Dek haat

In Jomtien, the gay beach is now very quiet. So I had more time to chat with the sellers and less noise to suffer from some rude neighbours. On the downside, there was still more pression from the massage boys and the nail girls .. there seemed to be a little too much of them this time.

My all-time favourites are like always the dek haat (the beach attendants) ; at least in my usual concession, these hard-working guys are invariably helpful, smiling and cute. It's part of the game to invite one of them for a meal or more … but these boys do not have a lot of free time and they are mostly straight ; so they will not readily agree. 

Yellow chairs in Jomtien ... a nice bunch of isaan boys

I asked a new boy (fresh from Udon Thani) what he thought about it and he just answered "Khit doo kawn ..." (I'll consider it). He has now another three months left for further pondering – unless another farang is persuasive enough to help him overcoming his apprehension (or unless he goes back home for the rice crop …).

Groundless fears

I generally go to Pattaya AFTER trips to other parts of Thailand. I know too well that the emollient way of life here could make me less prone to do the sidetrips that provide the best memories of a stay in Thailand, so the one-week or more time I stay in Pattaya is always scheduled at the end of my holiday.

After reading about all the police checks and the growing lack of safety, I had for the first time some fears about my stay. I have to say that these fears were completely groundless : during the eight days I spent in Sin City, it was business as usual : same easy-going atmosphere, same (wrong) feeling that you have reached a place where everything is possible, same number of cute boys everywhere and everytime.

My favourite haunts were as usual a long stay in Jomtien in the afternoon and hanging around Sunee Plaza at night. I had warned Tam that I was coming so he joined me for the last four days and I can only say that I loved the time we were together. We are now more friends than lovers, and he perfectly admits that I am a hopeless butterfly who sometimes needs a welcoming shoulder – as long as this shoulder is his …

Chanthaburi boy : all my "specs"

During my "free" period, I visited almost every bar in Sunee and some in Boyztown. Most were open except for Villa Rouge ; I especially loved the new Euroboys which has been completely redesigned by the new owner. There is no elevated stage any more but the boys "dance" on the floor like in Minou Bar, and the all-white atmosphere is a pleasant change from the ubiquitous black colour prevailing in Boyztown bars. Soon after entering the place, I saw a tall, dark-skinned and shy-looking guy I could not take my eyes off : exactly my "sapek" (specs) as thai say. This 18 y/o cutie from Chanthaburi was my friend for two nights and did not disappointed although not very talkative even in Thai (his english was almost non-existent). This bar had some other cute ones but probably a little too young if you care to strictly abide by the law.

I also loved the JJJ James but did not take anyone there although one of the waiter was an absolute delight. Lot of young meat is on display in this bar, which I like to look at but avoid to take away. Good Boys gave the same sight, along with some bad feeling that I cannot only explain by the ciggie smoke and the large number of asian customers. Look Boys is another place with some (mostly) young staff but hardly any discipline and too many feminine young guys. Same in Nice Boys which is a pale imitation of the former Kaos. And Minou was an absolute dump giving a slight idea of what human degradation may look like (and be sure I am generally not too fussy about this ..).

Another group of bars is the "hands on" bars, of which I visited Crazy Dragon, Happy Boys, Le Gun 1 and 69. Each one has its own format, with boys either approaching or not, showing it all or not, dancing or not. Each one has its own but I must say Le Gun would be a winner if the boys did not approach too quickly, not allowing you enough time to look carefully at what is on offer. Another common point for all these places is the numerous tatooed bodies, which is a definite turn-off for me – a pity as there are beautiful guys here and there.

I hardly visited any beer bar for this time except my usual den Threezone Bar, which is more and more a place where you come for chatting with friends and looking at the Villa Rouge entrance, but not to find boys. I also saw some interesting lads in the Mic My Boy Bar, but did not have enough time to know them better.

I also met again a boy that I had known two years ago in Boy Isaan ; he said he had just come from his place in Udon Thani where he had been staying for the last twenty months – not that I am really convinced about this though. He was about to work in one of the Sunee beer bars when he saw me walking in the soi and stopped me. As he is a nice guy, I took him twice (paying the "off" fee to the bar although he was still not really hired …) and we had a very nice time together : we went to Nang Ram beach and to my favourite sea food restaurant in Bang Sare, which he appreciated. As he decided not to stay in Pattaya, I went with him to the bus station when he went back home. No idea wether we will meet again or not.

Udon Thani lad at beach

Jomtien monsoon

Quiet afternoon in Jomtien ....

























