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Over 1 million pink Baht for charity
Dear Sir,
With a mixture of surprise and considerable disappointment I have read correspondence to your column arguing the merits of the Pattaya Gay Festival.
Firstly, I wish to say I thought we were living in a democracy in the 21st Century.
Secondly, I wish to extend my sincere congratulations to the committee of the Pattaya Gay Festival whose first function raised over 130,000 baht for two
extremely worthy charities.
It is very easy for someone to put pen to paper and advocate alternative ways of making money for charities, but rather than prognosticating, the members
of the Pattaya Gay Festival Committee are actually making it happen.
If the resounding success of the initial event is maintained until the final program, then it is highly likely over one million baht may be raised for
charities. Of course at this stage it is impossible to predict to what extent local businesses will benefit from the “pink” revenue generated by the Gay Festival, but I
doubt if there will be any complaints!
I sincerely hope the committee, who are working so diligently in an honorary capacity, is not deterred by the gross negativity of a few.
Rod Astbury
Fire at Little Duck
Dear Sir
Re: the fire at Little Duck Hotel. I am the person who alerted the hotel about the fire as I stayed in the room next to the man who died. I have returned
home after losing everything in the fire. The hotel or insurance company have given me no satisfaction re compensation and I extended my stay by 3 days. What you printed
about the fire was not correct, as if I had not acted in the way that I did, the whole hotel and occupants would not have survived. Having contained the fire and helping to
retrieve the Swedish person who died, and evacuating the other residents, what thanks do I get? None. I had to pay my hotel bill in full, after losing everything except my
passport and credit card. I am not looking for anything except what I am due, about Ł2000.00Stg.
Thank you,
Tony McGowan
Ban all motor traffic on Jomtien Beach
Dear Sirs
I have just returned from a long holiday in Pattaya and spent a lot of time on Jomtien Beach. When I arrived they were putting the finishing touches to the
walk way, at least I think that is what it is supposed to be as we were dodging all the motorcycles and cars and on a number of occasions were nearly knocked down.
Then wonder of wonders on March 1st cars and motorcycles were banned between the hours of 10am and 4pm and the vendors can use it from 8am to 10am then from
4pm to 6pm. Have the powers to be gone ravening mad at the city hall? Do they not realise that a lot of people like to go on the beach early, before 10am, and most people start
leaving at about 4pm?
So from 4pm to 6pm it is a busy time for pedestrians to leave the beach thereby having to dodge the cycles and cars and risking their lives. Perhaps when
someone is killed then the tourist police, and I use that word lightly as they do not seem to bother, may take action and the powers to me may change their mind.
It makes sense to me to ban all traffic, and I mean ALL traffic between the hours of 9am and 6am so as to make it safe for tourists. Lets face it without the
tourist the beach would die.
Also, please can there be some sort of ban on the jet skies coming right up to the beech? On a number of occasions they were weaving in and out of swimmers
nearly missing them. They should be made to keep to the other side of the marker buoys. Once again where are the tourist police? As far as I can see they are not the least
interested. All they are interested in is trying to get rid of the vendors who are not a danger to the public.
So come on you people at the top start thinking about the people who bring money into Thailand, as without the tourist industry there would be little or no
money at all.
Brian from England
Taking a mud bath
Dear Editor,
Only the assurance that “Winebibber” has been sacked and an apology to the Pattaya community by the Pattaya Mail can head off a backlash against the
paper and the gay community for the false and slanderous remarks in his Grapevine column of the last issue.
To assert that being against celebrating sexual preferences is homophobia is slanderous and not deserved by the Pattaya community where gays enjoy a level of
tolerance not found in too many cities of the world.
If you read letters of the past few issues you find that those opposed to a gay celebration do so because they believe that sexual preference is personal and
should not be flaunted in front of those who may find doing so offensive. Those in favor of a gay festival have only the argument that Pattaya’s reputation could not get
worse. That is far from the truth. This is a diverse community in every sense of the word. If you think there is not a family community here then you have missed the last two
family fairs held by the Jesters motorcycle club, and others, at the Royal Cliff and Amari hotels.
The dream of financial windfalls for the charities ignores the loss of revenue from those who will choose a less controversial venue to visit. I hope others
including your advertisers will join me in expressing their outrage. The “Best in the East” just took a mud bath.
Richard J. Mathews
Pattaya ex-pat
One-way streets, or no way streets?
