daydreamer

Here's a link to an article from May 2002. It is a page from the Bangkok Eyes website, and it has a lot of info on the history of Silom Soi 4, including the Rome Club. http://www.bangkokeyes.com/mapkato.html

There are a few clubs in Bangkok and Pattaya that currently use the word Disco or Discotheque in their name. The second photo below shows the Lucifer Disko sign on Walking Street in Pattaya. Just tell your friend that you remember the New Screw Boys A Go Go Bar & Discotheque.

JJ is also shown in the recent One Spa feed:

From my experience, the Asian airlines do a good job taking care of their passengers when there are unforeseen delays. I was on a Philippine Airlines flight once, transiting Manila, where the aircraft broke. The airline gave all the passengers overnight accommodation and meal vouchers in the historic five star Manila Hotel. Another time I was on a China Airlines (Taiwan) flight enroute to Thailand. Shortly after landing in Taipei, the airport closed due to an approaching typhoon. China Airlines put us up overnight in a very nice hotel in Taipei, and arranged a Chinese dinner at the hotel for all the inconvenienced passengers.

@jimmie50 , if your condo is close to Asoke BTS station, you might find it faster and easier to use the MRT subway from Sukhumvit station to Silom station, than traveling by BTS. The MRT would be a direct shot on one train, with no transfer required. Sukhumvit MRT and Asoke BTS stations are close together. Both stations are adjacent to Terminal 21 Asoke. That way you would avoid the masses of people transferring trains at Siam BTS station during the busy parts of the day, and avoid waiting to board a second train. Another advantage of the MRT is the stations and platforms are much cooler, being located underground, a bonus during the hot season. Silom MRT and Sala Daeng BTS stations are connected by a walkway.

I agree. I'd rather read your thoughts, @floridarob, than reading the output from an AI machine.

Either I couldn't find any direct website, or those hotels were not able to accept US credit card payments online. Some of the smaller hotels are not prepared to deal with accepting online payments from foreign customers. I have found a number of times that many Thai travel related businesses are not able to accept credit card payments, for US credit cards (online). Not only for hotels, but on my most recent trip, for a rental car booking, Bangkok dinner cruise tickets, and Nok Air tickets. For the rental car from Drive Rental Car, a Thai company, I was able to book through Trip.com, a Chinese company. For the Nok Air tickets, I booked through Traveloka, a Singapore based company. The week before I arrived in Thailand, I tried to book the boat tickets. I gave up trying to book the boat trip from outside Thailand. After explaining the payment issue, one Thai agency did offer to allow me to make payment at a Thai 7-Eleven, but that option was only available for 24 hours, before my arrival in Bangkok. The problem is the Thai payment processor that the majority of Thai travel companies use does not take US cards for internet bookings. I have run into this issue for years. Not only me, but there are oodles of similar complaints on the web. BTW, this affects not only Nok Air, but Thai Airways also, for internal flights, when attempting to book online from outside Thailand. I have credit cards with three different banks, and I have contacted them all to ask if my cards were blocked for Thai transactions. They always say no, it is on the Thai end - it is the payment processing company inside Thailand that is blocking the payments. The majority of Thai travel related companies use 2C2P, a Thai payment platform company for international credit card transactions. It does not work for US credit cards (when outside Thailand), and has been that way for years. Unfortunately, the Thai businesses either don't know or don't care to fix the issue, or switch to a different payment processing platform. So I frequently use booking agencies outside of Thailand to make bookings. I am speaking of credit cards, not debit cards. My credit cards work fine inside Thailand, the issue is internet payments from outside the country. Inside Thailand, credit card receipts show a Thai bank, usually Bangkok Bank or Kasikorn Bank is the payment processor, not a third party platform such as 2C2P. So in many cases for me, the only option is non-Thai booking agencies for making travel bookings of any kind, when outside Thailand. A few years ago, I booked a hotel in Khao Lak, and they could only accept an international bank transfer, not the simplest or cheapest way to send money. Interestingly, I was recently checking hotels on Koh Samet. I found a direct hotel website on Google, but when clicking the booking button, it opened up a Booking.com page to make the reservation. I don't know if this affects people in other countries, this issue is for US cards, when used outside of Thailand. So until many Thai hotels, airlines, car rental companies, etc decide to accept online US card payments, they will have to pay a commission on each sale to foreign travel agencies that are clever enough to accept US credit card payments.

