Friday, September 5, 2008

the death of silom...?


A dead end for Silom?


a hi-so friend of mine told me the other day that apparently the gay crowd is moving away from Langsuan to Silom - but according to me none of that seems to happen.


Yesterday night, the bangkokbitch and the bamboo diva convened at bangkokbitch's headquarters, where some healthy pasta was cooked. Then, they watched an American gay movie...called...ehm...I need to SMS bamboo diva to ask....one moment please. - Ok back, it's called "shelter" and it was very average. Story goes: Cute artsy student with fucked up family and girlfriend lives in bad neighbourhood in some Californian town. Rich and older friend visits from out of town. Young boy (who is really cute by the way...havent actually stared at a caucasian so intensely for a while! Question: Why do they always have hot and cute guys playing main roles in gay movies???) spends time with older guy, they drink and play and then suddenly kiss and so on. Young boy is confused and distances himself from the old guy. Later, young boy is coming to terms with his gayness and gets back together with old guy. Funnily, young boy's sister is leaving for portland, OR and thus cant take her kid (who knows why) and leaves the little boy with young boy and old guy who are now suddenly dads (after being in a relationship for less than a week with already one "break"). Woohoo. Anyone doesnt know the meaning of cliché? Watch the movie and you will find out.


Then, the two girls felt ready to conquer the real gay world out there in Silom only to be extremely disappointed. Silom was friggin dead! Friday night at 11pm. The place should burst out of its seams. But nope. Ok, it rained a bit in the early evening but that cant be the reason. I think the travel warnings of the different Asian Governments have been effective in preventing their dear citizens from visiting the City of Angels. Soi 4 was not packed and the usuals such as chimney boy (who was seriously on drugs this time), hunchback boy (one of the only waiters there who is countryside and still manages to look good. sadly he had to go away with an old farang who offed him), bamboo diva's ex from France and a few elderly regulars. So after two martinis we called it a day and I took a taxi with a cute driver back home. Our eyes met a few times during the drive (in the rear mirror). At the end he turned around and gave me a very very big smile giving me back some return money. (I didnt even care how much cause i was looking at his face) I think he was straight.


Ok I must say, lately I have really noticed the economic downturn and the additionally bad effect of the political problems. Silom is dead. Farang are bargaining like mad, moneyboys on gayromeo are getting increasingly desperate, taxi drivers are not as friendly as they used to be and even in the Siam area, the shoppers have decreased sharply...I wonder when and how and if Silom is going to recover...that area used to be one of my favourite just to hang out in the nights. You'd see many gay Asian tourists, unlikely farang-thai straight and gay couples and the occasional 90s style European gay with short greyish hair, tight singlet and ear-ring and many many other funny, crazy things. Lets hope this is not the death of Silom.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would it be because of the rainy season? I avoid Thailand this time of the year because of the weather and humidity. And publicity about tourists being stranded at Phuket because of the protests doesn't help either. From Australia, Bali is closer. - Ian

Glenn said...

Times are tough all over the world. So tourism is in decline for a number of reasons.

I wish I could be there now to bump up the occupancy rate by 1.

Anonymous said...

The economy sucks just about everywhere....so people are not traveling...and then with all the news about Thailand...it is going to get even less of a dwindling pool of people called tourists...

It is going to get a lot worse....

Asia in Australia said...

I heard tourism is down 50-70% depending on the sources. This is not an academic paper so I wont bother citing if you dont mind:)