JamesBarnes

Chiang Mai is a wonderful place to live! Big enough to have everything that you need and small enough for you to feel at home.

Good information on the gay scene here can be found in OUT in Thailand Magazine- http://www.out-in-thailand.com/gay-guide-to/chiang-mai/

Best wishes for a happy retirement,

James Barnes.

To address the original question,

Gay Activists - Adoreable Or Unbearable?

Clearly, activists will fall into both, ahem, camps. Presumably, those who are irrestibly adorable will sway a number of folk into supporting them. Those who are unbearable will, thank goodness, irritate to distraction those who are so jaundiced that they will never agree with the activists' aims.

Gay people who find certain activists unbearable do exist and their view has to be respected but they should check themselves to ensure that they are not complacent in their position, forgetting that unspeakable horrors are perpetrated against gay people the world over- particularly in Africa and the Arab world. Those defending these victims must gain succour from international support.

As Mrs Clinton recently told the UN, "Gay rights are human rights."

Have you heard this one?

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"Victim" - movie - 1961 -available on DVD

Blurb:

"Victim is quite simply a watershed moment in cinema history. The first mainstream film to portray sympathetically and realistically homosexual society, it did so at a time when homosexuality was still a crime in Britain. Janet Green and John McCormick's screenplay makes Dirk Bogarde's Melville Farr a deeply conflicted man; married and in love with his wife, he also has relationships with men; while as a lawyer he is bound to uphold the law, even as he is compelled to break it. When Jack Barrett (a young Peter McEnery) commits suicide to avoid the consequences of blackmail, Farr sees this as murder, and decides to end the extortion even if it costs him his career. "

Sir Dirk Bogarde was a personal favourite long before I knew he was gay. He would have been 90 this year and you can read a tribute to him, written by his friend Brian Baxter in the current issue of OUT in Thailand Magazine. If you don't have the print issue, you can read it online at www.out-in-thailand.com/magazine

Best wishes,

James.

There are a couple of bars, 2 discos that have a "gay section" and a sauna/bathhouse that I know of. This being Thailand there is significantly less discrimination against gay people than in many places so less need of a "scene". This however, does limit interaction with for foreigners that do not speak Thai.

(Hat Yai is a fun town, but apparently less so for people that don't speak Thai)

It's not the language (as I do speak Thai). The problem is whether you know someone to take you around.

I have just been to Melbourne (and I speak English too), and as in Had Yai, I had to resort to the internet to find out where to go in the single night that I had. I went to two bars, and the first one wouldn't fill up until 11pm or later, and the second is simply empty on Wednesdays.

The reason I replied to this thread was that nobody had for a week, and - as you say - there certainly must be a scene in Had Yai.

I was told that there is quite a lively scene there as so many pass through on visa runs to Malaysia and that many gay Malaysians pop over because of the restricted scene in their own country.

I could not have enjoyed my meal more. La Fourchette has set a new high standard in Chiang Mai. The dining room, service, food and prices were all terrific. The owners are young and modest. They deserve support for their excellent efforts.

Dear TV members,

I am very keen to learn of the gay scene in the Hat Yai area.

Any info gratefully recieved.

Thank you.

James Barnes

Editor-in-chief OUT in Thailand Magazine