macaroni21

@bkkmfj2648 has your boyfriend ever travelled outside Thailand before? If not, he may be in for a culture shock food-wise. I have seen this again and again with first-time travellers from India, China and Indonesia. They have only ever taken their local food all their lives, they find farang food near-inedible. They might manage to tolerate it for 3 - 4 days, but by about the 5th day, the craving for home food becomes so intense, they lose all interest in anything else about the place they are visitng. It's like withdrawal symptoms. I didn't witness it myself but I heard a story of a gwailo guy then resident in Hong Kong, who took a Thai boy to stay with him for, I think, a couple of weeks. The boy became irritable after a few days because he just needed spicy Thai food which was hard to find - at least in the neighbourhood the gwailo lived. The boy had no interest in sex and just wanted to go home. If your boy has not been outside Thailand before and don't know what to expect, maybe you can take him to Vietnamese restuarants around Pattaya in the coming month, and make sure you order dishes NON-SPICY. Oh yes, I now remember one time: a bunch of Indians and Arabs (can't remember which country) at the same business conference as I was, in a secondary city in China. They couldn't find anything to eat for the better part of 3 days. Everything was unfamiliar: too soupy, too gooey and too pork-y. They were starving. Finally they managed to find western-style bread from a nearby shop (Chinese-style bread is totally different) and that's what they ate for days.

Good point! I think this will come so fast, we will live to see what happens.

Not travelling. Sitting in front of their computers. There was a recent remark somewhere in the Santo Domingo forum that came out of a request to share the contact details of escorts that a forum member had met during a trip. The member, while saying it would be unethical, also added his opinion that 90% of these chaps asking for contact details aren't interested in actually going to Santo Domingo and hiring; instead these requesters.... OK, I can't remember what exactly he said, but it wasn't flattering.

This indeed is almost surely the business decision the owners made. They might have looked at the host bar scene in Japan where there is a huge industry of boys playing entertainers and male-believe boyfriends to female customers. There, the focus is to give the female customers the illusion/fantasy of romance and love, not sex, and since fantasy is more easily birthed out of an alcoholic dream-state, this synergy with drink sales is great for business. If, at BoyzBoyzBoyz, an off-fee of 1050 baht deters offs, so be it. Note: romance and love does not require the shedding of clothes. In fact, undressing may be seen as threatening to females, being a bit too close to the idea of rape. I posted this video on ShamelessMack last year, giving you a glimpse into this world of host bars for women. I will post it here again. At 2 mnutes 24 seconds, the host boy says "Our job is to sell happiness to the girls". Women are essentially different from men. Happiness is more in the realm of romance; not sex. Note too how the boys in these Japanese bars dress. This might also have been the miscalculation the female owner of Moonlight (and former owner of Hotmale) made. Being female, she might have imagined the desires of gay male customers to somehow mirror the same desires that straight females bring to host bars. The result: too many boys in these bars have shirts and all wear pants. A related thought comes to mind: gay men themselves are part of the problem. Too many are satisfied with just the visual - looking at beautiful men (note: beauty is highly subjective). Is this a result of a generation raised in the age of the internet? There seems to be a lower demand for action, by comparison: witness the decline of saunas and cruising grounds. No amount of Grindr etc can replicate the orgiastic festivals in these locales, feeling up hard, horny bodies in darkrooms, sight unseen, that a former generation enjoyed. I am reminded of a Youtube video I watched not long ago about the whole phenomenon of straight British "lads" doing Onlyfans. The most successful of them, Andy Lee, set up a "Porn Stars University" where he teaches other straight guys to do video porn. The thing is, these guys are mostly just jerking off, maybe some fellatio on each other. They hardly ever touch each other, they all say they don't do full-on action. And yet, they make tens of thousands of Pounds. From who? From gay men watching and subscribing. If this is the new social/commercial dynamic of straight men serving the low-expectations of gay men, and still be very profitable, why bother to go beyond and provide full- on services at places like BoyzBoyzBoyz? Heck, they don't even need to provide full-on sex on screen.

