Chiang Mai details

Accomodation

I staid in Novotel which is located north of town, in a rather trite area but very convenient to one of the two gay districts in Chiang Mai. The area is somewhat out of town but there is a Tops supermarket next door - but not the bike shop I had hoped for. Novotel arranges a free shutttle to and from the Night Bazaar at night, do not forget to reserve.
I had no problem bringing guests to my room ; I only regretted that the bell boys and other male staff members had to wear a ridiculous uniform making them look like residents of a psychiatric hospital, they seemed really cute and smiling but this outfit was a complete turn-off.
You will get a good deal booking through their website with their "City Breaks" rates (no change, no cancellation, minimal stay 2 nights) : I paid 1080 THB/night, breakfeast and taxes included, no joiner fee.

Moving around

In fact moving around in Chiang Mai is not really convenient, so I think staying within walking distance of one of the two gay areas is a must. From Novotel you can walk very easily to the Chang Phuak gay bars (Freeguys, Doy Boy and Circle) ; for Golden Ball, My Way and the massage places in the area, you will have to walk for about 15 minutes along streets where you will be the only pedestrian : it seems that in Chiang Mai everyone was born with a motorbike between his/her legs ... can be annoying especially at night fall.
It could be difficult to find one's way at night, so better check the area out during daytime on the first day. You can always ask for tuk-tuks to bring you if you are lazy or fear the trafic (there is always one in front of the hotel, asking for the usual - outrageous - Chiang Mai prices).

Golden Ball Restaurant

This would be one of the three must-go gay places in Thailand if you ask me. First of all the food is really delicious, I was especially impressed by the freshness of the meat, and this for very low prices. Then there is the all-male staff, more than ten young and cute northern boys eager to chat with you, and that you can off if you want to know one better. Golden Ball is a little bit difficult to spot at night, go to their website and print the Google map they offer, it could help you (although Google is not the best for its maps ...). This is an open-air place that you will perhaps find a little bit untidy at first sight, but the atmosphere is really unique. Choose a place in the middle of the yard, or you won't be able to look at all the boys.
This concept of restaurant with offable waiters seems to spread in Thailand as I have been said there is currently similar places in Phrae and in Sukhothai.

Golden Ball website (which also has up-to-date information about Chiang Mai) : 
http://www.radchada.com/

Chang Phuak bars

Freeguys is for me by far the better place although they charge Bangkok-like prices (200 THB for one drink). It is supposed to open at 20.00 but you will not really see the boys before the beginning of the show at 22.30 ; the show - mostly by the boys - is quite interesting although on the raunchy side if you like it. The boys are known to be 18/22 y.o cute boys from the North with seemingly many thai yai lads.
Doi Boy is more quiet with only 8 boys on the day I went, mostly ordinary guys. Do not come before 22.00, when they begin the show - which is in fact gogo dancing.
Circle Pub seems to appeal more to thai customers, it is more a host bar with a somewhat stilted atmosphere.
Garden Bar (near Lotus Hotel) : typical beer bar where I did not go very often ; never saw any hustler there.
New My WayA little bit further than the other bars ; I could not go there but read that they have cute but pushy boys.

Night Bazaar Bars

Behind the Night Market and D 2 Hotel, a row of small beer bars that you will spot from the numerous motorcycles parked in front : Secrets, C U and Cruise on the left, Dragon King and Cream on the right ; toilets at the far end of the alley.
The boys here are mostly hustlers from Burma and of dubious age, who go from one bar to another when they do not play billiards in the two front bars. A delight for the eyes, especially when you find yourself face to face with a gorgeous 16 y.o burmese cutie in the toilets - you have really to keep control on yourself in hot situations like this ... I did.
It seems the place is patronized mostly by regular customers (not all being decrepit retired guys ...), and in fact I had the impression that the boys were not really interested by new-comers - probably because they know well that tourists cannot bring them to their hotels. So I guess you need time to get accustomed to the place. I still have to understand if the toilets could provide a provisional shelter for further activities, but I doubt it as the place looks like a trap in case of police check.
I offed a 22 y.o Thai Yai who explained me how he had to hide from the soldiers in his village, located near the Chinese border (three days needed from Mae Sai ...) ; good sex, nice attitude and great personality.

Climbing Wall bars

A cluster of open-air beer bars which are Friendhip, MTVee, Paradise Bar, Cupid Bar and Chez Nous. No freelancers here but waiters that can be offed, so a less commercial atmosphere than in the Night Bazaar row. Most of the bars seemed very quiet except Paradise Bar.
The boys there are definitely older and more feminine than elsewhere in Chiang Mai.

Wall-to-wall sunshine

This is how our late friend David described the weather in Pattaya like it is to-day... and this expression made me drool over it more than once. To-day I am there and I can live it to its best.

