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My Corona Diary December 2020 - 2021


Nasiadai
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Yeah, ok. Coss.

Now I understand the context.

 

First, a pleasant message. The cold wave with temperatures constantly below zero degrees, with ice and snow is over.
We now have three to six degrees; so everything is in the normal range for the month of February.

The outlook for the next days.
No, I will definitely not keep this "Coranalook". I will shave thoroughly and also shorten the long hair. I hope that the hairdressers will open again; then I'll get my obligatory short haircut. Then I'll look decent again and I'll be able to mingle with people again.

 

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The question now is, when can i come back?

If and when I will come back to Siam and SEA, depends

a) on Corona

b) on my travel budget

The economic and financial situation is coming to a head in Germany; it is getting critical.
My daughter is now unemployed after almost a year of short-time work. Her company is bankrupt.
No one knows what will happen next.

Here in Germany the lights are going out.
I don't understand many decisions of the Merkel government anymore.
My daughter is losing her job. The company is bankrupt.
Millions of Germans are going through the same thing.
Millions lose their jobs; companies go bankrupt!!!
This is a disaster!!!

We have a number of important state elections this year 2021 and the federal election at the end of September 2021.
The Merkel government will shit all over the country and the economy with freshly printed money - money created out of nothing by the ECB, the European Central Bank. Billions and even more billions to prevent electoral defeats.
But what will it bring?

I do not want to report here about the social, political, economic, cultural situation in my country in detail and discuss it. I have been doing that for over 10 years on the relevant boards and websites, as well as German newspapers and political magazines. But renewed vacations and wintering in SEA depend on these developments. Not only for me, but for hundreds of thousands of German vacationers.

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Some general but important reflections on the economic situation of Western countries; with a focus on the EU.

The EU may now spend 750 billion euros as Corona reconstruction aid.
Note: The EU is not allowed to do that. This violates all rules, laws, agreements, pacts, statutes of the EU and the ECB. But the Maastricht Treaty and the statutes of the ECB have long ceased to interest European politicians. There is only one rule: to keep the euro as a common currency and to keep all states in the euro. No matter what the cost. The ECB has inflated its balance sheets by several trillion euros!!!

The states of the Eurozone are all allowed to go into debt with many more billions of euros.

In the near future for all states of the euro zone - and here first of all the Club Med - debt cuts are pending; in billions and even trillions!

This has an impact on the confidence of the Euro. Confidence in the euro as a stable, valuable currency will decline rapidly. The external value of the euro will continue to decline.

In the beginning, we got 50 to 52 baht for one euro.
Now only about 35.
The exchange rate of the euro against the baht will continue to fall.
Maybe to 1 : 32, or 30.

Who will then be able to afford a longer vacation lasting for months?


I have already reported on the gradual decline of the West on this board in 2014/15.
For 10 - 15 years it can be observed, the number of Western vacationers in Siam decreases, the number of East Asian vacationers increases. The purchasing power of Western vacationers is decreasing; partly because of the decline of Western currencies. The Euro has lost more than 30% of its value against the Baht, as has the US Dollar. The English pound - if I see it correctly - over 40%.

The decline of the Western currencies also signals a loss of economic power, a loss of competitiveness, a loss of innovation, and a loss of productivity of the economies behind these currencies.

Further money creation ex nihilo by Western central banks - combined with massive debt cuts - will further weaken confidence in Western currencies.

Many millions of Westeners will then hardly be able to take vacations abroad.
Especially not to make a long-distance trip, e.g. to Siam or SEA.

 

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My subject now: old white Western men.


In the following, I refer to the group of old white Western men. Men over 60, 65, 70, 80 and older - that is, retirees, pensioners - who come from Western Europe and the Anglo-American world, overwintering in Pattaya for several months or live there year-round.


I suspect that this group used to come to Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket, Ko Samui, etc. in their active years as 30something, 40something, 50something single men: and they came because of the inexpensive SANUK.


These are precisely the generations of Western men who experienced the golden years, the age of blessed Arcadia of relatively cheap vacation pleasure as young, active men in the 1980s, 1990s through the 2000s and 2010s. I was one of them.


I first came to Nana Plaza in 1992 and saw Pattaya for the first time in 1993.
I was then already relatively old for one who came for Sanuk to Siam;
I was already over 40. Most other Western men at that time started their careers as Sanukers in their early/mid 30s.

This group then decided to settle down in Pattaya in their old age with their retirement benefits and pensions.

