{"id":72644,"date":"2016-12-14T10:50:45","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T08:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/the-fantasy-of-the-babylon-bangkok-hotel-part-2-72644"},"modified":"2020-10-08T17:02:22","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T21:02:22","slug":"the-fantasy-of-the-babylon-bangkok-hotel-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/love-sex\/the-fantasy-of-the-babylon-bangkok-hotel-part-2-72644","title":{"rendered":"The fantasy of the Babylon Bangkok hotel (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A social club, a gay resort, a getaway spot \u2014 Babylon is whatever you want it to be<\/p>\n\n \n\n

After dinner with Steven, I wandered around the rest of The Babylon Bangkok hotel<\/a> on my own. Though the decor was still questionable \u2014 I couldn\u2019t decide if it was Babylonian or Buddhist \u2014 it was undeniably a gay oasis, far away from the bustle of Bangkok. As well as having a pool, restaurant and gym, it also had saunas, steam rooms, a whirlpool and a dark room.\r\n\r\nWandering through the hotel, I soon got lost. It was cavernous with walkways leading to halls and endless private booths. I could hear people moaning within, unrestrained. There were also guys in various stages of undress, fooling around in the halls, kissing, groping and sucking one another.\r\n\r\nI became so disoriented that I started traveling in circles and ended up back at the locker room twice. I went up and down so many stairs that I couldn\u2019t tell which level was which. I finally found the dark room, but I wasn\u2019t sure if it was on the first level or in the basement.\r\n\r\nThe dark room was another maze, with guys lurking in the shadows, seen only as silhouettes. It was so dark that I couldn\u2019t see the walls. I had to pat my way through to the other side. There was a lot of shuffling in there and people whispering to one another but nobody seemed to be having sex \u2014 not from what I could tell anyway.<\/p>\n

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The Babylon Bangkok hotel, with its ferns and foliage.<\/span> Credit: Mike Miksche\/Daily XtraI went back upstairs and walked through the space a few more times, trying to figure out where I hadn\u2019t been yet. I pushed through a door and found myself at the top of a semi-covered staircase. I thought it was the pool area at first, but it was a new bar with guys lounging and having drinks.I felt like a quick drink might help me get my bearings, so I took a seat by a group of men smoking cigarettes over pints of beer. A sort of jazzy house music drifted through the air and the room was lit by a warm blue light. There were also ferns and foliage hanging from above, and pouring down the walls.I sipped my drink, watching to see who was going in and out of the nearby shower area.A guy sat in the empty seat next to me and lit a cigarette. He ordered a drink, then turned and introduced himself as Ken. He was originally from New Zealand but was now working and living in Hong Kong.\u201cWhat do you think of this place?\u201d he asked.\u201cIt\u2019s growing on me,\u201d I replied.He admitted that he visited Bangkok often just to come to Babylon. He had never really toured the rest of the city much, but instead rented a room for a few days in Babylon just to relax. \u201cYou can really be yourself here,\u201d he said.And maybe that was it. Sure, there are no laws against anti-gay discrimination<\/a> in Thailand and same-sex marriage isn\u2019t recognized, but perhaps this place allows locals \u2014 and Westerners like Ken and myself \u2014 to forget about all that.When I finished my drink, I excused myself to explore the showers.<\/span><\/figcaption>\n<\/div>\n

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The outside of the Babylon Bangkok hotel.<\/span> Credit: Mike Miksche\/Daily XtraThe dry sauna was completely empty, and the Jacuzzi was overflowing with people, so I went into one of the steam rooms.It was so dark that at first I thought I was all alone. Once my eyes adjusted, I realized that it was packed full of men but I couldn\u2019t tell one from the next. I tried to step forward but kept bumping into limbs. Soon an orgy started to form. It made me feel claustrophobic so I respectfully excused myself. Plus, I\u2019m more of a twosomes or threesome guy anyway \u2014 group formations aren\u2019t really my thing.Despite the decor, I guess Babylon is Babylonian in many ways. But really, it can be whatever you want it to be. To Steven, it was more of a social club. For Ken it was a gay resort where he could let loose. And although I hadn\u2019t quite figured out what it was for me, I certainly will be back to figure that out.<\/span><\/figcaption>\n<\/div>\n

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Next: Exploring Soi Twilight, Bangkok<\/em>’<\/a>s gay red-light district (Part 1)<\/a> >
\n<\/previous:><\/a><\/em><\/p>

Hole & Corner appears on <\/em>Daily Xtra every Wednesday. Follow Mike Miksche on <\/em>Facebook<\/em><\/a> or on Twitter <\/em>@MikeMiksche<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A social club, a gay resort, a getaway spot \u2014 Babylon is whatever you want it to be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":256,"featured_media":72646,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editorial_slug":"25","_editorial_slug":"","exclude_from_latest_block":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19],"contributors":[511],"topic":[73,78,86,118],"clients":[],"series":[],"timeliness":[58],"editorial_format":[25],"type-of-work":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/256"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72644"},{"taxonomy":"contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributors?post=72644"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=72644"},{"taxonomy":"clients","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/clients?post=72644"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=72644"},{"taxonomy":"timeliness","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/timeliness?post=72644"},{"taxonomy":"editorial_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/editorial_format?post=72644"},{"taxonomy":"type-of-work","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type-of-work?post=72644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}