macaroni21

I don't know when Solid Bar closed. Was it around 2015? If it was, and tea money was then 160,000 baht per month, then my (*educated?) guess would be that it is now around 240,000 a month. *Educated because my main area of expertise is business economics. How do I arrive at that? Drinks prices would be a good indicator. Drinks prices and under-the-table money are connected in ways like a snake swallowing its own tail, as in most protection-money rackets. When the takers demand higher amounts, the bars would likely raise drinks prices by a similar percentage to compensate. But the takers also monitor the bars' prices, so when they see the bars raising prices, they up their demands. This dynamic is true the world over where there is corruption and/or protection-money practices. I reckon drinks prices have increased about 50% since around 2015, thus I reckon the brown envelope would need to be fatter by the same degree. However, because drinks price increases turn off customers, the 50% increase in prices do not translate to 50% more overall revenue. Quite possibly overall revenue may be flat because of falling attendance. This long term trend explains the sickly state of the industry. The number of gogo bars are fewer now compared to, say, 2010, and the average crowd size per bar also smaller. Just compare recent reports of customer numbers in Atlas with the numbers we used to see in Tawan pre-Covid.

You started on your Bangkok life earlier than I did. I don't remember Stockholm or Apollo bars. I do remember Twilight with the stage behind the bar and a second stage in the middle of the room built around a mirrored pillar. I also remember Barbiery. They were as you described. In addition to these two, my earliest memories also include Tawan, Jupiter and City Boys in Sukhumvit. Let me see if I can find some time to write about them. It's interesting you mentioned the differences in crowd sizes between weekdays and weekends. I remember that too. In those days, the gogo bars had local Thais making up maybe 2/3 of their clientele (thus weekend highs). That made for a healthier and more stable customer base compared to today's bars that depend 100% on tourism (mostly because of their ridiculous prices).

This is a great start and yes, I too love the style. If I may be selfish 😁 I feel so much better now that there's someone else who also tends to write at length; hurray, I am not alone! The only problem is that it's going to take me a couple of days to read all the seven parts. I do want to read slowly and diligently.

Too many cum stains?

Actually, the Gulf of Mexico itself has sort-of disappeared. In a genuflection to Trump and MAGA, Google Maps (US version) has renamed the Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America. Let's just say that I'm the sort who continues to refer to the Persian Gulf, not the Arabian Gulf however much the Arab sheikhs might prefer it.

Indeed, tourism has a strong lemming-like quality, resulting in invasive damage. Now Koh Samui is likely the next target:

Haha 😆 I know I am an insufferable nitpicker, but the photo doesn't show spring rolls (lumpia in the Philippines). They show gyoza. I'm pretty sure you know that because you have referred to spring rolls (correctly) before.

If I were you I would quickly try the same route using Grab and see how that works out in comparison, preferably on the same day of week so it factors out traffic variability by day of week. It is 16 km (10 miles to Americans) and even if the car managed no more than 30 km/hour (20 miles/hour), it should only be half an hour. If one were living there, it's not a trip one would need to make every day. One can plan for twice a week and get all downtown chores done; the Grab costs twice a week shouldn't add up to that much.

In terms of the space and fittings, 56 Surawong is alright; in fact it is quite spacious. As @vinapu said, no safe. No closet either (not that it mattered to me) only hangers. Its front-facing rooms get a bit of noise from the road and Patpong soi 1 (especially when they are dismantling the stalls after midnight) so if you're a light sleeper who wants to go to bed early, ask for a rear-facing room. On one of my two stays, there was a sewer smell coming into my rear-facing room. It was bad each time I entered the room, but disappeared after running the airconditioner for 15 - 20 minutes. I would have insisted on a change of room if I had been staying for more than one night.

Had a similar "encounter" with Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka several years ago. He was the tour host for visitors to the temple, so we got to talking. Invited to his room after the tour, in which was a desk, a bed and a wall full of shelves and books. Had some non-penetrative fun, but the trouble was that there was no attached bathroom... so could only wipe up and goodbye. It would be far too obvious for a visitor to be taking a shower in the common monastic bathroom!

Two hours to get into the city! Similar to travelling from Jomtien into Bangkok.