There is science behind this. Read: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/east-asians-no-body-odor-dont-need-deodorant-rcna156778 The gene mutation among East Asians (a term that includes a lot of Southeast Asians because they're descendants of peoples who migrated southwards from China) means they secrete much less (or none) fat molecules into their apocrine glands of armpits and groin, so the bacteria there have much less material to digest to produce end-products that noses detect as foul. The sweat itself is odourless; it's the composition of the sweat that bacteria turns into odour. One way to reduce bacteria concentrations on the skin is the use of benzoyl peroxide wash. If using that, make sure you've got the right concentration as instructed on the packaging (peroxide can burn if too concentrated) and you need to soak the skin area for some minutes to be effective. See: But although the lack of the gene mutation that is a major factor, it isn't the only one. Diet, as you said, also plays a part. See

Apparently, it's a recommendation (or requirement?) from IATA. There's a reference to this in this Channel News Asia article about Singapore Airlines' ban - https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/singapore-airlines-scoot-power-banks-ban-charger-4995046 The article does make clear though that it isn't carriage that is banned; it is use. "...passengers will not be allowed to use power banks to charge their devices during flights. They will also not be allowed to charge their power banks using the onboard USB ports, the airlines said in Facebook posts on Wednesday (Mar 12)." Passengers can carry powerbanks in their carry-ons but cannot use them, subject to these limits: "Passengers may bring power banks with a capacity of up to 100Wh without approval, while those between 100Wh and 160Wh require approval. Power banks above 160Wh are not allowed on flights." For some low-cost airlines, this can be a major problem in one unexpected way. I can't remember which airline it was but this was an airline without screens at the back of seats. Instead, passengers could log in to onboard wifi (for a fee, I vaguely recall) and stream movies onto their own phones or tablets. I guess this business model helped the airline save the cost of installing screens and the weight of all those screens at the back of seats. This cost-conscious airline also didn't provide USBs for plugging one's devices into (save money?). So, passengers might need to charge their devices with their power banks if they streamed too long, and this now won't be allowed.

@reader these two shops don't say whether the boys are top or T&B. I vaguely recall you (or maybe someone else) saying that one shop's boys are all T&B. Was it you who said that? If so, which shop?

Found this: basically saying the same thing. While businesses put their QR code on their website (if they have one) so that anyone anywhere can scan it, individuals do not. Yet the work around is given as: send your QR code to the individual so he can add you - which is quite laughable coz if one has not friended the other, how to send? If both parties are already connected via another app, e.g. WhatsApp, sure, the Line QR code can be sent, but if they're already mutually on another app, why would they need Line? Head scratcher!

Can you clarify: what exactly is not permitted? If the gogoboy or business is in Thailand, but my Line number is not a Thai number, I can no longer add the person or business as "friend"? @Raposa is saying that one can do so by scanning the QRcode, which seems to contradict.

Thanks for the detailed information about virtual cards. Two thoughts occurred to me: I'm not all that keen to have too many things concentrated in my phone. A couple of years ago, a friend dropped his phone into a river while he was on a ferry... you can imagine how the rest of his holiday went. Secondly, I too have been using preloaded debit cards more than credit cards when travelling. It's a good way to manage risk especially in countries where trust is not totally justified. @bkkmfj2648 the thought that a proper airline like Cebu Pacific can compromise your data is scary.

Thank you for sharing with such honesty. If it's any consolation, even the most experienced get taken by surprise by how our choices turn out. For example, one can have a great session and feel a good connection with the hire until at the end, he starts demanding extra money, with a threatening posture. Or one can have the sweetest guy agreeable to bottom until you see his bottom full of anal warts. In a way, it might even be better that you do not have a trip that is all roses. It makes you more realistic about expectations and unknowns, though as you said, there are lessons that can be learned too so one can reduce risk somewhat in future. That said, I went ouch when I read about the cost.

Absolutely. All ye who engage in adultery shall come to no good end. (Butterflies, who have made no marital promises to anyone, are safe).

While I have had similar experiences with unauthorised card transactions (none have succeeded so far, thank God!) and have had cards replaced by mail to my address, I have never had a virtual card as urgent replacement. Can you explain how exactly a virtual card looks and how it is used? What are the limitations compared to a physical card? Does it have a short life until one goes home and activates the new physcial card?

