What is the oldest gay bar in Thailand? What is the oldest gay sauna? I thought it would be intersting to have a little bit of history on the board. share stories amoun the oldies-- and newbies.
What is the oldest gay bar in Thailand? What is the oldest gay sauna? I thought it would be intersting to have a little bit of history on the board. share stories amoun the oldies-- and newbies.
I believe that the oldest gay bar in Thailand was the Sea Hag in Silom Road. It opened and probably closed it's doors before I visited first in 1972, when I spent only a few days in Bangkok, before spending a couple of months in Pattaya, just enjoying the beach and exploring the area where there were no gay specific venues. The following year I investigated Bangkok a little further and discovered Silom Soi 4, which had the Lonely Boy, the bar next to it, Tomboy, owned by a working policeman, and the Apollo, which was wrongly thought of as only a Thai for Thai venue.
Michael the former owner of Cockpit which was opposite the smaller version of Boyzboyzboyz in 1990 when I first visited, wrote a history of gay pattaya that has been the subject of a number of threads over the last few years.
Have not the time to do a search ATM but someone should be able to post a link. Try history in the search function.
Wombat : an Australian marsupial that eats,roots and leaves
The first few gay bars I visited in Bangkok were much later than that - Telephone (just after it started up under its original American owner, William), Rome Club, Barbeiry, Garden Bar and Harry's Bar. Garden Bar and Harry's (in Silom 2, directly opposite where DJ Station is now) were "host" bars ie. there were lots of boys milling around and sometimes dancing, in street clothes. As I drank mostly sodas when I went to a bar, I can only remember that at Garden Bar it was 90 baht for a drink in 1989, you didn't have to buy the boy a drink, you didn't have to pay an "off" and ID card worries for boys or punters were well in the future - as the Western "do gooders" made their forays. Telephone had cheaper prices (maybe? don't recall) and freelance money boys aplenty. Most of my long time Bangkok friends I met through the regular ex-pats at Telephone Bar, who all remained loyal through the transition to Richard and his various changes of business partner (and boyfriend - remember that asshole Yot?) until that other asshole Lee bought Richard and Yves out and ruined the place. I don't think most of us have ever been back.
would anyone have any PICS?
maps would also be great.
someone should document this, like OUT magazine-
would be a great read.
my first trip maybe I went to Rome(?) 1997
(or it's sucessor)
next door to balcony and was just thinking
about all the HISTORY of the place.
cool story about it but don't remember all the details.
so if anyone has any pics of these gone now bars
please post them up.
get used to what those times were, dear: there were NO mobuys at all-let alone those with camera's, there was NO digital foto-any pic taken had to go to a lab for expensive and complicated ''processing development''. Any bar would have a strict policy on ''no pix taken''. there were NO computers for anyone (I just read that the very first IBM PC got on sale 20 years ago), nor any www.
The longest still existing bar is likely Hotmail (though it used to have another name-TwiLight-many call that soi still like that), I saw on my latest BKK visit (ended 1 month ago) that the Old MyWAY-along a soi off Ram IV also seemed to have closed (unless it is giant renovation from the stripped out building), telefone and perhaps GOlden Cock and Super A (changed venue a few times-but name survives) off Silom-soi 6. As has Tawan (changed building though)-all these go back to at least the late 80ies. Much as thonglor has it right.
Oldest gay sauna-hmm-that is hard-again do you mean the oldest opened ''as such'' or the longest surviving-and then under same name or only same place? I guess the old Babylon-aroud the corner from where it is now. But there must have been many more sauna's not openly (well, this is thaild) avdertising they were there to meet and greet-in fact those sauna's as such is a very un-Thai concept- what they used to have was a herbal bath-for 1 person.
Volt Sauna in the mid eighties in Soi Asoke. Okoto Sauna near Niagara Hotel off Sathorn.
WE NEED MORE HISTORIANS!!!!!
MORE VETERAN'S TALES!!!!
PLEEASE...(OK..don't you make me beg!!)
:occasion4: :occasion6:
[b][i]"Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind"-The Bard[/i][/b]
My birthday party at the Lonely Boy Bar, 1973 I think, (with apologies to those who have seen this photo before)
goji (July 16th, 2020)
re: pics
particularly interested in "signage" outside the old bars
or where those signs could have ended up.
what the outside of those bars looked like
wasn't even thinking of "indoor" pics
Wouldn't it be great to scrounge the sign graveyards and come upon
the original "Sea Hag" sign for sale cheap?
nice pic Brad- thanks for sharing
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