Comprehensive gay venue listings

Whilst trying to find a current guide to venues in both BKK and Pattaya it is obvious that one has to trawl through a number of websites and message boards.

When a guide is found, it is usually out of date, and worse - the listing relect the sympathies of the web board host. For instance there are many go gos or late night places - mostly in Pattaya which are sometimes discussed or maore accurately bitched about in Forums - but do not apear in venue listings. The reasons for this is there may be some underage or the owners are disliked.


A website should be designed by someone with accurate comprehensive listings. Trying to find what is still open for instance in Jomtien can be a nightmare, and what about a late night spot in Pattaya with good music besides Hollywood??

Customer comments on the places posted should be avoided - as it would take too long to trawl through it all - but should be updated regularly say at the minimum each week or fortnight. Listings should be free of personal bias, kickbacks, salesmanship and irrelevancies. Hyper links can be used where appropriate.

This can then be bookmarked and checked out. WHO on holiday wants to spend hours in an internet cafe, or consulting printed gay guides with inaccurate info??

As a test:

Attempt to find these things:

1) a late night spot in jomtien.

2) a COMPLETE listing of ALL the go gos or host bars in sunee.

3) a gay bar in or near walking street and the opening times

4) a complete list of the bars in or close to the GOLDEN COCK in BKK (including sub sois) there names and opening times. Excluding golden cock and solid and slyper X the OBVIOUS ONES

5) late night cruising spots in BKK and I DO NOT MEAN outside Robinsons????

How long does this take you?? And how many different web sites and links did you need to view? And to your knowledge what was missing??? Was ALL this info available on the ONE SITE?????????????????????????????????????????????? ??//

[Doug]

You wrote, "A website should be designed by someone with accurate comprehensive listings. Trying to find what is still open for instance in Jomtien can be a nightmare, and what about a late night spot in Pattaya with good music besides Hollywood?? "

Good idea? How much are you willing to pay someone to develop the website, maintain the website, find and update the information and moderate the idiots. Maybe someone in the know could give you an idea of the cost.

I heartily thank those who do it for free even I don't mind if I have to do some of the work myself.

Get real. Nobody would pay for that. It would have to be ad based. Not a bad idea really, but would require a shitload of maintenance. Kind of like a citysearch just for Thai gay venues. Click on links and see contextual maps for any location.

... you may find the Utopia has much of what you are requiring in such a website - http://www.utopia-asia.com which has city listings for Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Cambodia etc

Unfortunately, as others have noted, it is diffficult to maintain exact and accurate information. I have criticised the Utopia website in the past for being out of date and received back the comment that Utopia relies on it's members to update any changes and I should get off my ass and participate in the website. An entirely justified comment, but I really do not want to start posting on yet another website. I wonder how many people are willing to take the time to do this.

I think the OP was talking about a DEFINITIVE site with pretty much guaranteed current info. This could be done by paying people in the different cities because in some places like Bangkok that would be a full time job. I can see it working with really good info, and interactive maps. Otherwise, just another listing site, there are already a number of them.

[Utopia]

It's true, unless you pay someone who lives locally to check out all the places on a regular basis you are going to be out of date almost instantly. Places open and close daily, people have opinions and personal taste. Some people prefer dry ethnographic reportage, other's adore catty gossip.

Utopia, by choice, ignores gogo bars, which account for large segments of the scene in places like Pattaya or Manila. Other sites seem to concentrate on the commercial scene primarily.

Two decades ago travelers were grateful to have The Men of Thailand come out every couple years, with maybe an occasional article in OG or Passport. Now, with dozens of websites, message boards, and Blogs to choose from we often seem to feel deprived or burdened by having to Google around (remember what it was like to post a letter and photo to a penpal list?).

Websites are only as good as the information users and business owners contribute. Don't expect overworked and underpaid webmasters to provide you with the perfect mix of materials.

Broad statements about whether or not information is up-to-date always seems to be about whether or not someone found just what they wanted, not on any statistical analysis comparing all resources available.

How long would it take someone to Cc: their board posting to their favorite websites? If someone spots an error or has discovered something new and can't take 60 seconds to send an email, then whines away on top of it, they're not helping the community to improve.

Another point to consider when scouting information is that gay scenes grow and contract. For example, Utopia currently receives almost daily postings about the gay scene in Kuala Lumpur and yet hardly anything new about Bangkok. Pace of updates is often a good barometer for what's vibrant and what's tired.