Or fumble with breasts, cock and balls, if you pick right person! ...followed by 15 minutes of fame the next day with headlines in the local tabloid: "Tourist had wallet, cellphone and gold chain worth 800,000 baht snatched while fumbling with an LGBTQ along Pattaya Beach Road in middle of night."

And therein lies another problem. The girls expect to be tipped! We're speaking of tourists from India... let's not forget.

Laudable aim... seamless connectivity. Dropping your passengers off on Sukhumvit Road is a long way from seamless!

I once saw myself on stage, and had to do a double-take. Turns out I was walking past a mirror. So, @Olddaddy were you walking past a mirror?

I am hardly an expert on Pattaya as I don't visit often enough. However, I've been going roughly once a year for the past 20 years at least, so I think I can say something about how the tourism scene has changed. Perhaps other members with more frequent visits, or who tend to stay for a month or more at a time can chip in. For sure, the urban area has grown. There was a time when Jomtien was little more than agricultral land. For sure, the roads are much more congested than in the decade 2000 - 2010 so that means more people. There are more tall condos, but not so many tall hotels. Shopping malls like Terminal 21 didn't appear until after 2010, I think. I wouldn't be so quick, therefore, to dismiss the assertion in the cited news article that there has been a relative decline of the sex scene as an attraction. That said, it is foolhardy to try to put a quantitative figure to it, like saying "2-3 percent of overseas visitors". As others have said, depending on the hour of day, visitors do various things. Looking at the crowds on Walking Street, I'd venture to say just about all visitors to Pattaya walk that street at some point, children included! What I want to unpack is how the article's assertion may be true, but still not a healthy trend. The news article spoke about overseas visitors. Actually, I think the biggest growth in visitors to Pattaya have been in domestic visitors. Many own apartments as second homes. Many drive from Bangkok to spend a weekend in Pattaya (thus the horrible traffic). Growth in overseas visitors, by my observation, has long been of the packaged-tour kind. There seems to be three big groups: Chinese, Indians and Russians. CHINESE 10 - 15 years ago, there was much discussion about huge tour buses carrying enormous numbers of Chinese tour groups. I have seen them myself, but in the last five years or so, I reckon they are less noticeable. This suggests that the Chinese packaged-tour numbers peaked sometime back and have not recovered. However, this is not to say that the Chinese are not coming to Thailand. They are, as I have seen again and again in my far more frequent visits to Bangkok. In the capital city, they are numerous. Increasingly, they are independent travellers, an evolution I expected from years ago given that China's GDP per capita is now US$12,000 (compared to Thailand's $7,000). When Chinese did not have much of a choice regarding their itinerary (because they were coming on packaged tours), they came to Pattaya. Their programme was probably packed with Tiffany Show, a boat tour, Nong Nooch and such standard fare. In a packaged tour, it would have been very hard to be a buyer of sex. So, to the extent that packaged-tour volumes increased dramatically, then the sex trade must have declined as a relative attraction. What I'm not so sure about is whether independent Chinese tourists are making their way to Pattaya. Or are they most sticking to Bangkok and Chiangmai? I somethow think they are giving Pattaya a miss (but others watching the Pattaya scene more closely may advise here). INDIANS My observation of the more recent explosion of Indian tourist traffic is that it is very gendered. Males outnumber females maybe 10 to 1. Yes, there are some packaged tour groups, but I think most come on corporate incentive tours (thus predominantly male). This explains the relatively sudden appearance of many Indian music bars on Walking Street, and ethnic Indian barkers. VIsitors from India (predominantly male) will be interested in the sex trade, but for practical reasons such as being in the company of friends and colleagues, they might go no further than to gawk at the grils and tease each other. Mostof them probably cannot afford to actually hire a girl - too costly for Indian dispoable income - and anyway most cannot afford to be seen to be hiring a girl and bringing her back to the same hotel where 50 of your friends and workmates are staying. Someone might tell your wife! So, if I am right, that however interested the (often male) Indian visitor may be in girls, he can't act on his impulses. This may be another excuse for those promoting Pattaya as a family friendly destination to brag about how uninterested in sex current visitors to the city are. In case you're wondering about GDP per capita, India = $ 2,500. That is to say, Thais are more than twice as rich as Indians. I read somewhere that academics of tourism generally see a GDP per capita of $10,000 as a threshold beyond which independent travel takes off. And as we know, independent travellers spend much more than packaged tourists. China has crossed the threshold. Thailand is getting close, but India is still far behind. This explains why company-paid tours (i.e. not even self-paid packaged tours, let alone independent travel) make up the majority of visits from Indians. RUSSIANS Certainly Russians come in droves, but I don't think they come in packaged tours (Moses may know better), though there is a fine line between chartered flights (followed by free-and-easy days) and all-inclusive packaged tours. However, they do come in family groups, which therefore means that it is hard for any family member to be bar-fining girls from Walking Street, Soi Buakhao or wherever the bars are. THE BIG PICTURE So all in all, there is reason to the claim that the sex trade as a relative indulgence of overseas visitors has declined over the years, but look more closely and two caveats stand out: 1. If not for the sex trade, packaged tours and incentive tours might not even choose to include Pattaya as a destination. If there wasn't theTiffany Show or Walking Street, would the groups from China and India come? 2. The quality of visitors that Pattaya attracts should be worrying. They are the low spenders, either because they are on all-inclusive packaged tours, or they are from a country like India that is poorer than Thailand. And if the Chinese experience is anything to go by, as soon as a market gets rich enough to produce independent travellers, they skip Pattaya.