Before coming in Pattaya I had another trip to Saranrom, and as it was on Friday night, I expected to see plenty of new faces. In fact I saw mainly a heavy police presence on my first trip at about 22 am ; the daxi driver explained me that it was often like this on the first week-end of each month ; potential customers having just gotten their monthly wages would rush in droves to see the boys, the boys would rush to service the customers and police would be ready to welcome everyone ...

I went back at about noon and the area was much more quiet except for the numerous cars rounding the place and picking up the boys in numbers ... one trip too much and the boy you had noticed was already gone. So I went back to the hotel alone - which was my first intention anyway, only to fantasize about the floor boy who takes his service at 1 am and that I would like to know better.

One warning about the Saranrom boys : on Friday I saw too many VERY underage boys especially on the west side of Wat Phra Kaew and I guess I can believe my taxi driver whan he warned me that some were used as live baits ...

Two days already in Pattaya and I staid the whole time with my new lao friend - I told him that I do not want to fall in love again and he accepts it but he makes abolutely nothing to help me in my courageous decision ...

Dek wang

I had gone there many years ago but was not impressed ... then there were some threads on the thai and farang messageboards and even some first-hand reports ... and finally I took the chance to go there myself. If it would be exagerated to say my life has changed, at least it is as if I had discovered a further reason to go to Thailand ... the street hustlers in the Saranrom area  in Bangkok.

I went there on Tuesday night at about 22.30 pm ; going out of the infamous Super A in Silom (where I had an almost platonic talk - only some dirty touching but no kiss and nothing else - with a shy guy from Udon Thani), I was excited enough to hire a taxi who understood very quickly what I was looking for ... and there we went.

From the Defence Ministry to Saranrom park, they were 30 or 40 rent-boys standing alone or in small groups. And most important, as Gaybutton wrote once, all "good-looking, VERY good-looking" ... and no one of the lady-boy kind that clutters the bars and streets in Pattaya.

After two or three trips around the magical rectangle, I chose a short-haired boy who happened to be able to come with me to my hotel (the boys there generally prefer short-time meetings), so we had time to chat along the way and in the room. He is still a student (Mor Sam if you want to know but I guess he has repeated one or two years), and goes very often to sell himself as his parents do not support him any more. So you will understand that the age limit there, if higher than in Sunee Plaza, seems to be lower than elsewhere... and this does not seem to be a problem to the thai customers (when they relate their experiences on the boards, they quite unshamefully write that their boy was a 17 years old or less).

This guy being so exciting with his manly attitude (although being gay, so he told me), I had a good time with him ; sorry he did not want me to take a picture so you will not see him (above picture is of another boy on the net).

I went back yesterday (Thursday) ; less boys, as I went earlier but still a lot of good-looking lads ; among them a wonderful student-looking guy with the typical hair cut (very short behind the head and longer above). When I asked him the price, he answered : "muan doem ngai !" ("same before" in thainglish)... him he was again, I had not recognized him with the new haircut he had to do because he had entered the school for the second term. But I had identified this guy once again as being exactly my type.

He could do only short-time because he had to go to school this morning ... and so I could discover the (in)famous short-time hotels I had read about in more than a few messages on the thai boards. He brought me to the Rose Inn on the Thonburi side, which has dozens of short-time rooms with car parking in front of each room and a curtain hiding them - the thai call them rongraem maan root (hotel with sliding curtains) - 290 THB for three hours. The atmosphere was so sleazy and he was so exciting that I had another good time with him.

This should not prevent the readers to be aware of the risks of messing with these guys ... some are probably bad boys and you have to remember you have no protection at all ... some are underage and this is illegal in this country (like so many other things you involve into both here and in your own country) ... and it is still better to speak enough thai to be understood by the taxi driver first and then by the boy, as any misunderstanding could turn into something very nasty ...

For further information :
- dek wang means the boys of the wang (Saranrom) area
- the going rate for short time is 500 THB, 1500 THB for the whole night

Males

I have just come back from 4 days in Chiang Mai ... and as Nok Air had cancelled the CNX-UTH flight I had reserved, I am now in Bangkok instead of going to Udon Thani ... not worth the trouble and the additional time even if the alternative proposals I had from Nok were quite acceptable.

I loved Chiang Mai even if I could not do all what I had planned to do ... the bike shop which should have been near the hotel was no more, so I gave up riding up the mountains and instead chose to hang around in town... and god I was not disappointed ! Nice faces everywhere, treasures at every corner especially as long as school had not started again.

Same same in the bars : Chiang Mai venues are almost ladyboy-free, at least in the bars where I went, and everywhere there was a flavour of masculinity which was a nice change from Pattaya... And they are not too hysteric about the famous age limit which would divide sick paedos from healthy gays ... some boys in the Night Bazaar bars are probably borderline, and if I did not take any of them, it is because I found a serious and loving 22 y/o guy from Burma who made my evenings. The younger ones were pleasant eye candy though.

