think they ought to copy the success of Tiffany or Alcazar (and badly) or Fake Club. They don't for a moment realise that their could-be-loyal audience is completely different. Then when customer numbers fall, they raise their prices to make up. And wonder why customer numbers fall further. OK, the last bit about prices can be traced to the need for the police superintendent's wife to acquire jewellery.

I assume @sydneyboy1 was referring mostly to gogo bars when he wrote "bar crawl of all the usual haunts" and finding them "very quiet and dispiriting". When I triangulate his report with those of others - more positive sounding - the picture I get is that the gogo bars are their own worst enemies unable to attract customers despite increased foreigner traffic into the country. Now, why am I not surprised?

Dubai is not the kind of place one would go to look for any kind of gay entertainment or personal relief, but it's a business city where business people find themselves having to go to. I was one of those, though not lately. Naturally a certain percentage of business people swing "the other way" and thus there's a market for providers of solace and comfort. I have been tempted, but between being too busy (I never wanted to stay in Dubai any longer than absolutely necessary) and too conscious of the capriciousness of security people, I never tasted the offerings available there. I did hear from a business acquaintance about a raid on their office premises looking, not for cooked books or other evidence of fraud, but for pornography. Why pornography? No idea. The teller of the story had a theory that a business competitor was behind it. For a moment they were concerned about the stash of alcohol they had in the office - either they'd face consequences or the bottles would be seized and their vintage assessed personally by the raiding officers in the comfort of their own homes. In the end, the officers pretended not to see the lot.

To the best of my knowledge, Tokyo Kids does not have a bar. The member saying he had drinks with the boys might have taken the boys (more than one???) out to another bar.

Since these shops largely use freelancers, do you think any part of the shop's charge whether 350 or 550, goes to the boy? I have a suspicion that it may be the other way around - the the boy may have to part with some portion of his tip as "commission" to the shop. I saw a quick transaction recently at OneSpa where a boy passed at least one red note to Barbie. The boy wasn't the one who serviced me so I wouldn't be able to say what the context was. Maybe he had to pay Barbie a commission. An alternative explanation might have been that he had just done an outcall and was passing on to the shop what the customer had paid as the shop fee. All I knew was that money went from boy to Barbie. And that got me wondering....

@jeremy What time of day were your hookups? I ask because several years ago I was in a hotel (can't remember the name now) where the first two times I brought a boy back (late afternoon, early evening) they weren't a problem, but the 3rd guy whom I tried to bring in close to midnight, they wouldn't let him in. I had a bit of an argument with the security in which they said something about daytime OK, night not OK. I am just wondering whether I was just unlucky in my choice of hotel or it might be a more general policy among Manila hotels.

I just copied those links from the caption/description below the Youtube video, so folks here can find out more if they wish. I have no business connection with the ferry and am not trying to promote it.

Was there last month. Thus the new map.

He says the departure time is 2 pm. So that means it arrives Koh Samui 12 noon the next day. Sounds convenient for check-in into hotels on the island. Sea Horse Ferry Official : https://www.theseahorseferry.com/en/ Book Sea Horse Online on Facebook : / fb.theseahorseferryofficial Sea Horse Ferry Port in Bangkok : https://maps.app.goo.gl/NorMBmNmTtqRA...

Too many bars in Thailand rely on an old (gatoey-heavy) formula for entertainment. They also need to rethink the "showtime" model, trying to pull the crowd in at a specific time to watch a tired third-rate "show". Especially for a small bar like The One (Tawan) with a stage no bigger than a single-bed, trying to do a "show" is a challenge. Nor is there any point trying to pull in a "crowd" when there aren't enough seats for a crowd. A rapid turnover of customers/seats all through the evening is better revenue than a crowd at a single time. It is possible to entertain customers with fairly frequent acts throughout the entire evening, but management needs to come up with fresh ideas that do not need much space. Some suggestions I have would be: 1. Every drinks order also gets a lucky draw ticket. When ten or twelve tickets have been issued, a gogo boy comes onto stage dressed in two shirts (one an undershirt), jeans/trousers, two underpants and a condom. Six lucky draw numbers are called in succession. Each lucky customer goes on stage, gets a kiss and a hug from the gogoboy and gets to remove one item of clothing. The sixth lucky guy gets to remove the condom! Then wait for ten or twelve other customers to come in buy a drink and a new round follows. 2. Chair dance. Gogoboy gets onto stage, invites 2 or 3 customers in sequence onto a chair gives each a one-minute personal dance. 3. Juggling act. Maybe in the nude? Customers watch the balls 🤪 4. Bronco ride. Customer invited to ride pillion with a gogoboy on a bronco horse. Customers clutches gogo boy tightly for dear life for 60 seconds. 5. There are some plastic balls that stick when thrown at object. For 100 baht, customers get balls. Throw at underwear'ed gogo boy on stage. Three hits on his underwear from, say, 2 metres away (Strike!) and the underwear is lost. Gogoboy then gives a personal dance to the winning thrower, jiggling his assets in the latter's face. 6. As in midpoint of this video, gogoboy gets hot and sweaty doing a dance in front of a customer in the sitting area (not on stage). Customer gets a cloth to wipe off sweat. Plus many more ideas I am sure members of this board can come up with. All that's needed is for management to be open to new ideas.