It has been discussed about this topic - to spend the old age in Pattaya - already from the mid 90's on various Thailandboards again and again and intensively. Also on this one. I remember very well.

I do not have official figures and statistics. I base myself on German newspapers like "Der Farlang" of the last years.
There are said to have been over 60,000 Western retirees living in Pattaya for six months and all year around 2005, 2010.

As of 2015, Thai ministries and authorities have to increase the financial requirements for semi-annual and year-round visas. Many Western retirees could not meet these requirements and therefore stayed away. In parallel, Western currencies deteriorated. This further reduced the number of Western retirees.

Corona aside.
How many retirees lived in Pattaya in 2018 / 2019 during the period from the beginning of October to the end of March?
30,000 with a decreasing trend?


„Making predictions is difficult, especially when they concern the future.“

How many more will there be in the post-Corona era?
The decline of the Western currencies also signals a loss of economic power, a loss of competitiveness, a loss of innovation, and a loss of productivity of the economies behind these currencies.

Therefore we must always keep in mind that both the labor income of active employees as well as pensions and other retirement income in Western countries are stagnating or even decreasing. Please, on the whole. Generally speaking.

How many Westeners can still afford a vacation then?
How many will still meet the requirements for a long-term visa?

 

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My theme:
A critical analytical look back at the Sanuk scene in Pattaya - with a few side glances at Bangkok.
What has changed - how will it continue in the post-Corona era.
The whole thing as short as possible.


From around 2010 until 2020/2021 today, one group has conspicuously dominated the scene in Pattaya. This was the group of old white western men of retirement age.
The vast majority of these retirees lived in Pattaya in the dry season from October to early April for many weeks, a few months to half a year; some even for the whole year; local expats. Many of them have planned their lives and their finances with this goal in mind. Many could realized what we discussed on the relevant boards in the 90s: to spend their old age as retirees in Pattaya (or elsewhere in Thailand).

The group of white western men who are in active age - i.e. roughly between their early/mid-30s to mid-60s - has shrunk considerably in numbers during this period. These are actually the classic Sanuk holidaymakers who spend their holidays - usually between 2 to 4 weeks - in Pattaya because of the overwhelming Sanuk offer. Just like me back in the 90s and 2000s.
From around 2010, 2012 onwards, the numbers of young, active, white, western men dropped considerably. Active means being in employment, working, and being sexually very active.
The economic crises and currency crises of the Western economies were responsible for this.
Incomes stagnated or fell slightly for years; in addition, unemployment was high.

In parallel, there was a price explosion in the core area of the Sanuk scene.
The prices for ladydrinks, for barfines and the prices for the girls (ST - LT) doubled, even tripled.
I paid the following prices in the 90s to around 2010:
Beer bar girl: ladydrink 60 to 70 baht; barfine 200 - 300 baht; ST = 500; LT = 1000 baht.
GoGo girl: ladydrink 70 to 80 baht; barfine 400 - 500 baht; LT = 1500 to 2000 baht.
Ladydrink prices skyrocketed, 120, 140, 180 to 240 and more in the established and hip gogos.
The gogo girls suddenly demanded 4000, 5000 and 6000 baht for the LT.

Result:
Most of these men could not and above all did not want to pay that.
A large number of these active men no longer came to Pattaya.

But at the same time, the number of Sanuk holidaymakers – active middle-aged men - from East Asian countries; from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong etc. increased.
They were willing to pay the horrendous prices.

The upheaval of the Sanuk scene in these years became particularly clear to an attentive observer in Bangkok. Nana Plaza, Thermae Coffeeshop, Soi Cowboy. I'll be brief. These used to be playgrounds and fat cheap hunting grounds for white local expats and white Sanuk holidaymakers for decades. Like me.
With the beginning of the 2000s, the venues slowly but surely turned over.
Today, two thirds of the male audience and barfiners is Asian; only one third comes from the West.

In Thermae, a white man is already an "exotic". Japanese and Korenans are the new masters and top dogs.
This ethnic, cultural and linguistic change in the active part of the Sanuk visitors - fewer and fewer Westerners, more and more Asians - leaves its mark on the bar business. In the recent past, many bars that were run by Westerners have given up because of a lack of guests. The best example: SECRETS.
Bars targeting a Western audience will continue to struggle for survival. Only the bars that have an attentive host and a well thought-out gastronomic concept will still generate some turnover and profit and will survive. Good example: Phil Ross and his “Le Pub”.
Most of the customers of these bars are retirees, not activ middle-aged Sanuk holidaymakers as in the past. It is precisely this group that usually makes much more turnover than the old long-term holidaymakers or local expats. They go on holiday for 2 to 4 weeks, have a well-filled travel fund and want to live the “high life” and want to make party during this most beautiful time of the year for them.