So you do check to see whether it is cheaper booking through an agency, or booking directly with the hotel. I suspect most people do the same, even though booking directly sometimes offers perks.

@Patanawet, according to the Thai Red Cross website, it looks like they provide a wide range of medical services, with the anonymous clinic being only one of their medical services. The following link has some info, and a photo of a doctor reviewing brain scan images, in front of a modern imaging machine. https://english.redcross.or.th/heal/

I agree that it's best to book directly with the hotel, but in Thailand, often it is not possible. I usually stay at Thai owned hotels, or smaller foreign owned hotels, such as East Suites or Copa Hotel in Pattaya. For the small western owned hotels in Thailand, I book directly. I recently stayed in Thai hotels in Chiang Rai, Phrae, and in Chiang Mai two times. In each of those hotels, booking directly was not an option. I also stayed in Bangkok two times recently in a Thai owned hotel, and for that hotel I booked directly with the hotel. In Thailand I don't stay at the large western or Thai hotel chains, so loyalty points are meaningless to me.

You might add Trivago to that list. Trivago is a hotel meta-search engine. They check dozens of booking sites (worldwide), and present you with the best prices. If booking directly with the hotel is cheaper than the booking agencies, Trivago will show that. Google Maps is good, but Trivago specializes in hotel bookings, at the lowest price - it's all they do. In some cases for example, a room referred to Booking.com through Trivago by a click-through link will be less expensive than going directly to Booking.com (or Agoda, or Hotels.com, etc) I was just checking Trivago for a few days on Koh Samet, and the room prices vary widely between different booking sites, for the same room.

I am a bit confused as to why you ask others for their opinions, and then try to convince others that your opinion is right, and they are wrong. You titled this thread to include the words - "how do you feel about". It appears that there is some insecurity on your part when the opinions of other posters are not respected. This entire thread is turning argumentative, and there is no correct answer, only personal perspectives. Please, let's allow the man to rest in peace, without rehashing any perceived errors or misjudgments in the handling of his finances, or the welfare of his surviving family members.

Well, the article also has the following quote from the deceased actor: The late actor previously opened up about receiving "almost nothing" from Dawson's Creek residuals, which helps explain why his family is currently struggling financially in the wake of his death. "There was no residual money," Van Der Beek told TODAY.com in 2012. "I was 20. It was a bad contract. I saw almost nothing from that."

Yes @NoNameFanBoy, you certainly can skip the massage if you want to. That's what I do. I have offed massage boys a number of times using a massage shop's outcall service. Look for the massage shops that offer outcalls in their fee menus. It easy to communicate with the shop using the Line app on your phone. Add the shops you are interested in as Line friends, and they will send you daily posts, showing photos of the boys available for that day. You select the boy you want from the Line photos of the boys available. In addition to the Line photos, some shops will send a Google Drive link or a website address with the photos of the boys. Many of the boys appear in the photos of several different massage shops, as many are freelancers, not working exclusively for one shop. The shop will tell you how much the shop fee is, and the amount for the boy's tip when you make the booking. I think the last time I booked an outcall, it was 700 baht for the shop (massage fee), and 2,500 baht for the boy's tip. Often the shop will send the boy to your hotel using a Grab bike. When the boy arrives, I let him know I don't want a massage. I've never had any massage boy act surprised when I told them I wanted to skip the massage. They will generally stay in your room for a couple hours. I prefer the comfort and privacy of my room, rather than a massage shop room. In the massage shop ads on Line, you can see a menu of fees. For an outcall, the fee is generally about 1,000 baht more than an in shop massage. Well worth the price to me, as I don't have to visit the shop. Some shops will allow you to pay the fees to the boy, and some will want a bank transfer in order to make a booking. Just ask on Line, and they'll tell you how you can pay. Look for the shops that show the massage boy body stats. Those shops usually offer full service (sex), and often they state if the boy is gay or straight in their photos. I suspect the shop managers know a customer booking an outcall will often skip the massage, as I've never been asked when making a booking what type of massage I want, the type of massage oil, or how long for the massage to last, ie 1 hour, 1.5 hour, etc. The cost quoted for a hotel outcall will include round trip transportation for the boy. It is actually no more expensive for a massage shop outcall than offing a boy from a Patpong bar for short time, and sometimes less expensive. No drinks, no off fee, and no mamasans.