Ninety minutes (and some drinks under the eaves of the toilet booth) later ...

Days off in Hua Hin

Coming from Phuket I staid one night in Surat Thani, which is a town no farang visits except as a harbour to Ko Samui. I love to spend one night or two in these thai towns because you can easily find the real thai way of life with no influence at all from the tourist industry. I have to say I could not find any chance to meet a willing boy ; even the banks of the Tapee River, how romantic they could be, seemed to be quite ordinary at night (including a lot of eye-candy, mostly busy with girlfriends)....

It was then the 5-hours long travel on the train from Surat Thani to Hua Hin - not as boring as it could sound because there is always a lot to see and to feel in the thai trains and looking outside.

I loved Hua Hin where I spent only two nights ... I had made my homework in Farangland and expected to find enough gay venues to stay busy for my stay. In fact the reviews that were written on the boards could be upadted and not in the right way : I never could find the Candlelight bar which is said to be located in Soi Sarakham (one of the few nightlife-oriented sois in Hua Hin that I walked up and down many times in vain) ; and the recently opened Kaos 1 Bar and Massage Place has closed some weeks ago.

Hua Hin Beach

That leaves mainly the good old Red Indian Bar and two massage places, and this was more than enough. Red Indian is a kind of beer bar with welcoming boys (6 or 7 on a week evening), but most of them were of the ladyboy type so I did not stay long. This bar is right in the middle of the Hua Hin Bazar (near the entrance to the beach) and you should find it easily.

I went then to the Guys Massage Place where they have a dozen of boys, all of the rather masculine type. Some will try to entice you for a quick massage, but take the time to look at everyone, including those who try to stave off boredom sitting on their bikes - some beautiful lads there. The massage rooms are better than before and the place is currently undergoing some renovations. You will find this place walking further than the entry to Sofitel Hotel, just before the street forks for linking the main (Phetchkasem) Road. 

The third place is within walking distance : coming from Guys, cross (well, ... try to ...) the Petchkasem Road and walk up Soi 80 in the direction of the railway ; just before the end of the soi, you will find on your left the Faq Thong Bar and Massage - don't be mislead by some poorly updated guides which still quote Faq Thong in its older location on Sasong Street. This is a small bar but well decorated and friendly, and they had 7 to 8 boys on the evening I went ... among them a trio of young Nong Khai rookies of which I chose one for my great satisfaction (do not expect a great massage though). 

I guess I will come back more often to Hua Hin because of its special atmosphere ... For now, it will be three days in Bangkok and then the trip to a more common place that some still call Pattaya ...

It's a small world

One more day in Bangkok and I am now in Phuket where I had not come since before the 2004 tsunami. The weather does not seem very appealing so I should stick to the three days I had scheduled. However I like the quiet and sound atmosphere here, and lodging in the quiet and spotless Rendez-Vous Hotel in the middle of the gay places is always a real treat. All but one gay venues are clustered together which gives the area a nice village atmosphere which you do not find elsewhere in Thailand including in Sunee Plaza.

Five gay places next door one to another

A lot of reviews have been posted recently on the boards so I will not add mine because it would not bring anything new. Phuket is now very quiet and all the boys complain about the lack of customers. I was generally the only khaek in most bars I visited although there was a full staff of boys everywhere.

I could write the same as I could have written four years ago : for me Tangmo is still the best for the boys, My Way very disappointing, and the best treasures always hide in the most out-of-the-way places. For example I liked the boys in the new Dempseys Bar which is a gay host bar next door to Connect House. And I quickly used to go to the Bi Ba Bo Restaurant which is in the inner alley which runs parallel to the Rat Uthit Road ; in this thai-owned place, they have a welcoming and caring staff, added to an unobstructed view over J&B Bar and Kai Boy Bar.

There I was sitting quietly chatting with one of the boys when a house painter working nearby approached me and asked me if I remembered him. Sorry, I could not, although his face did not seem completely unknown to the depths of my memory. It was Khit, the second boy I ever offed in Thailand, twelve years ago ... He worked in the now-disappeared Khun Bar when he was more or less 18 y/o, and we spent then some days together, including a short trip to Pattaya ; I was a rookie at the time and did not know all the ropes, so I still have mixed souvenirs of our relation which ended abruptly in a Phatphong Restaurant. He is now a wonderful 30 y/o thai man and he had since then been able to replace the broken tooth that I remembered ... Being an opportunist as he has always been, he proposed a massage which I declined ... not without an hesitation, leaving me with a strange feeling about this incredible coincidence.