And last but not least, I had the nicest massage in a not well known place on Chang Phuak soi 2 ... Marn Maai Chai Kha or something like that, easy to spot with the Golden Ball maps in hand ... I entered there at 3 pm not knowing if there will be anyone, and from 7 or 8 guys I chose Art, a 19 y/o male (and I mean, male) who had just come from Mae Rim. The massage was sensual but serious, the boy was not too keen to go too far with the happy ending but his skin and his face were so arousing that it did not take long for me to be sent very high in the skies. I guess that he will be already less shy when you will go there.

A more complete review will follow, but for the time being, I plan to rent a taxi to hang around the Sanam Luang surroundings, and perhaps have one night in Khorat to get my fix of Isaan atmosphere.

Gems

I am now in Pattaya and will go back to Bangkok as soon as to-morrow ... not that I do not like here but I won't want to be in a hurry for the flight to Chiang Mai next Friday. And there is another reason which has just appeared this afternoon in the person of a young lao beauty who has never been in Bangkok ... I will happily be a guide for him and show how you get on the subway, where is MBK and how the Silom bars look like ...

Lao beauty

So sorry for bringing him far from Pattaya (where he had just arrived) for two days : it is only temporary, well that is at least what I am thinking now some minutes before meeting him again. I just hope no farang has already picked him, he his a semi-god with the greatest smile I ever saw in Thailand and the softest voice you could dream of. You will find him from Friday onwards in the #~S¨%<,, Bar.

Pictures are banging together into my mind, at every street corner you stumble into cuties and even in my straight hotel in Pattaya Tai the bell boys, the swimming pool boy, the waiters seem to be in a raging competition to look more beautiful one than another ... You think you have met a jewel, you go with him, only to find the next day that there is a still more sparkling gem in a place where you did not expect to find anyone.

First hours in gay Bangkok

Sure the first hours in Thailand are not the best moment to update the blog ... in fact I think I will have to do some cheating like for last year's updates : short live messages that will be completed and expanded once back at home (at least if this scared time should happen).

China Town from a Motorbike

My first visit was for bringing some money to Kong, a friend of my Swiss living friend Tok (see posts in October 2006) ; I had met Tok at the airport and he had asked me to bring some swiss francs to Kong. This allowed me to go for the first time in China Town at night, and it was a real mess to find my way among all these busy streets teeming with people.

I then went to the Saphan Khwai bars and was overwhelmed by the quality of the boys I found in Charmming and in Eagle Pub : the word seems to spread out as there were altogether four farangs in Charmming, which I had never seen before. I offed a tall and cute guy from Tak, a real beauty even if the sex was not so good (probably my fault as I had not met a thai guy since so long ...) ; if we were here on a thai weebboard, I could give details especially about his assets which were in line with what the mamasan had described to me before (but they were not the main reason why I took him).

He did not stay the whole night so I went out again in Be High gogo bar which was very quiet : ordinary but nice manly boys, no more than 8 of them as this was late and on a week day) ; I chatted for a long time with a Pathum Thani guy but there was no question of another "off" as I was feeling an urgent need to go sleeping ...

To-night I should visit some places in Silom and to-morrow I go back to Pattaya - for improving my health, as I already explained before. I will perhaps meet Tam, whose status is now "boyfriend-whom-I-lost-contact-with-but-whom-I-still-love". Just in case I brought a gift for him.

Gateway to paradise

The Geneva Cointrin airport (GVA) is a small airport which a lot of rich and powerful people frequently use ... Geneva is one of the few towns in the world which can be described as an international place : its symbol is the famous water fountain which sprays from the lake (you can guess it in the upper part of the picture).

GVA is also a curiosity, being both a French and a Swiss airport : when it was built, the swiss had not enough space for it and had to build part of the runways on the French territory (low left side of the picture) : so there is now a small french sector, very convenient if you are french and your thai friend has no swiss visa ... As for me, although being french, I generally use the swiss part which is much more convenient.

And it is also the place where I should arrive in three hours time, being the first step of a so-awaited holiday in Thailand ...

Cloud nine

Three nights at home, one night on the plane and .. here I am for this so much awaited holiday in Thailand. I should land in Bangkok next Wednesday shortly after noon, and I already know this will be a time of huge happiness.

For the time being, I am on cloud nine, checking once again the boards (so many bars to visit !), packing the bags for endless hours, and wondering what this trip will be like. It is a very special feeling to think that after reading the Pattaya Weekly Report for eleven months from your desk at home, you will read the next one in an internet shop on Pradiphat Road ... or to realise that the boys you see on gboysiam are no more a dream, but could well be a reality at least if you just want it.