The history of the Thailand Pattaya Info Boards is revealing.
It is a reflection of the course of the Sanuk scene I have just outlined.
With the advent of the internet in the early 90s, Siam and Pattaya boards were founded by addicts and enthusiasts - the Asfo list was one of the first. There were a lot of such boards in the mid 90s - German-speaking as well as English-speaking. All were very lively, had hundreds, even thousands of members. Optimism reigned, with hundreds of posts a day almost exclusively about Sanuk, the prices, bars, gogos, the girls and fucking. Those were the topics discussed 80% of the time: Trip reports about Girls, Fucking, Prices.

From around 2008 onwards, most of these boards started to die.
For the boards that survived, membership declined, the structure of the membership slowly but inexorably changed, and the number of posts decreased.
The Secrets board is a prime example.
It actually started very late, in 2006, but it got off to a flying start. Within a very short time, it had thousands of members and hundreds of active users. The topics were girls, prices, fucking. But as fast as the ascent, so rapid came the descent. The age structure of the members changed, the number of young active men decreased and the pensioners and old local expats took over the board. With that, the topics changed as well. The Girls, Prices, Fucking disappeared and doctors, medical care, cheap and good food, flat rents, the weather and the cheapest chicken legs were 90% of the topics.


I say it in a deliberately snide, derogatory tone (sorry for that):
Secrets have become a board of old, grey men who don't have the balls in their pants anymore. Here, seniors discuss the weather, rental conditions, health care, pizzas and chicken thighs; and sometimes where and what to buy: Viagra or Cialis  555555
I don't mind such topics. But if they control 80, 90 % of the board, then there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. Reports, stories, experiences, adventures, information about the girls and the bars should be 80% of the content of this board. Then chicken wings and pizzas and medical care would be a pleasant addition.

Short thesis:
The reason was that fewer and fewer Western men of active age were coming.
They could not or did not want to pay the extremely increased prices of the bars and for the girls.
I stress, everything else like accommodation, daily food and drink and also the beer prices and alcohol prices in the bars only increased very moderately. Pattaya and Thailand is still a good value holiday destination.
But the Sanuk is too expensive for many younger western guys.

To be continued

 

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continuation ...

The number of old white men of retirement age who take long-term holidays or live year-round in Pattaya or elsewhere in Thailand will continue to decline slowly but surely.
The reasons are - just keywords:
Loss of economic performance, lower competitiveness and productivity, continuing weakening currencies. Pensions and other retirement incomes will stagnate or even fall slightly in the future as the negative demographic trend gradually takes full effect. Fewer and fewer active people and contributors will have to finance more and more pensioners. This is especially true for Germany! Moreover, the central banks of the Western countries must keep interest rates at zero in the long run. Saved capital hardly pays any interest.

The number of Western male singles of active age - the typical Sanuk holidaymakers, as I have been - will also stagnate or even decline slightly. See above for the reasons.

 

Now, please understand me correctly.

Westerners will be there in the long run as holidaymakers in Pattaya and Thailand,
but they will no longer - how shall I put it - "set the agenda".

Western culture and popular culture will slowly but surely lose its hegemonic position.

 

A change in the ethnic composition of tourists

Western visitors are being replaced by Asian tourists. They come mainly from Japan, China, Korea, India, Pakistan and Singapore. In addition to these new tourists, Arabs are also coming in large numbers.

The largest group is the Chinese. They come from Hong Kong, mainland China, special economic zones like Shenzen or Taiwan / Formosa. They are coming to Pattaya and Thailand in ever increasing numbers.

 

With the increasing ethnic change, a cultural change is also taking place.

Until now, the Sanuk scene - the beer bars, the gogo bars, the discos and music clubs - has been dominated and shaped by a Western, an Anglo-American culture. Western beer, whiskey, brandy, schnapps and Coca Cola are sold and drunk. Anglo-American rock and pop music is played. In the discotheques, people dance to Anglo-American pop music in the Western style. This is already changing.

If you stroll through Walking Street attentively, you will notice that national, ethnic and cultural groups have already created their own localities. There is the Russian scene with Russian guests and music and cuisine. The Indians have at least two large entertainment venues, two Indian clubs with Indian music and Indian cuisine. The Pakistanis will folllow soon .