Just hope it is just this .. a coincidence .. and not a bad omen that the end of my trips to Thaland could be near ...

Realizing

I am back in Bangkok since yesterday and still not fully realizing that I am now in the place I have been dreaming of since so many months ... Probably a too quick transition from boredom to abundancy, from cold weather to heat, from sharp problems to a carefree existence ...

The plane to Bangkok was far from being full (of course I could not benefit from it, being in one of the few seats which had someone next to it ...) and this is I guess a bad sign for future .. unless Austrian people are too busy with their Euro 2008).

Arriving in my hotel I had the pleasure to see they have changed their TVs and painted the whole building new ... the prices have increased but it is still a bargain. However I did not off a boy from Saphan Kwai but went to a massage place in Silom so that I could relax more easily. After a short walk, a boy in Eve House took my attention and up we went ; average massage but a very nice face face and body. There are not a lot of boys there but I always found at least one who took my fancy.

Back in Saphan Kwai, I entered my old favorite Street Boy Bar which had two students with nice faces, will take one of them for sure. In Be high only one boy looking at TV with the owner, we chatted together and he explained that because of rain, not a lot of boys had turned up and two of them were already out with customers.

Wat Sothon in Chachoengsao town

To-day I made a short day trip to visit Chachoengsao which is a quiet town not far from the Bangkok -Pattaya road. No farangs to be seen but a lot of eye-candy along the streets especially as this town has a lot of universities (sorry, no picture). I was somewhat surprised that as soon as I walked along the river, I saw a young boy and then a woman coming to me and begging (in thai) for money for a meal ... Not an usual sight in Thailand, I hope this was only a casual encounter. Wat Sothon is huge but almost deserted ; thai people generally come in crowds every week-end. And the walk along the river or the Somdet Nakharin Park are probably the place to be at dusk if you want a boy.

To-morrow I will fly to Phuket and then slowly make my way back to Bangkok on the thai busses and trains. Hope it will not rain too much down there ...

Homework

I am now slowly emerging of a very difficult period when I have had a lot of work and very little time to think of what is really important in life : thai boys. This dreadful time is almost over and I can enjoy again the prospect of having more freedom soon.

In fact what is now bringing me back to life is my next trip to Thailand … I am already booked for June 19th and it is the same bliss as every time … nothing in life is more important than this next stay. The outlook for the future is not grim anymore, and there will always be oil to feed the planes that bring us to Thailand – since there will be enough kerosene on June the 18 th at 5.15 pm ....

I have already done my homework for this trip : another flight is already booked for Phuket where I have not set a foot since the tsunami. I should stay there only a couple of days, as I know that this place can be quite boring during the day when the weather is bad. I will then slowly make my way back to Bangkok with a short stay in Hua Hin where I never had the chance to be on my own - the listings recently provided on the Sawatdee Gay Board being duly saved.

I should then stay three days in Bangkok : because of the Euro 2008, I surmise that a lot of boys will go to Sanam Luang to repay their gambling debts, and this could provide some interesting company . . .

And then it will be the usual stay in Pattaya where a lot of new places are awaiting me – including the bars which have been closed by the police and should reopen just before I arrive.

Call me a sex tourist if you want ! But I have also planned a day trip to Chachoengsao town (near Bangkok) where there are more wats than boy bars .. and I will probably take a look at the Phra Sri Nakharin park too !

Winter

I am now more stuck than ever in Farangland, with a lot of work on the hands, an everlasting winter, and an awful atmosphere like in most european countries ; everyone including me feels that future seems gloomier than ever for most people - except the rich of course.

I read the forums where spoilt expats and tourists rant over the Songkran festival and tell us how good they feel locked up at home looking at TV and DVDs ... I just hope they still realise they are living in paradise !

As for Songkran, ... I think I would LOVE it !

What's on this week ?

I was quietly looking at the Thai TV trying to forget the snowy landscape I have now around my place. It was some program about new thai movies and my eyes were suddenly caught by some male cuties ... a short enquiry on my favourite website about thai pictures and I understood that a new teenager film has just come out on the thai screens.

It is called "Pidtermyai Huajai Wawoon" ("Hormones" is the English title); they describe it as "A heart-warming movie for all that brings the joy of summer when the school holiday has come. The film focuses to 4 stories from 4 highschool boys and girls who come across different love situations during their school break. For them, this summer is a special time to learn love."

Nothing gay, but an unpretentious story picturing another set of nice thai boys.