That explains Thai journalism. No ned to go out to find the news. Just wait for the authorities (or companies) to send a statement. What about theft by day?

Dragon & Koi comes to mind as possibly the nearest thing to what you are asking for. See It's a host bar, though there's only a fine line between "hosts" and "freelancers". Customers cannot take Dragon & Koi's hosts out while they are on duty, but these boys seem ready and willing to entertain clients by private arrangement on their days off. See also https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2025/01/09/will-booze-and-english-make-a-winning-formula/

Didn't this site use to have the feature of putting up a multiple choice poll? What's happened to the feature?

Hunting for information is as much fun as hunting for boys? 🤪

Ok, before your Filipino story goes back to Cebu, a few more questions about Boracay. I am not interested in retiring to Cebu, but I may be interested in visiting Boracay. 1. Did you see any money changers or ATMs of international banks? 2. What was the ratio of domestic to foreign tourists? Were packaged visitors (e.g. from China or Italy) numerous? 3. (You may not want to answer this question, I will understand). Did you and Mr B share a room, and if so was it twin beds or a double bed and was there any reaction from hotel reception? 4. I see from Google maps that Boracay doesn't really face any big expanse of water. Certainly it doesn't face the Pacific ocean, not even the south china sea, but it is sort of behind some other islands. How much wave action was there? Like Jomtien or less than that? Calm seas may account for the algae bloom. 5. Any idea when is low season?

Well, at least you seem to have the discipline of taking notes each day, so even if the forum goes into freeze mode for a few days, the information is still with you. (I am assuming you've got notes seeing how you're able to write trip reports several days after the actual date). I try to take notes myself when I am travelling, but I'm not always consistent about it. I remember a few years back, I tried to write a trip report directly into this forum about M-star massage in Silom soi 6. The first gremlin was my referring to the place as M-sense. Fortunately I realised my mistake before I clicked SEND. While I was editing the post, I saw more mistakes, including referring to Soi 6 as Soi 8. And then I was mortified to realise that my description of the M-star visit was heavily confused with a separate visit I made to 9-teen massage across the soi. In trying to clean up the post, I got the 2 visits more and more confused, and without any notes in hand, it became impossible to disentangle the facts. The only thing I could do was to delete the whole thing 😭

I beg to differ. I don't think it's a good idea to pin threads. Firstly, a thread is seldom of value to all readers. For example, those of us who are frequent visitors to Thailand see no new information in such a list of massage places in the Sukhumvit area, we already know about them and have visited. Secondly, conversations in threads evolve. Sometimes they go off topic entirely. Thirdly, the information in the opening post may change from correct to obsolete quite quickly. Pinning gives the impression of permanent information, when this is not the case. Fourthly, if different people with different interests ask for posts and threads catering to their interests to be pinned, there will soon be a long list of pinned threads to scroll past before we reach active threads. It's a bloody nuisance. If any post contains information that one person finds useful, then it is better for that one person to save the information on his private computer. Please don't inflict a pinning on everybody else.

Typos and confusion are one of the main reasons why I prefer to blog over at Shamelessmack than put trip reports here. I need the luxury of time to proof read and make corrections. Like so many others, an instant post here on this forum will usually contain multiple typos and mistakes. Just look at my post about scam centres on Myanmar border. Embarrassingly full of mistakes. For example, I typed "reploying" instead of "redeploying".

I asked them on Line whether their Sukhumvit branch is open again, and they confirmed it is. So, the December notification about closure seems to have been reversed. I don't know the reason why they reversed their decision but maybe their business fell off sharply when they expected customers to travel all the way to their other shop in Lat Phrao.