Editor;
The letter from Paul Wenha in ‘Mailbag’ of 16th February is of interest, but his suggestion is fatally flawed. You do not solve a congested road problem
simply by taking the traffic away and making a ‘Walking Street’ - this just puts the problem somewhere else - in this case North Road, Pattaya Klang, and I suspect, the
hopelessly narrow Soi Buakhao would suffer.
Consider, Mr. Wenha: a person staying at the Montien Hotel wishes to go shopping for some reasonably bulky items at ‘Big C’ on 2nd Road; first he must go out
of the back entrance of his hotel as it is ‘no wheels’ at the front; he can then take a baht bus to his destination. Coming out later, well-loaded, he must cross 2nd Road and
take another baht bus northward, maybe through some side roads in the vicinity of City Hall, maybe go all the way to the Dolphin Roundabout, make a right turn into North Road and
trek up it almost to the bus station, make another right at the lights into 3rd Road, traverse the full length of this until the lights at Pattaya Klang are reached, make yet
another right here and add to the chaos on this already crowded road, and make another right outside the ‘Tops’ store to get home to the Montien. How far, how long, and what
will the baht bus driver ask for such a trek? Multiply such a journey by the hundreds of times daily that such moves would be called for, and what have you got? You have chaos, my
friend!
Mr. Wenha’s idea would obviously do much to empty the Sois between Beach and 2nd Road - there is nowhere for the traffic to go at the beach end with all Beach
Road barred to traffic. Has Mr. Wenha thought of the inconvenience to customers at the several hotels, as their tour buses for arriving and departing will not be able to pick up
and set down at the door; how would they like to walk part of the Soi with all their baggage?
3rd Road is connected to 2nd Road by few, if any Sois north of Pattaya Klang; those south of this road almost all start or end in Soi Buakhao, a place to be
avoided even now, and when traffic diverted from Beach Road also uses this narrow Soi, the position would become serious, if not impossible.
City Hall, I suggest, would be well employed taking a serious look at the parking problems in the city; Beach Road has everything - from motorbikes by the
thousand through private cars to tour buses, long term parked with impunity. The uncontrolled occupation of the sidewalks on this and other roads by vendors’ stalls, supplemented
by food-stalls at appropriate times of day, render the sidewalks almost unusable at times, forcing pedestrians to use the roadway, to their peril and at their own risk, of course.
Major cities in other countries have been forced to tackle the parking problem, why not Pattaya?
John D. Blyth
Answering Rory and Anton
Editor;
This is in the response to Rory and Anton, both of whom chose your publication to air their ignorance over gays, though from the tone of their letters, I’d say
it’s fear of gays that they really harbor. The letter writers chose words like ‘’imbalance,’’ ‘’condition,’’ ‘’disoriented,’’ ‘’affliction’’ and
‘’disorder’’ to describe homosexuality. These tags accurately apply to homosexuality only so much as they accurately apply to sexuality. Let’s face it Rory and Anton,
there are millions of people who would say Pattaya’s expats are imbalanced, afflicted, disoriented and suffer from a disorder because they desire to have sex with pretty young
bar girls. But I’d say wanting to have sex is a pretty natural drive in all of us. So please don’t think of the gay festival as a celebration of sexuality; it is a celebration
that gays are no longer seen in a shameful light by the majority of the world’s inhabitants. Like that burden Anton wrote of; it was a burden of ignorance — heterosexual’s
ignorance - shouldered by gays for centuries. We’re not trying to place it on your shoulders, Anton, we’re just relieving ourselves of it. And by joining the debate, you’ve
given us the opportunity to try to dispel some of these negative stereotypes. In other words, you just participated in our celebration. Thank you!
John
Re Gay Festival
Editor;
Gay Festival, May Festival, Water Festival or even as one writer to this column suggested a Bar Girl Festival. What all these homophobics are afraid of is beyond
me. All you people who are against the idea, are in fact keeping it in the public’s and readers of Pattaya Mail’s faces. You silly, silly people are giving a lot of mileage to
something you so doggedly wish to see go away. Everyone knows resistance attracts attention and you are feeding it. Congratulations you who don’t want it are doing a great job of
promoting it.
“One who can’t believe it”
Copyright 2001 Pattaya Mail Publishing Co. Ltd.
370/7-8 Pattaya Second Road, Pattaya City, Chonburi 20260, Thailand
Tel.66-38 411 240-1, 413 240-1, Fax:66-38 427 596; e-mail: [email protected]
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