I accidentally went to the gay bar area and had a great time (in a totally non-sexual way)
Disclaimer: I am not gay. I do not have anything against gay people. I simply am straight and accidentally walked into an area that i did not know was a gay area and had fun. That's all.
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I was simply meeting a few friend at their hotel and had a wander right around 5 pm when alcohol is being sold again (there is a ban from 2-5pm daily) and we weren't fussy, we just wanted a beer in whatever place had it for a reasonable price. we found a place that the price was right and sat down. I paid no attention to what was going on around me otherwise.
The staff were friendly and the beers were a very good price (around $3 for a large beer) so i figured this place was as good as anywhere else so myself (straight) and my married couple friends (also straight) sat down and had a few drinks.
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I sat with my friends and we talked for about an hour before it went to the bathroom and it was only then that I realized that i might be in a gay bar: There were pictures of men in their underpants all over the walls and (this is a bit sad but true) the bathroom was actually really clean and nice - which is not something that you expect from a cheap beer bar in a popular city in Thailand.
It was only then that i realized that I had actually been sitting under a gay-pride flag the entire time that I had been there.
Now, before anyone tries to attack me: I have nothing against gay people - i'm just stating that I am not the type of person that would be likely to go into a gay bar if i knew what that was. I gotta say that i actually feel as though the service and overall friendliness of this place was likely better than a majority of the places that I normally go to. I just found it amusing that me and my friends (all not gay) had no idea we were actually hanging out int the "gay section" of Chiang Mai.
Once i noticed this i looked around and was like "oooooh, of course, this is the gay section." Once you are looking for it..it becomes extremely obvious.
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so now i am aware of the fact that Chiang Mai has a "gay street" .... just in case anyone in interested. It is called Soi 6 and it is right in the night bazaar area. To be honest with you I would be likely to return to this area in the future simply because it was much cleaner than most dive bars I have experienced here, or in any other Thai city.
Location with GPS
If you are gay... apparently this is the only gay-specific area of the city. To be honest with you as friendly as this country is toward every sexuality that you can imagine I don't really feel as though a "gay area" is necessary - but i now know it exists and it is Chareonprathet Soi 6, right next to the Night Bazaar.
Upon leaving the bar I had to laugh a little bit because as soon as i stepped away a bit it was extremely obvious with the gay-pride flags and musical choices that it was, in fact, a gay bar. However, I honestly had no idea the entire time that I was in that sort of establishment.
For me, i plan to return just based on the cheap beer prices and the spotlessly clean bathrooms.
Try going to the washroom next time, pull pants down to ankles when peeing see what happens
Very funny! Three of you didn’t see anything odd inside the bar! You were drinking too fast! Hahaha.
I and my friend also went into a gay bar in London without knowing what we did! After the first drink we started to see people staring at us! It was quite embarrassing as some guys wanted to buy drinks for my friend!
Let me know what happens next time round!
in retrospect it seems so obvious but whatever.... we were just walking down the street and we wanted a beer... the prices were good at 100 B for a large beer so we sat down.
Now that i think about it there were an awful lot of men in the bar and my friend's wife was the only girl in the place... haha
If you were in there longer than 15 minutes you might have turned gay and not even know it you should probably have yourself checked.
That's how they get you! Seriously, it was subtle, perhaps it becomes a bit more obviously gay as it gets later.
Sounds fair and fun to me.
That indeed turned out to be great experience!
Clean bathrooms also make a difference for me. Good to know.
As long as you have those two things, do you really need anything else? I wouldn't have any problem visiting a place like this. For me I would probably feel more comfortable going with a group of people though. I figure if I went alone I would be spending the whole night turning down guys hitting on me because I mean have you seen me? :) That is pretty funny how you don't really notice something so obvious until you start looking around.
It 's really very funny. But I didn 't have that experience. I live in Russia and it 's hard to see gay people. Russia is the most non-liberal country to gay people.
There are gay clubs in Russia, but I wasn 't in any of them probably because I don 't like going around bars. Lol. I don 't drink alcohol and I don 't like to have fun like that. I 'm not gay either.
lol. You listed a lot of reasons why it is that this situation would likely never happen to you. I drink entirely too much i am sure. It is a big part of my life and sometimes it is a little too much of my life.