daydreamer

Yes, you are correct, it's the old Tawana Hotel on Surawong. It's a renovation. Last spring, one of the hotel booking sites was showing the Tawana's status as under renovation, and open early 2026.

Interesting, but definitely not the future Kings 8 and 9. Here's a photo of the two princes - ice skating at the Arosa Kulm Hotel in Switzerland. The future King Bhumiphol is on the left, wearing glasses, and his brother, the future King Rama 8 is on the right. The man in the photo is a hotel staff member, and the woman is the private tutor of the two princes.

The Amber Massage & Nails Salon on Soi Suan Phlu offers what you are looking for, @12is12. Their price list shows a foot scrub and massage package for 550 baht. And you are in luck, as from the photos, there are a number of boys on their staff. The shop is just a short distance from Silom (13 minutes walk). If you walk from Silom, go down Convent Road. There's a pedestrian overpass bridge to cross Sathorn Road, just between Convent Rd and Soi Suan Phlu.

This horrific incident occurred just a short distance from Luang Prabang, while the two were visiting a zip-lining park. The article says they encountered the swarm of killer hornets while climbing a tree with their guide at the eco-adventure resort near Luang Prabang. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/father-and-son-die-after-getting-stung-more-than-a-100-times-by-killer-hornets-in-laos

Yes, it plays Ring My Bell by Anita Ward when you reach for the condoms and toys.

Well, the statement is made in jest amongst the Soi Thaniya girls, poking fun at their Japanese customers behind their backs, by implying that Japanese cocks are only five inches long, and the Japanese men can only last for five minutes during sex, but they pay very well for their five minutes of action.

I have also heard that play on words a few times over the years, but I believe it was always stated as 5,000 baht, not 5,000 Japanese yen. At the current exchange rates, 5,000 yen is only worth a bit over 1,000 baht. I suspect the Soi Thaniya girls would not be very pleased with only 1,000 baht as payment for their services.

Don't discount that as the younger western generation ages, and approaches retirement age, some of them may be inclined travel to the same type Thai boy bars that we frequent today. As the younger western generation ages, some of them may choose to look for younger Thai, Lao, Khmer, or Viet guys. I suspect the younger Asians will be more appealing to the current western youngsters in the future, as they get older, instead of other fellow retirement aged western gentlemen.

I was living in Hong Kong in September 1998, when Typhoon Mangkhut battered the city. The storm did extensive damage to many of the tall buildings in Wan Chai and Hung Hom. I remember seeing the Revenue Tower and Immigration Tower on Gloucester Road in Wan Chai, with about 100 plate glass windows shattered or blown out. The South China Morning Post reported that personal tax documents and immigration papers littered the streets of Wan Chai, after being sucked out of the buildings. My apartment was in the Mid Levels, and luckily was not damaged.

You might ask the new member by return private message if he is planning to notify the following bar owners to change the name of their businesses because it could give mixed messages: Bangkok: Dream Boys, Good Boy, Fresh Boys, G-Boy Bar Pattaya: Toy Boy, X-Boys, Boys Nighclub, Dream Boys, Boy Gaga, SUNEE Intimate Boy, Classic Boy In Thailand, the word boy is commonly used, without any negative connotations or western guilt. Let's allow Thailand to be Thailand, and not attempt to impose western ideas and political correctness where it is not welcome.

I use the Firefox web browser. This is the process for this particular browser: With the Firefox browser open, click on the three hash-marks in the upper right corner. in the drop-down menu that appears, go to Settings. Then in the new window that opens, on the left, you will see "Search". Click on that, and you can change the default search engine to another one of your choice. In other web browsers, the process should be fairly similar.

