the only iconic thai dish i know is tom yum. is this the bar with the 10 boys jacking off? i heard about this place, but i thought it was closed or have i missed the name of the bar?

-- Thanks for the info.. Have not visited that particular estab. and at 200.Bh. for a beer sha'n't include it on my places worth visiting or recommending: :( .

That goes on at least 3 Bars. Nice Boys. Mic My, Tom Yum.

Tom Yum bar is alive and well ! I could also suggest, in addition to the 3 bars named above, Good Boys . The mamasan claims it is owned by a very influential Thai gentleman and is impervious to the attentions of the boys in blue .. I mean brown !

Soi Twilight Dream Boys
 

Today, 22 September is the Mid-Autumn Festival in China. The country has 3 days' holidays, 22nd to 24th. Saw 4 Chinese guys from Beijing, all quite dishy in their late 20s/early 30s, check into hotel last night; I guess many more in town.

Dream Boys tonight was full. Easily 120 customers, no more than 10-15 farang, the rest Asian, most of whom seemed to enjoy the show, going by the smiles from their faces and laughter at appropriate points. The show is unchanged from more than a year ago, but if the bar is getting a whole new set of customers from China that is making their first trip to Bangkok, then it works fine, it being still new to this audience.

First drink 300 baht, subsequent drink (and boys' drinks) 260 baht. Off fee 500 baht. What we think of the bar's prices is almost irrelevant when the bar can put bums on seats as well as it does. So there's really no point debating this.

And the boys there look generally attractive. I might well consider offing half of them. Can't say they've got the formula wrong, though the offing rate could have been better.

The only thing I don't understand is why they keep two bars but only open one. On any night for the last year or so, either Dream Boys is open or Boys Bangkok, but not both. Paying twice the rent doesn't seem sensible to me, unless they already own the premises. Even then, surely Boys Bangkok's space can be put to better use, like a chill-out cafe?

-- I realize that there are four massage parlors already in Soi Twilight, so maybe a number of the same sort of estabs. doesn't signify all that much?
- But in that soi there are already MAXI'S BAR and DICK'S. CAFE..
- I walk along that soi maybe once a week during an evening and even DICK'S. seldom appears to be all that busy at this time of yr.; hence I wonder just how profitable another cafe., whether chill-out or otherwise, would be?
- After all, even in the PRC.. I don't supose that chill-out cafes. are as rare as a go-go bar similar to BOYS BKK. would be? It's the latter that would attract those Chinese, I'd be thinking?

The Chinese mostly travel in packs, as part of guided groups. They usually dine in big, gloomy Chinese restaurants in between being shuttled from place to place. Not many would have the chance or inclination to go to a place like you're talking about, I think.

While that may generally be true of hetero groups, the gay ones, judging by the several I've met over the last few visits to Bangkok tend to travel in small groups of friends. They are seldom alone, as you said, but the gay ones aren't in packaged tour groups either. For example, the four who checked into the same hotel last night looked rather gay to me, but I had no opportunity to test them out :(

However, travelling as a bunch of friends also means that offing boys from bars is out of the question (since they share rooms) unless they avail themselves of short-time rooms at Suriwong Hotel.

paying for gay sex is (sadly) a very common phenomenon in china and thai 'boys' are cheaper than their prc equivalents. guys travelling with friends won't off anyone though, not because of the lack of a room, but because of a 'face': they don't want to be seen paying for sex (which is frown upon in the prc, despite being so common). some of them might return alone though and do just that.

one drink in a gay club in shanghai costs 50rmb. which is close to what a drink costs at dream boys. they won't find it expensive.

as long as the prc gays keep in a pack, there's no chance of hooking up with any of them. plus, guys from beijing and shanghai are snobbish (which is amusing for those who are familar with the prc) and are unlikely to publicly express an interest in any gwm, whom they consider generally unattractive. of course, there are also some desperate potato queens in china who go for every gwm, but they are more likely to visit babylon than the dream boys.

It took me a while to figure out that prc means People's Republic of China. I don't understand why people do clever little abbreviations like that.

In the commercial world PRC is increasing used to define the old communist country but still excluding HK and Macau which are special administrative regions. Obviously Taiwan is also excluded. Western business that already have contractual arrangements in HK must be clear when moving into mainland "China" that they are not including these SAR's in the new contracts.

Perhaps more relevant to cruisers is that you will need a visa for PRC but not for the other bits!

PRC is a well-known abbreviation. It gets between 9 million and 71 million pertinent hits on Google, depending on how you phrase the search.

I have had wonderful experiences with guys in the PRC, Hong Kong and Taiwan and have rarely found any 'snobbish'. in Thailand, however, I can see that some may give this impression. After all, Chinese travelling here with the intention of hooking up will wish to meet Thais or other Asians. If they want foreigners, they will far more likely go to Hong Kong. With Thailand being generally cheaper for Chinese tourists - and certainly more easy to visit than Hong Kong, there will always be some exceptions to the rule, though.

"PRC" has been in common use worldwide since, I'd say, about 1949...

-- The source of confusion is easily u'stood.: ;) ; I looked-at > Abbreviations and acronyms dictionary: Find definitions for over 4,219,000 abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms <, (I do believe that I've mentioned it before, possibly in some other thread?), wch., for PRC., has some 300+ answers.