Forgive me if I have got it wrong because I only a quick read... You paid (albeit indirectly) for a nice hotel room with a great view, you paid (directly) for an upgrade, but you spent the night in Danshi Gakuen in a windowless room, on a thin mattress, and without an ensuite bathroom. If you had wanted to pee in the middle of the night, you'd have to wake up the boy and ask him to perform the ritual of intercomming with someone for permission to use the bathroom. Have I got it right? 🤔

Coup? There has not been a coup in Vietnam since 1963. Do you mean the coup in Thailand in 2014? But if so, why would a coup cause them to be sent home? Or do you mean the 2021 coup in Burma? Why would that send them home either?

Just watched it, and I'd say it was a pretty good documentary trying to get to grips with what is surely a complicated problem with many moving parts. What struck me was the rather shallow consumerism that has come to afflict younger Thai adults, perhaps fuelled by social media and its depictions of lifestyles. The other thing is how Thais have to pay premium prices for even basic things like transport and education, mostly because the State does not provide. Too many have to send their kids to private schools (public schools have a quality problem?); too many are buying cars - one man featured had both a bike and a car (couldn't he sell one?) - because public transport is so bad. Towards the end of the documentary more warning signals were sent. Job creation will become a tougher and tougher problem, especially when the Thai education system is not up to scratch. With a lower birth rate and possibly only one-child families becoming the norm in the future, young people today cannot hope to depend on their children for their old age like in generations past; if they don't start saving now, it will be an even bigger disaster in a generation's time.

Sounds like you're hoping for company. Some gay bars may have English speaking bar tenders but it would be rare to find an escort boy able to manage more than three words. Also, it would be more helpful to others who come after you to put all your Tokyo adventures in the Japan forum, not this Bangkok thread.

@Polish933 Frankly, I wouldn't risk it. I would get Euros instead. The exchange rate for Euros is not bad at all. See this page from SuperRich (https://www.superrichthailand.com/#!/en/exchange), which has branches in many touristy places, including one along the elevated walkway between Silom MRT and Saladaeng BTS stations. Unfortunately, that means you have to keep your USD to use for another trip e.g. to the USA, or try to change them back to zloty. But it's safer to have clean bills of a recent date than risk it. If you land in Thailand and find that it is very hard to get local currency, it will completely spoil your holiday, and you waste money that you're spending on flights and hotel anyway.

According to a north German acquaintance from decades ago, Swiss German is very tonal "almost like a church organ" he pronounced with magisterial gravity... but I have no first hand knowledge of that. Dear Swiss German members of this board - no offence intended. Some of the world's greatest languages like Chinese are tonal. In fact I learned from the Museum of Languages in Paris that some 60-70% of the world's languages are tonal. Atonal languages are the abnormal ones.🥰

I hope they know what their target market is.