I can see that @reader has answered your question, but in case it's of help to anyone else, there's an updated map of the area, with nine massage shops shown, at https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2024/06/05/map-of-saphan-khwai-and-sutthisan-winitchai-area-may-2024/

I never knew that! And so many have opened bars despite this? Out of idle curiosity, do you know if the Sunnee bars had/have liquor licences?

I have always stayed in District 1 and didn't think it to be a problem. In fact that's where the tourist- friendly cafes and restaurants are. Outside of it, you may find it difficult to even get an English-language menu. I have been into District 10 a few times and I agree there are a number of massage parlours there. But I wouldn't want to stay there. It's an ugly part of Saigon (roads with no pavements, repair shops for bicycles and home appliances, etc) with few allowances for foreigners. If I need to go there, I get a Grab car in and a Grab car out.

Based on what you described as the the activities for your February visit and what you seem to be looking forward to, then I think you are right in deciding on two shorter visits of about 10 days, within a year. The sights are seldom as much a wow thing the second time compared to the first. In any case, there aren't enough sights (not in Bangkok, anyway) to fill three and a half weeks. There's an endless supply of sex, but my experience is that desire will peter out after a week or so. The thrill wears out, it becomes a routine and soon enough, a boring one. And yes, you should try the massage offerings. But let me give you a bit of advice here when venturing into this area: There are roughly three kinds of massage parlours and it is hard to tell them apart from appearances. 1. Places that offer real massage and no sex (at most, if you are lucky, a handjob) 2. Places where the management pretends it is a real massage place, but most of the boys don't know the techniques, and are more interested in selling sex for big tips. 3. Places that have "massage" or "spa" in their name but are basically brothels. You may get a simple, reasonably satisfying massage or the boy merely goes through the motions (or sometimes don't have a clue how to perform a massage) and you need to think of the "massage" more as foreplay. Depending on which brothel you're patronising, the expected tip can vary tremendously. To make matters even more confusing, there are no hard and fast boundaries between one type and another. There are places kind of in-between. However, I find it easier to think in terms of these three types and classify the various places accordingly in my mind. Why? Because the business transaction operates somewhat differently depending on whether it is 1, 2 or 3, particularly the tip (or what I call the service fee). Closer to November when you are ready to dip your toe into Thailand's gay "massage" business, maybe you can ask for more information about how to navigate ths confusing sector. By the way, are you heading to Hanoi or Ho Chi MInh City in August?

There's no better or worse; a lot depends on what you're wanting from a visit. While you have explained your leave situation, it might help if you also said something about what you found fantastic from your February 2024 visit. Were you mostly enjoying the clubbing scene like lots of younger gay travellers? The commercial sex opportunities? The cruising saunas? Or were you going around the historical sites, the shopping malls, and soaking in the different culture, cuisine, traffic gridlock or air pollution (OK, maybe not the last two 🤪)? Are you hoping to get out of Bangkok to visit other parts of Thailand or neighbouring countries? There are some on this board who stay 3 to 6 months at a stretch and love it. Others choose more frequent but shorter stays - and also love it. A way to figure out what *may* work better for you may be to see if your interests align more with the long-stay fellas or the short-stay fellas. Personally, while I have done stays of several weeks, they always involved travelling to other parts of Thailand or a hop over to Laos or Cambodia. I can't imagine staying more than a week or 10 days in just Bangkok. So, I am a short-stay kind of guy, but I also have an advantage - work takes me to Southeast Asia regularly, and from wherever I am on one of these trips, it's a short hop to Bangkok.

Hmmmm... another bar in the roaring centre of gay nightlife where the average number of patrons per bar is 1.4.

I don't think reader has missed much by not having yet visited Jey Spa. Over several visits over the years, I have yet to have to a memorable encounter except perhaps the very first or second time I was there (easily >10 years ago). The guys are OK, the services OK, but I have yet to see twice as much value as the "more pedestrian places", considering that Jey Spa is setting its price level at twice those places. But I can see how those punters who set great store by how the body looks to the eye would rate Jey Spa well, whereas my experience has been that looks do not indicate the quality of service you get. I do understand though that if the partner does not look a certain way, they don't even feel any arousal, so they'd rate Jey Spa differently from me. I think I have mentioned it before, but my theory is that some of us are broad-spectrum players, others are narrow-spectrum players, needing a specific type.

My laughter of the day.

Me too.

@floridarob Thank you. It's probably the decision of the art director to pose them in similar ways, but the end result is they look rather like clones. But don't get me wrong. They're do-able clones.

I have seen a few of this duo's videos about other places and indeed they tend to be too "respectable". They're also too positive. Praises, praises everywhere -- their videos sound like oversell advertorials. And yes, there are those distractions. Not just their teeth (as mentioned) abut also the way they pronounce some words. I just can't get used to their pronouncing 'delicious' as DEE- lishuhs.

There simply isn't enough attraction in Thailand to make me want to stay 60 days. But if it also applies to the working boys from Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, etc, then it reduces the number of visa runs they make by half, which may then draw a few more of them into the business-that-we-all-know-about. That would be the best news.