Learning thai

I came in Thailand for the first time in June 1996, and never could have imagined to visit the country without at least speaking the most basic language.

At that time, I was still not connected to the net and anyway the resources were still very scarce. And being in France was a restriction for an easy access to learning material : I had forgotten most of my English due to lack of practising, and learning thai from French was the only option. So I first worked the Assimil method, which is curiously named "introduction to thai language" whereas it is called "English (or whatever) without trouble" for most other languages. This handbook is based on reading romanized thai and listening at everyday conversations. Not the best for really learning a language but it was a good introduction to the basic words and expressions, and probably for a full awareness to the importance of tunes.

My first stay made me quickly understand that it would not be enough, and I immediately found out that learning how to write was an absolute necessity not only to get around in Thailand, but mostly to have a thorough knowledge of the language. I bought two books in France ("Méthode de thai" volumes 1 and 2 by a teacher in the French Institute for Oriental Languages) which also came along with audio tapes. I also found a little treasure – also in French - promising you to be able to read and write thai within two weeks ("Grapho-Thaï 14", DK Editions, out of print since many years).

Good student

Using these books was the most difficult part of the process. Not that they were bad of course (although a little bit too academic), but the time had come when I had to overcome the difficulties which could not be ignored any more : the alphabet with these off-putting letters which are pronounced one way if standing before the vowel and another way if standing after, these vowels which are written before, or above, or beneath, or "around" the consonant, the long phrases without any space between the words, and of course the tone rules. Lack of logic is a big turn-off for Cartesian French people, and this was the time when I had to struggle hard for not dropping out. In the same time thai television had appeared on the dish, which helped to keep the ear familiar with thai intonations, although it was – and still is – very hard to understand everything.

After a lot of writing, trying to understand and memorizing, it seemed one day that everything had suddenly become clear : I could get the right tone without thinking of it, isolate the words in the phrases, understand what I was reading, and write the Assimil exercises in thai. However I was still unable to build elaborate phrases. This is when I turned to what I would call an essential step to learning thai : the well-known "The fundamentals of the thai language" which I bought in Asia Books in Bangkok (also out of print now). This one was in English, which helped me to improve my English too, but most important of all was the fact that it provided me with many new words, expressions and phrases. 

Together with working on this book, I used the "Bangkok Post" Tuesday lessons which were very useful for new expressions and words linked to current events. It is a pity they seem to have stopped it last November at least on the web. I read every lesson, writing down every unknown word and looking for sample phrases on the net (the Lexitron dictionary is a fantastic resource for this). I also tried to study from thai textbooks I found in Thailand (Pathom 1 and so on like thai children ...), and of course from all the websites that you can find now, the better being probably the learningthai.com website and all its related resources.

Learning more words and spoken expressions is now my main target, along with trying not to forget too much of what I have already learnt : like every language, practising is essential and staying only one month a year in Thailand is definitely far from enough….

Farewell

I just got the news of Wowpow’s passing away … a very sad news indeed as he was one of the outstanding posters on the boards, and his posts were always informative and positive contributions. Did you notice he is (I am still unable to write "was") one of the few who has always been posting with the same handle along the years and on all the boards ?

I had met him some years ago and treated him to a drink in Panorama, as I wanted to make amends for some minor misunderstanding we had on the boards. He was a delightful guest and I will never forget the hour we spent together. He was I think the only member of the webboards community I had the luck to have met personnally, which makes me all the more saddened by this unexpected loss.

Like being there

No post for about one month … not that I do not think about Thailand but what I can only do is thinking of it. Is it so boring to wait for the next trip ? Finally not too much : almost every bit of my free time is devoted to Thailand, and I do not mean only surfing the web.

I recently bought a new MP 3 reader and my choice was dictated only by the way I will use it in Thailand : listening to thai music during the flight, and listening to thai radio when sitting at the beach or at the swimming pool. I am now downloading some fantastic thai radio streams that will provide me all the music I want. And these are as many minutes when my mind is in Thailand and not here.

I am also doing my homework in order not to waste any second during my next trip. Reading the new French edition of the Lonely Planet guides (Thailand and Laos have just been updated …) helps a lot, looking after and improving my thai is sometimes demanding after a long day at work but this is more time I virtually spend in Thailand. And beginning to learn speaking and writing lao (more difficult than I thought because more different to thai than I expected) gives me another incentive to be more diligent.

I am not sure to go back in June because of work, but in my mind I will go there on June the 17 th. And I will stick to this perspective as long as I can.