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Bangkok Gay Saunas

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Bangkok Gay Saunas - As we continue to explore the Bangkok gay scene, this time we’ll talk about the gay saunas of the city. Having lived in the Big Mango for 15 years, and yes, having spent a chunk of that time perusing the saunas, I’ll try to give some helpful hints on the good, the bad, and the ugly of these venues.

The most popular of Bangkok’s gay saunas with tourists is the famed Babylon. However, I’ve already reviewed this sauna in detail in a previous article, so we’ll move on to a couple of the other large saunas in the city.

There are some 20 gay saunas in Bangkok, many of them very Thai and quite small. Most of these type saunas have virtually no foreign customers, stay open until sunrise, and attract a lot of cute, young Thais who seem to get hornier as the night wears on. The crowd also gets larger, younger, and cuter the later you stay. For these reasons, you may find them worth a visit! There are too many to list here. Just check a gay Thailand site for a listing.

However, the two I’ll talk about here are large ones with nice facilities - Chakran and Farose II, both of which have an almost exclusively Asian clientele. The upscale Chakran sauna is located near the Ari station of the BTS Skytrain, on soi Ari 4.

Chakran is probably the nicest and cleanest sauna in Bangkok - even more so than Babylon. It has four floors, but part of it was recently converted to a gay massage parlour called V Club, which has the same ownership. Incidently, it is one of the better gay massage venues in the city. V Club and Chakran Sauna have separate entrance into the building.

Moving V Club into the Chakran building effectively cut Chakran’s gym in half, and also took away its nice restaurant. But you can still order food around the pool area.

In spite of these changes, the four-storey Chakran Sauna is still big enough and well worth a visit, even though almost all of the customers are Asians, mostly looking for other Asians.

The staff is friendly and cute, with many of the boys around the pool area from neighboring Myanmar. As with most Thai saunas, you are given a key at the entrance where you pay the admission price of between 150 and 250 baht, depending on the day of the week. Those under 25 get a reduced price, and it’s free on certain nights for customers under 21.

You will find a towel in your locker which you wear around the sauna. I always bring shorts to wear in the gym if I intend to work out, but you could also wear your towel there.

On the first floor there’s a nice pool area with exotic décor, a large Jacuzzi, and a large steam room which gets a lot of action. There’s also a smaller dry sauna and some showers.

Upstairs is a large cruising area with very clean private rooms that lock. They have naked zones on certain nights in this section, and also naked zones in the Jacuzzi/steam room area on specific nights.

They also have foam parties and other events at Chakran. Check out their website for more information.

The other large Bangkok gay sauna well worth a visit is Farose II in the Ramkhamhaeng Road area, off soi 21. The originally Farose is still open in the Saphan Kwai area of Bangkok. Farose II is a newer and nicer facility, but Farose I does have large sections which are naked zones with a lot of action.

Farose II would be a great venue if they’d keep it cleaner. There’s a very fun dance room on the first floor, filled with cute, young Thais in underwear (this is one of the few saunas where underwear is worn rather than towels). The dance room gets busier the later the hour, starting around 11 p.m.

The crowd also tends to get cuter and younger the later it gets, with a lot of go-go boys arriving around 2 a.m. for some hot action. There’s also a karaoke room on the first floor, and a pool outside beside a nice cruising jungle area. Also by the pool is another building which is quite dark for play.

The second floor of Farose II is a cruising area with rooms that lock, and some dark areas for encounters. The third floor is the naked zone, which also has rooms to take someone you meet. The fourth floor is a rooftop area with nice views and free Thai food.

The general lack of cleanliness is the worst thing about this place. Its biggest plus is the plethora of cute, youngish Thais who frequent it. You’ll rarely see a foreigner here, and a surprising number of the Thais will play with you. I’ve found it much easier to hook up with a Thai here than at Chakran where the crowd tends to be more upscale.

Gay Bangkok Scene

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Bangkok Gay Scene Reviews and Guide

Gay Bangkok Scene: Gay pubs in Thailand are restaurants/bars where Thais go for drinks and snacks, usually just before going out to the dance clubs. The most popular ones in the tourist areas of Bangkok are Telephone Pub and Balcony, which are opposite one another on Silom Soi 4. The BTS Skytrain station Saladaeng is here, as well as the MRT Silom stop.