The Arabs have always had their own sanuk scene. In Bangkok, for example, there is the Grace Hotel and a handful of bars around it in Soi 3 / Sukumvhit. Several bar complexes on the Walking Street already firmly in Arab hands.
The Chinese, the Korenaers, they too will create their own entertainment szenes and venues in the next few years.

Making predictions is difficult, especially when they concern the future.“

I'll stop now. The future will show. Let us all be curious about what is to come.
Sorry for my limited, stlistically awkward and partly faulty English.

 

 

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19 February 2021 - Hamburg and surroundings / Germany

The long, cold period of winter with frost, snow and ice is over for now.
Central Europe gets a strong air stream from the southwest, bringing us pre-spring temperatures. Thank God!

My thoughts carry me quasi automatically to beach road and my magic garden ...

I am sitting in the "Lovely Corner Bar" on the corner of Beachroad and Soi 7, where I have set up my office.
Here I wrte my reports for my people at home - family, friends etc.

My office in the Lovely Corner Bar  -  my office, opening hours 11 am to 4 pm

452277896_Bakwahn-Cornerbar2.thumb.jpg.eb6963aeaef536692d429150aa846582.jpg

Time is tight, time is precious. Time means Sanuk, joie de vivre, euphoric mood.
All this is savored to the full, enjoyed to the last drop.
Here is one who once again enjoys Pattaya life to the fullest.

Because I live a Pattayan life, every second, every minute; I revel, I indulge, I feast, I savour, I carouse. I luxuriate and bask in the smiles of the girls, I live like Hans Liederlich - Sloppy Joe - and yet I feel free and happy. Precisely because I waste my energies - and my money, too 55555

1046204805_Service-Girls-DSC00565.thumb.jpg.e9c01f34c776d1e5006775376682226d.jpg

my three service girls from the Corner Bar

the one on the right is my favourite - 38 years old, she is wonderful. At that time she was a newbie, no English; flirting with her was therefore limited to a few glances we exchanged and a quick smile.

My dear Saint Peter, if I knock on your heavenly door in a few years and you let me in, you will have to make a huge effort if you want to top that with your paradise!

32772281_CharlyNuang-DSC00477.thumb.jpg.645cf531458a33511c7f59f66afa0c8a.jpg

This is Lady Nuang. We knew each other two years ago.
I used to go to the "Rolling Live 4" bar on Soi 7 a lot. I was usually blotto, roaring drunk in this bar.
After two years he recognised me immediately, jumped on me, threw her arms around my neck, hugged and kissed me. "Hello Khun Charly! Nice to have you back."

I was usually blotto, roaring drunk in this bar. Today, Lady Nuang is 30 years old; and she brought her sister, who is 10 years younger, right along with her for this season.

1454249747_rollinglive-DSC00468.thumb.jpg.4faf26466b73641c37554cc018937241.jpg

Sure, sure, not the prettiest. There are four or five thousand prettier girls in Pattaya. But they offer a wonderful warmth of heart, and I say it in the jargon of die-hard Pattayans, they offer best girlfriend sex, girlfriend experience and take-care-feeling.

Money invested and spent on these girls is money best spent. You get back from the girls exactly what money is not compatible with, this exuberant emotional attention.

1524213983_Charly-girl-DSC00110.jpg.56c91db0918dbe98bc494e36b0f1d6ab.jpg

Drunk like a lord

However, you also have to do something yourself. A purely passive consumer attitude does not work and does not lead to the desired goal of a take-care feeling and girlfriend experience. You have to be polite and friendly, you have to treat her as an equal partner, full of respect and esteem. What does the sociologist call this? That's right, reciprocity. A few kind compliments and everything goes in the desired direction. This is actually all quite natural. But most of the male Pattayans are stupid blockheads - not all of them -, they do not have a flexible behavioural repertoire, they have a very limited knowledge of English, they simply cannot flirt freely with these girls. And yet these creatures make it so easy for us blokes.

I refrain from erasing the girls' faces.
The pictures are too old for that.

to be continued ...

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I remember meeting a bunch of the "original" old timers living at the Nana in the late 90's,

 

Most gone now, Alec, Eddie, and many other fixtures of the lounge downstairs and breakfast.