The following link says that James Van Der Beek purchased the home where his family currently lives only one month before he died, and that the family is out of funds, and are struggling financially: https://ew.com/james-van-der-beek-friend-mehcad-brooks-slams-critics-family-gofundme-11907522

Yes, it was named Richard's Pub, and it was popular with the older set, as you mentioned. Richard's Pub on Silom Soi 2 closed about 2011.

You might try the BB Fetish Bar at the Silom end of Patpong 2. The barker is outside every night with his Santa hat and riding crop, threatening anyone who ventures inside. Surely one of the staff there would be willing to paddle you.

Sorry to disappoint. This post is not about trouser snakes, but instead the reptilian kind. I have seen the Bangkok Snake Farm mentioned here, but only in a brief snippet without details. I visited there today, and thought and the following might be of interest for someone looking for a way to spend a couple hours in the Silom area during the daytime. I am posting this in the Gay Bangkok section. Although not specifically gay info, they do have a couple live spitting snakes (cobras) on display, so that is close enough to qualify this entry into the Gay Bangkok section of the forum. Just a very short walk from the Surawong and Rama IV intersection is the sprawling Red Cross compound. In one section, the Red Cross runs the Bangkok Snake Farm, where it has operated for over 100 years. There is a snake museum, more like a zoo, with live snakes on exhibit, a daily 30 minute snake handling demonstration, and a venomous snake milking show. The show features a king cobra, two monocled cobras, along with many others, including Thailand's deadliest snake, the banded krait. There is also a restaurant and a cafe on the grounds. The restaurant has down to earth prices, with a fresh cooked pad thai priced at 50 baht, very reasonable for a sit down restaurant in the Silom area. Admission is 200 baht (50 baht for Thais), and includes the museum and two shows mentioned above, and a photo opportunity to hold a Burmese python around your neck and shoulders, if you wish. This farm provides a valuable service, with the extracted venom being used to create medical antivenom, and distributed to hospitals throughout the country, for emergency use to treat snake bite patients. If you go, I recommend going an hour early, and have lunch or a cold drink before the show. The amphitheater seating begins filling about 30 minutes before show time. I don't recall the milking show time, but here's a photo of the snake handling show timings.

It seems that Thailand brings out repressed urges to be wild in many visitors to the Kingdom.

I never heard of that remedy. Thanks for sharing.

This article on CNN will be interesting for all you aviation enthusiasts...... I'm looking at you, @PeterRS. https://www.cnn.com/travel/what-it-was-like-concorde-pilot

Based on your recommendation of the "orgasmic pad krapow" at the Tarntawan Hotel, I decided to try it today for lunch. OMG, two bites into it, and I was breathing fire from the chilies. I agree it tastes good, but I had tears in my eyes from the heat. By the time I finished the dish, I must have looked like a mess, what with tears running down my face, and my nose running non-stop from the hellish heat. Eating this dish is similar to being pepper sprayed in the face, certainly not an orgasmic experience for me. I hightailed it to the nearest 7-Eleven to buy a yogurt, in a desperate but futile attempt to douse the persistent inferno in my head. Now a few hours later, the fire has subsided. Never dismiss the importance of specifying the spiciness level when ordering food in Thailand. Those chili pieces are devious, in the way they blend in, wrapped under a wilted holy basil leaf in the krapow sauce. And the Thais love to use both the red and green chilies in the same dish, for added intensity. The green chili pieces are absolutely sinister. Just a warning for others - this Tarntawan dish is the genuine napalm flamethrower local Thai version of pad krapow, not a tamed down tourist variety of the dish. Thanks for the recommendation, but I think I'll try something else next time.🔥

I was mistaken, the old Gaybutton site that was from 25 years ago was Gaybutton (without the word "thai"). Sorry for any confusion I caused, @PeterRS. Here's an archived screenshot from 2001. This is the old website I remember from 25 years ago.

You are correct, it was gaybuttonthai.

No, I mean 25 years. I clearly remember reading the board back in 2000 or 2001.