First of all, let's not imagine that Myanmar has anything even resembling a functioning government whose remit runs to all corners of the county (as coloured on a map). Some reports suggest that the Naypyidaw government controls little more than 60% of the map-coloured area. Big patches of the territory, particularly the border areas whether minrotiy ethnic groups live are controlled by rebel militia. These militia are always desperate for money to buy arms. So if a Chinese scam entrepreneur offers to set up a business in their territory, and offers a cut of the takings to the militia, he will likely be welcomed with open arms. One can imagine the militia reploying ts forces to help the scam centre maintain "security". The recent threat of the Thai government to cut off power and internet access seems to be working. One might say it should have been done a long time ago, but I can understand that the Thai government did not want to trigger more waves of refugees of the civilian population fleeing into Thailand due to power cut-off. The difference this time is that bad rep was hurting Thailand's tourism ambitions, and so Thailand had to act at last. There are different rebel militia groups along different parts of the border. The above video is only about one part. I don't know if there are similar agreements reached with other rebel groups in other stretches of the border to shut down their scam centres. Even now, I wonder how long this positive "solution" will last. Maybe as soon as things quieten down, the scam centres will be up and running again? After all, the militia groups' need for cash remains unchanged.

You originally refered to the pier as Pontoon Pier, but lately, you're calling it the Platoon Pier. Auto-correct somewhere?

I'm not doubting you because this sounds like a first-hand observation, but it may seem curious since only a month earlier, @Gottago reported that Aurora had sent out a Line message saying that this branch (Sukhumvit Soi 4, a.k.a. Soi Nana) is closed. I had received the same notification. Is it possible that the shop had been sold and, while open for business, is now trading under a different name?

Watermelon Spa. Oh my, read the Google reviews (the one-star ones are always fun to read): 2 months ago The place is filthy. The masseuse are busy with their cellphone while you fall asleep. The beddings are old and re use over and over again. The smell of the whole place is like a urine. The small towels smelled-pretty bad. This place is disgusting. I am very disappointed. 2 years ago ❌ Super Dark Rooms and barely lit Common Areas ❌ Smelly beds both in faux Turkish bath area and massage rooms ❌ insistent therapist offering EXTRA SERVICE ❌ beware of PICKPOCKETS as they don’t have lockers to keep your belongings safely in their very dark vicinity ❌ Government agencies must look into their sanitary permit. I don’t think they passed in accordance to spa standards. 2 months ago Horrible. She used her phone the whole time, I’m shocked worst I ever had. I should have checked reviews. Deeply regret I feel vilolated after 8 months ago Woke up with even more pain in the shoulders. I booked an massage for 1,5 hour but it was not even an hour. The whole massage the therapists where talking to eachother and of when they were not talking to eachother they were at their phone during the massage, very unproffesional. The salon was very very dark and to cold. I understand why you had to pay directly when stepping in to the salon. Wouldn’t recommend. 2 years ago Disgusting unchanged sheets / was asked to wait for more than 5 mins after I changed and when we went to the spa there was more of like caressing that happened instead of actual massage. My company and were placed together with half curtain opened and the towel that was used by my company was just folded and placed back in the bed. VERY UNHYGIENIC. Worst massage ever. With all the caressing that happened made me wonder if their specialty is offering ES? 2 months ago Use your mobile phone while having a massage? Why are foreigners so casual? It was the first time I had such a casual massage. Even though I wanted to be very gentle, I didn't feel like he was doing a massage at all. He just kept applying oil to my feet and just kept doing the same steps. I've been gone for so long and I don't know what I'm doing. I really don’t want to come here. Fortunately, I only used my feet. Remember to read the comments again in the future Note by macaroni: The above was translated from Chinese. In Chinese, the 3rd person pronoun is not gendered, so the "he" used in the comment could well have been a she. 6 years ago Worst massage I've ever had. Wish you could do -5. Music was definitely not relaxing and was too loud. Shouldnt call them therapists at all. The people kept talking to each other whilst performing something they call a "massage". I booked an aromatherapy oil massage. Which is meant to be relaxing. She used her elbow for most of it. Booked 90 minutes and was only given 60 minutes. Luckily the owner was there so we only paid for 60. Come to think about it luckily they did 60 minutes as I would have had to throw away more money and I'd definitely be in more pain. The person seemed inexperienced, incompetent, in everything apart from a maseuse. Slapped and elbowed more than massaged. Would have preferred to be elbowed by The Rock. I feel more stressed than relaxed. I have no idea why they call themselves a massage place or even a therapist. I need sessions from a therapist to help with the mental trauma!!! Note by macaroni: But hey, this place has been in business for six years, so they must be doing something right.