By the way my favorite Catmagic (see post from last July) came forward again on the Gboysiam website, but I am a little bit disappointed by his new look ... has no one explained him I am not into boys with a moustache ? He claims to be both top and bottom, and is looking for a maen, meaning he does not like feminine looks. And he is still feeling lonely in Bangkok - can you believe it ?

Bliss

Still seventeen days and at last I should land in Suwanaphum ... times goes as slowly as before but from some facts I can now realise that the so much awaited moment is getting nearer ... ordering travellers cheques, warning friends and work mates that I will leave for one month .. and reading on the boards about events in Thailand that I will be able to attend personnally (not that I shall ...).

Not to be missed ... the "Phuan" movie .....

This is the time when you are in a blissful mood : nothing is important any more except climbing into this plane, closing your eyes and awaiting to see the rice fields from the plane window. Pondering what you will do in the first hours helps you falling asleep more easily  .. in fact the awaiting time is probably better for your health than being there !

I am now in the process of writing down my "must do" list ; it includes seeing the "Bangkok Love Story" ("Phuan") film, riding my bike up to the Samoeng pass, buying a new keyboard for my computer, updating my blog, completing my collection of (thai pop music) Single Hits CDs.

And also trying to snap more pictures for the blog, doing my best not to be involved again with a boy, enhancing my suntan before the long european winter, updating my blog, trying to keep the record and to review all the bars in Pattaya, Chiang Mai, Udon Thani, Khorat and Saphan Kwai (and somme massage parlors too ...). And, if I have some time left, going on the whole railway trip to Samut Sakhon (and not stopping it lazily at Samut Songkhram), exploring the backstreets near Saranrom Palace at night, avoiding Aedes Aegypti mosquitos, renewing my wardrobe and, of course, updating my blog ...

Blogging issues

I am far from being a computer expert and when I come across the slightest problem with my blog, it is as if the sky is falling.

I had lost my template for some hours and the blog appeared without any frame as a plain white page. I thought it was a Blogger problem, but in fact I could fix it like an expert (a matter of dead link), and so everything is fine now.

As a reward for my fine work (modest, ain't I ?) and for your understanding, I thought I could post a picture of this VERY cute boy (you will guess I like skinny ones...)

Thank you all for stopping by and keep coming back ....

Evening rainfall

This picture was shot on last Sunday and appeared on the 2Bangkok website ... nothing exceptionnal about it apart from the fact that I have been looking at it for many minutes. Why ? It looks more or less like what I can see when I am in my hotel room in Saphan Kwai ...

It is 5 in the evening, I have just come back from some strolling round the town and I begin to think of what will be my evening ... should I go to Big C to have a small meal (while peeping at the cuties working in the shop opposite) .. or rather go to the internet cafe for updating my blog among the students who have just come back from school ?

And what shall I do to-night ? It seems that it could rain so I should perhaps stick to the local bars ... To-day is Friday so there will be a lot of boys and lot of thai customers ... I will avoid Charmming which should be full, and rather go to Eagle where the boys are ALWAYS cute.

Well OK, I have decided now ... shower, reading the Nation, looking at the news on TV 5 -the thai channel, my hotel doesn't provide the french namesake - and then Big C if rain has stopped ...Then back to hotel for another shower, one beer at Street Boys and then straight to Eagle...

Thank you to 2Bangkok to have given me the opportunity to feel like being in Bangkok for some short minutes ... and justified your slogan : "almost like being there ... "

59 days and counting

Booking is the second step after planning ... and here I am surfing the net for my next trip to Thailand. The flight ticket had been booked about two months ago, and this is fine : the rates seem to be higher as the departure date is coming closer.

It's now time to book the domestic flights : Nok Air has currently a promotion for flights before October 27th and booked 21 days in advance (990 THB anywhere in Thailand) : so well for the journey to Chiang Mai. Moreover Nok has just opened the booking for the winter period : the same price will apply for the Chiang Mai / Udon flight (October 31st). Another great news is that you can again pay with an international credit card ... and it works !

Four nights in Novotel Chiang Mai are also in the bag at a very affordable (but non refundable) rate from their own website (novotel.com). And yes I will stay in Khorat especially after having read some promising information on the TMM website (that I forwarded to some boards).

When you are waiting for 330 days before going back to Thailand, booking makes you touch the reality of your next trip : it is no more only a dream, it becomes a schedule with dates, prices and places. All this stuff looks probably childish for all of you who live in paradise or go there very often - but I am sure you still remember how time was slow when you had still two months in Boring Land before landing in Bangkok.

Tam phoned me two weeks ago but we had no time to chat very long ; he is still home with his mother who had undergone a hospital surgery, and then he should go working as a waiter in a Pattaya restaurant. I think he now understands that this time, I will spend most of my time on my own, but I cannot bring myself to break with him. Lack of courage ? Or something which cannot disappear and is called "love" ?