macaroni21

@young11, in Thailand, the western notion of gay/straight is not often a useful way to navigate many issues. In massage places, that may not be the most helpful way to read the shop's offerings. Instead, try to see things this way: if a massage place offers you, without asking, a selection of masseurs to choose from, you can assume that at least soft sex (handjob) will be an expected finish. Insertive sex will depend on the chosen masseur. If the shop does not, by default, offer you a selection, then it's much more dependent on the guy. The shop may operate a kind of rotation system, so the guy assigned to you may not even want to do soft sex. But boundaries are often blurred. Even if a shop normally operates by rotation, you may still (sometimes) ask for a particular masseur. Or, the masseur in such a shop, even if assigned by rotation, may prove very willing, in the room, to provide the full works - though you should be careful not to 'out' him to his colleagues. Gay or straight? Don't even ask. Thais use different concepts. In fact, few countries in the world adopt western concepts.

Indeed, by the time the bars are supposed to close, I should be in bed, either slumbering or enjoying the company of someone. I am no party animal.

Interesting that at 2 min 15 secs, visitors are advised to image their passports and visas onto their phones. This seems to be good enough instead of having to carry passports with us all the time. Not sure where this "advice" comes from or whether it's authoritative.

Besides the mystery, as Reader pointed out, of the purpose of the flight, these other things stood out to me: 1. It was not a commerical flight and so probably had a light payload - easy to fly further this way. 2. Not a successful aircraft type, abandoned by Thai Airways ten years ago in 2012.

Any chance of a map? 🤪

I agree with pong2, vinapu and gerefan change at Suvarnabhumi airport only what you need to get through your first 12 hours. Thereafter whether in Bkk or Pattaya, look out for exchange kiosks (not banks). Super rich is almost always good. In Pattaya TT Exchange is the one I usually visit. Don't fret too much about getting the absolute best rate. The differences aren't that significant in the larger scheme of things.

I know this place. Call it what you wish, but the food is very good. It used to call itself Flying Vegetables Restaurant - for good reason!

The OP, Alkis, joined on July 3, last visited on August 30 and haven't been back since. In the time, he made 2 posts, the above opener and another about Delhi. I doubt if the starting post was even a serious question, given the lack of follow-up interest.

But there are some members of this forum here (wink wink) who'd chastise us for discriminatory ideas each time we wish for gogo bars to be exclusively gay male. We should flagellate ourselves for even entertaining the idea that women shouldn't be allowed in.

Agree 100%

I don't know why I keep giving Scandic a try every few years or so, but perhaps it's because they're bigger guys. However I always end up feeling it was a waste of money. Their massage skills are nil and the Afters always seem mechanical and rushed.

I don't know what class of room you booked, but I found it somewhat small and cramped. Moreover, the window was minimal and the room never seemed bright enough. The bathroom, particularly the shower stall, was nice though.

@PeterRS Thanks. Maybe I think too much, but even the Danshi Gakuen symbols leave room for mislunderstanding. Take the example of Harusuke above. He has a black disc that shows two persons in doggie-style. One person is white (the bottom) and the other person is only outlined (the top). Does the white refer to the sex-worker, or the client? I have a vague feeling that the order by which the discs are presented is always top and bottom, not bottom and top, and so Harusuke's first disc (which is faded out) indicates a topping position, while the second disc indicates a bottoming position. But I'm still scratching my head which one is white and which one is outlined? As an aside, this reminds of something an acquaintance (who is some sort of linguist) told me. He said East Asian languages tend to be contextual whereas European languages tend to be mechanistic. By that he meant - I hope I got his meaning right - that one needs to understand context before deriving meaning from what is being communicated, whereas in European languages, one is trained to be very precise and draw meanng from the words and their inflections alone. I may be using an overly-Europeanistic approach to these symbols??? But I can't help it.....

One hour is their service target? That's a very low bar.

My understanding is that "high season" came out of the larger number of visitors from Europe and North America escaping their winters. Many were retired even then, and were able to spend three months, mostly in Pattaya. It's similar to how flights from Russia are resuming for the next 3 - 4 months. It really has nothing to do with choosing to go during the busier or costlier period. The arrow of causation is the other way around. Winter in Europe >> more visitors to Thailand >> higher prices and busier places. Living in Australia, you may be able to count yourself lucky in that you do not have a long, damp or cold winter to escape from. Those of us like me who still have to work cannot afford to spend three whole months on vacation. We pop into Thailand for relatively short visits of perhaps 2 weeks at various times of the year. I have never really "participated" in High Season - at least not in the sense of being part of a migratory community.

@Keithambrose if you can, could you fill us in on what these terms and symbols mean on the King of College website? - What's the difference between "top" and "top (anal sex)"? - What's the difference between "bottom" and "bottom (anal sex)"? - What is "3 thumbs"? - What do the symbols circle, triangle and X mean?

And then there are sois numbered Soi 3/2 or 3/4. A friend once asked me why an address could be on *either* Soi 3 or Soi 4. He interpreted the slash as an option.

Do you ever have a bad day?

I will leave it to those who can read and write Thai to comment about transcription, but I think we need to accept some variation in the English transcription. This happens not just with Thai, but any language. As for Google maps, I often find that it has outright errors. I have seen errors in road names, tram stop locations, tram line numbers... Even whole churches are marked in the wrong spot, more than 300m from where they should be. I read somewhere that Google deliberately introduces errors so that they can spot when someone has copied from them and violated their copyright.

I find this quite hilarious, really. Why did we all jump to the conclusion that he's the mirror image is us, keen on the paid fuck? Maybe his interests are cultural, historical and scientific. Perhaps he might find it absorbing to do a study of climate change and the sinking terrain of Bangkok while here. Haha.

My thoughts too though 50% is too high a figure. The genuine tourists probably came in only through the international airports. These would number 3.89 million Swampy, 0.96 Phuket and 0.56 Don muang. Total 5.41 million. But the more important thing is the upward trend. Now we just need many more of the gay ones, which the Patpong bars and their prices are probably doing everything they can to deter.

I think this news report underestimates how big China is - it is as big as the US. Most Chinese don't live anywhere near the Lao border. They'd still need to fly to Boten, near the Lao or at least to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, to join the train. If so, they might as well fly to Thailand. Once again, I see Thai news as more wishful thinking than cold analysis.

I wonder what happened to the customers who were within the premises at 16:00 and halfway through a massage.... Was the "treatment" suspended and resumed 3 hours later 😛?

Not only Adonis. I vaguely recall at least one other place that did that too, but the name of the place escapes me now. As for bar patrons wanting to bring their own beer into the premises, the bars can implement a cover charge, redeemable for the first drink. And each time a second drink is ordered, payment should be asked for immediately. Personally, I'd long wished for the bars to do away with the checkbin system and adopt a pay-as-you-go system. But given the ridiculous inefficiency of their cash handling and change-giving (deliberately, I know) they must also migrate to card payments at the same time. Or are they trying to hide revenue from the tax man?

I had the same issue some years ago when I tried to count too, and finally gave up and decided not to count anymore.