The focus of this article is on the non-commercial gay pubs and dance clubs in Bangkok, Thailand. Having lived there for 15 years and frequented these gay venues on numerous occasions, hopefully I can offer some helpful tips for those not-so-familiar with the gay Bangkok scene.

The non-commercial gay Bangkok scene (meaning places to meet gay Thai males who are NOT offering sex for money) is comprised mostly of pubs, dance clubs, saunas, cruise areas, and online chat rooms. I’ll discuss the pubs and dance clubs here.

Both of these pubs have a large selection of food and drinks. I personally prefer Telephone’s food and menu, but the staff at Balcony is cuter. If you want to eat, I’d recommend eating at Telephone and then moving over to Balcony for drinks.

Both places have inside and outside tables, with many of the staff standing around outside. Balcony’s staff tends to be a bit younger and Telephone’s more masculine. Balcony has some cute bartenders also. Telephone has upstairs restaurant seating.

Both venues are busiest on Friday and Saturday nights during the hours leading up 11:30 or so when most patrons begin making their way to the nearby dance clubs.

The most popular gay dance clubs are on Silom Soi 2, most notably DJ Station. There are a few others on the same small soi that attract a mostly Asian clientele.

At the front of the soi you can check-in your baggage, and then some security personnel is there to check the I.D. of Thais to make sure they are the legal drinking age of 20. I’ve never seen them check the I.D. of foreigners, and certainly not Westerners.

Admission price at DJ Station is 200 baht, which includes two drinks. The bars are well-stocked with just about anything you’d want. If there’s a crowd at the first floor bar, head upstairs for quicker service. The outside stairs behind the admission booth leads to this area.

People start showing up at DJ around 11:30 p.m., but then at midnight the music stops and they have a show which lasts about 30 minutes. These type shows are very popular with Asian customers, not as much with most Westerners. They almost always include an intentionally ugly (and often overweight) transvestite as a clown act which Thais find hysterically funny.

When the show ends around midnight the music starts up again and the place really gets to pumping. Muscular Asians, often Chinese from Singapore, like to jump up on the various raised areas to dance and show off their hot bodies. There’s quite a bit of room to dance on the main stage if you’re drunk or brave enough.

DJ is very crowded on the weekends (even perhaps too crowded), but less so during the week. Sundays and Thursdays are good nights to go, but there’s a good crowd on any night.

The place has three floors. The first floor area tends to get congested, with a lot of Asian tourists and non-money boy Thais. The second floor has more Westerners and a lot of Thais - both money boys and non-money boys. Of all the places in gay Bangkok, this second floor is the hardest to tell the difference. I’ve been dead wrong here before.

This can be a delicate situation because it could be offensive to a regular Thai to ask if he’s a money boy. On the other hand, you could easily hook up with a freelancer who wouldn’t mention a word about money until after you got him home and had your sexual encounter with him.

Also, some freelancers would ask/expect money from certain people but not others. And though you can often tell freelancers by their dress or the way they act, in DJ these lines are definitely blurred.

A few hints that might help: Money boys tend to be a bit jaded from being around foreigners so much. They also tend to look like fully dressed go-go boys. If you haven’t been to the go-go bars, it might be useful to go to nearby soi Twilight off Suriwong just before the bars open to check out their looks and dress as they arrive for work.

The more innocent or genuine a Thai seems, the less likely he’s a money boy. And the greater the age difference between you and the boy, the more likely he is expecting money for sex.

It’s often helpful to ask the boy where he works or if he’s going to school. If he does either, that’s good news for you.

But none of these rules are by any means set in stone, and there’s always plenty of exceptions and surprises. You could even meet students who are expecting money for their services.

The third floor area at DJ tends to be a little less crowded. There are smoking rooms on the second and third floors, which can be good places to cruise and meet someone.

DJ Station closes around 3 a.m., and the late-nighters head down to G.O.D. on Silom Soi 2/1 (between sois 2 and 4). Here the crowd is drunker and more shirts come off, which means the scenery is even easier on the eyes than DJ Station. It stays open until sunrise.

Coming soon: review of Bangkok’s gay saunas.