The Mae Sa Elephant Camp is a good one, located in Mae Rim, not too far from Chiang Mai. Woody will know the location. I went there with a Thai boy. The camp offers full day and half day programs, but we just showed up in a rental car, and paid a small admission fee, without joining a program, so that we were free to wander around the camp on our own. We wanted to see the elephants up close, but we were not interested in bathing the elephants in the river, as the programs all seem to include. If you do decide to bathe the elephants in the river, I suggest taking an extra set of dry clothing, as you'll get soaked. The camp also offers a bamboo raft trip down the river that runs right next to the camp. After wandering around, and visiting the elephants, we took the raft trip. The trip lasted about 45 minutes, then the crew brings you back to the camp (upriver) in a van. Here are a few photos taken at the Mae Sa Elephant Camp:

Since you mentioned Korea in one sentence, let's not forget another of Emperor Hirohito's evil plans, hatched against the entire Korean peninsula. During the Japanese annexation and occupation of Korea, that lasted from 1910-1945, the Japanese could have chosen to act responsibly, but instead acted as total barbarians against the Korean people and culture. The Japanese executed the Korean Queen, forbid spoken and written Korean language, destroyed huge amounts of Korean cultural artifacts, etc. They exploited Korea's resources for their own profit, starved the people, all Korean rice crops were used for the Japanese only. They deforested vast areas of Korea, including national forests, and shipped the timber to Japan. I had a conversation with an older Korean man years ago in South Korea. I was amazed to learn that he could speak fluent Japanese. But sadly, he went on to tell me that he was forced to learn Japanese in school as a child, as it was not allowed to speak or write his native Korean language in public or in school. After talking with him about his childhood years during the Japanese occupation, I began to realize the hardships that Hirohito had imposed on much of Asia during the first half of the 20th century. Another deplorable chapter in the history of Japan is brought to light in the excellent book entitled Gold Warriors, by Sterling Seagrave. It chronicles the massive stripping of Asian wealth by the Japanese army, during WWII, commonly known as Yamashita's gold, named after General Yamashita, who carried out the massive and detailed plan. In an ironic twist, a large part of the wealth of European countries was sent to their respective Asian colonies just before WWII for safekeeping, to prevent it being plundered by Hiltler's forces. This made for easy pickings for the Japanese army, as these colonies were invaded and occupied. Throughout Japanese occupied Asia, bank vaults were emptied of gold bullion. The Japanese army went door to door, systematically searching each building for anything of value. Wealth was stolen from temples, museums, jewelry stores, national treasuries, private homes and collections, etc, and it all became the property of Japan. The amount of stolen treasure was so extensive, that jewels were pried from their settings, sorted by type, and transported in steel oil drums. Gold was melted and poured into bars, all bearing the mark of imperial Japan. Although much of the treasure is believed to still be hidden in booby-trapped caves and tunnels in the Philippines, many shiploads of gold and jewels made it to Japan, often on ships disguised with the red cross, to avoid enemy fire in the waters of the Pacific. Here's a 17 minute video that tells of some of Japan's history with Korea:

Another trick I use to often find a lower price for a room on Agoda or Booking.com is to search on the hotel aggregator sites such as Trivago or Skyscanner, and others. Often, an offer on the hotel aggregator sites leads to a lower linked price on Agoda or Booking.com, or a free breakfast included in the room price, where if you go directly to Agoda or Booking.com, you may find a different offer for the same class of room. Those aggregator sites can only stay in business if they can sharpen the pencil on competitive pricing. They will compare prices for a number of hotel booking sites on one page. Sometimes the difference in price is fairly substantial. Just be sure you are comparing the same class of room, and that both websites include taxes and fees. Of course, both the aggregator site and the hotel booking site make a commission from the hotel, but I'm OK with that. Business is business.

As @vinapu said, Agoda is a good hotel booking site. I have used it dozens of times, in several countries. For a long time, I found that that Agoda only showed the price before taxes and fees, then a couple years ago, I discovered the trick to make it show the total price, so that it's easier to compare room prices amongst different hotel booking websites. I have added two images below. Just for this example, I looked up one night for next month at the Furama Silom Hotel. The first image shows USD (or your currency of choice) at the top of the page. If you click on that currency acronym, it brings up a pop-up window with options. Then you can select the total price per night. This works whether you are logged in to your Agoda account or not. This way, no more surprises as far as price when you go to the check-out page to make your booking. Step #1: Click on currency Step # 2: Click on Total Price Per Night