 

Breakfast was always a fun event, seeing who the girlfriend de jour was, and the very occasionally, farang family who somehow had booked the very very wrong hotel

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Let's continue with my golden memory ride

 

1004009497_Goldagogo.thumb.jpg.07adafb6d3f7e99d5dd8943714b4707d.jpg


In this gogo bar "GOLD" in the LK Metro, a golden creature dances. Slim, petite, a little fragile looking; she weighs barely 48 kilos. But the little one has tits ... absolute world class. Wonderful, slightly swinging, bouncing big breasts with every dance move she makes, boobies, bosoms, hooters ... I'm going crazy, my heart is increasing its frequency, my blood pressure is rising, it's getting restless inside me. I feel the testosterone flowing in, creating that tingly feeling of horniness, I guess that's what we call it. I reach into my left trouser pocket and take out the tube of tablets and take one Metoprolol and one Amlodipine to stabilize the circulation. After a few minutes I feel the calming effect of the medication.
I watch the girl on the dance stage, oh no, I devour her with my eyes.
The magic of this girl touches me, goes to my heart.

I smile at her, she comes to me. After the usual greeting and mutual introduction "How are you?" "What's your name?" "Where do you come from?" I realise very quickly that her knowledge of English is very limited. She calls in her half-sister, who takes on the role of interpreter. "Same father, but two different mothers." She is 28 and thus the pi-sa-u (older sister) to the 3 years younger nung-sa-u (younger sister).

I stay in the gogo for over 4 hours. Just because of the girl. They are wonderful hours. After 2 hours - I have used all my charm (do I even have that?), my politeness to please the girl. I sense from her reactions that yes, there is still something there, it works, she reacts increasingly positively and interestedly to my compliments. The half-sister translates. I avoid overtexting the girls. Every now and then I ask a question about her family, her circumstances, etc., so that the two girls also get a chance to talk.

I drink one bottle of beer after the other, the girls get their ladydrinks; they have to go to the dance stage for 15 minutes every 30 minutes or so. This gives me the opportunity to look at them, to admire them.

Getting off on the sight of them, that phrase would be inappropriate now because it's too objectified. It degrades this sweet beauty queen to an object of sexual desire. However, over the course of 2 or 3 hours, I have created an intellectual and emotional distance from this girl whose father I could be. I'll explain that in a moment.

She puts her hand on my arm a few times, smiles at me.
"I take care you. Pay bar for me. I go with you."
Girl, you tempt me, make it infinitely harder.
Luckily, the two ladies have to go back upstairs to dance. That gives me a chance to think for a moment.

I have to admit to myself that I am no longer an adequate, equal, coherent partner for this girl. Precisely because of my age and my frailty. I began thinking of all the beautiful girls I have had in the years and decades before. I have dozens of slide boxes with the most wonderful pictures from the analogue time and hundreds of pictures from the more recent digital time.

We made love all night and all morning in all possible and impossible positions, so that even the mattress groaned with pleasure. I kept gushing like an inexhaustible Saudi oil well. At noon, around 12 o'clock, room service pounded loudly and insistently against the hotel room door, shouting: "Stop fucking now! I must clean room."  (memories, sweet memories)

"I can't do that anymore. The stroke has crippled you; the right side of your body is largely paralysed. You can no longer move your right arm and hand. Why don't you face up to it?"

"You can only disappoint the girl and make a fool of yourself. Now maybe the girl is a little impressed with you. She realises that I'm not a bonehead like the many other farlangs she's had the experience of

"See me, feel me, barfine me, fuck me, pay me."

This sets me pleasantly apart from the others, I suspect, I hope.
She is so pretty, so overwhelmingly erotic, her daintiness, her fragility, her smile, her luscious, light velvet breasts are overwhelmingly erotic in their appeal, but these qualities of hers also create a certain distance that is heightened by her innocence, purity, virginity. Sure, it would be totally different if I were 40 again, being full of sap, physically trained, with a washboard stomach. (being full of sap = voll im Saft stehend; being strong and physically able to perform)

"You old cowboy should keep your hands off such a creature. Besides, you smell like a beer keg. Not very pleasant for such a girl. You're not 40 anymore, athletically trained, successful in your job, bursting with strength and lust for life. Then you would be an appropriate partner for that girl."

In the hour that followed, I asked neither about the amount of the barfine nor about her price for longtime. The many beers had an effect, my head began to spin. I gradually became drunk. I still had to take the Songtheo back and then walk about 250 metres. That can be dangerous in this drunken state.

My bill: about 3000 Baht, which is about 85 euros. The euro has degenerated into a junk currency. I want my old hard DM back. I went to this gogo for a few more evenings and had a great time with the two half-sisters.

 

 

 

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