Pattaya Beach does have lifeguard towers - bury nary a
single lifeguard to be found.
Veechan Souksi
For all the knocks Pattaya City Hall and local police take - justifiably
- about quickly forgotten initiatives and lax regulatory enforcement, there’s
little argument that Pattaya somehow has managed to become a much-nicer place
than it was two decades ago.
In the mid-1990s, Pattaya Bay was so polluted by sewage that swimmers with open
cuts often suffered infections within hours. Most tourists came only for
Pattaya’s Sin City-style nightlife and only two hotels offered more than four
stars.
But after a while the local, provincial and national governments began
organizing campaigns to improve the environment, economy and tourism market.
There have been more than a few setbacks along the way, but a tour of Beach Road
shows that progress has been made.
The city painted red & white no
parking areas, but left some of the old white, angled motorcycle parking lines
which now tend to confuse drivers.
Mostly-smooth sidewalks, ramps for wheelchairs, pedestrian
signals, bus stops, speed bumps and more now dot the beachfront landscape. Sure,
most cars ignore the crossing signals and the speed bumps had to be ripped up
once before they worked right, but the many tourists and street vendors say the
good has outweighed the bad.
“It’s amazing how much Pattaya has improved over the past 20 years I’ve visited
the area,” said a disabled 55-year-old tourist who wishes to remain anonymous.
He lauded installation of the ramps, acknowledging that, like many Pattaya
projects, they took time to get right.
“Some were too steep when they were built,” he said. But, eventually, “the
footpaths were finished and perfectly balanced, so I can wheel myself to any
destination without the trouble of getting on and off the baht buses.”
He said many of his foreign friends have heard bad reviews about Pattaya, but he
thinks the opposite is now true: Pattaya is surely worth a visit and will
continue to improve.
“Nowhere in this world is perfect,” he said.
Beach visitors and vendors are hoping that will be the case for city hall’s much
ballyhooed “crackdown” on Beach Road traffic scofflaws. Because, currently, it’s
not working.
Huge tour buses ignore the red &
white painted kerb, and continue to park in the no-parking zone.
In January, a host of regional government and police officers
announced the introduction of 17 well-marked bus stops for tour buses, baht
buses and taxis. The intent, they said, was to eliminate the “nonsense” that
Beach Road traffic had become, due mostly to vehicles that double-parked,
stopped anywhere they wanted and parked in restricted zones.
Vigilant patrols, frequent ticket-writing and aggressive vehicle-towing were
promised. Supporting businesses paraded to back the initiative. And then?
Nothing.
“The campaign seemed to work for a while, but I assume it was too much for
public officials to handle,” said beach vendor Weechai Boonchai. “Parking has
always been a problem in this area and it still is.“
Sure enough, up and down Beach Road Feb. 11, vehicles were seen double-parking
and baht buses were stopped in the middle of the road. And no one was writing
tickets.
Weechai said city hall also has failed to follow through on
repeated promises to stop business owners from blocking off curbside parking
areas in front of their shops.
“Even the major hotels do it,” she said. “My question is, do they own the area?
Maybe Beach Road would look better if these selfish shop owners and hotels did
not reserve public parking areas for themselves.”
Pattaya’s split personality is also apparent on the beach. The water - thanks to
the sewage-treatment plant which came on line in Dec. 1999 - is now remarkably
clean and clear. But swimming areas marked with orange buoys continue to be
ineffective.
On this day, both swimmers and speedboats ignored the markers, setting the stage
for yet another scandalous “man vs. propeller” headline. The much-touted
lifeguard towers were abandoned and, of course, not a single lifeguard was to be
found anywhere.
