HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Water festival is just poor excuse for acting stupid

Forget the gimmicks and clean the place up

Baywatch blues

Landfill scandal continues

Pattaya is becoming a concrete jungle

Might be better to find a new home for your beloved dog

Another traffic nightmare

Water festival is just poor excuse for acting stupid

Editor,

Water festival? What is it but an excuse to be stupid? Farangs shooting water guns in bars. My only hope is that they hit the electrical installations.

When riding a motorbike, a truck full of rowdy people will splash buckets of water in your face. My only hope is that they will fall down from the truck. If I want to get wet, I go swimming or take a shower after removing my clothes. If I were armed with a water gun, I could understand when someone splashed water on me.

I could stay home, but it would be better if these people only splashed water on each other. This is not a festival, but down right plague. Splashing/shooting water in someone’s face is an insult, and a sign of disrespect.

It isn’t nice to go to a restaurant, and enjoy a dinner while you feel like you ‘peed’ in your jeans. Your hair looks like a wet puddle; cigarettes and money in your shirt are all wet. Then you wonder why your date doesn’t call to say she’s late, only to discover that your mobile phone is ruined by water.

Next year I will go out of Thailand, while these people are celebrating. Maybe I will take a trip to water world, where water is clean.

Brian Christiansen

Forget the gimmicks and clean the place up

Dear Sir;

Being a tourist, I feel compelled to allow my own observations. I have come to the same conclusion as most of your letter writers. Pattaya is declining in popularity very quickly.

I hear many moans and groans from bar, shop and restaurant owners (Thais included) that profits and numbers are getting lower every year.

It seems that the powers-that-be are on a self-destruct mission. They know nothing of what the tourist really wants and needs in Pattaya. It is simple. We want to go back to how it once was and we need it to happen now.

Pattaya is a great little city and makes a welcome change from the usual run of the mill tourist towns. But if Pattaya changes to a regimented ‘can’t do this - can’t do that’ scenario tourists will just not bother with it.

The closing of bars at 2 a.m. is hard enough, but add to that the ridiculous Boredom Fair on Saturdays and the traffic jams that are caused by it is too much inconvenience thrust upon us. The Jomtien Beach paving and regimented deck-chair line-up is a nuisance, as is the clampdown on the copiers of labeled goods. Take away all of this and we may as well holiday in Europe, save 9 hours flying time and 300 pounds on the package.

What really needs to happen here is to clean up the streets and the beaches. The litter is everywhere and it looks and smells disgusting, especially the beaches where bottles and plastic trash litter the beaches.

Why can’t it be cleaned up by say the beggars and those that are not capable of real work? They could be rewarded for say a full bag of rubbish.

I think a well run survey by the hotels and airports would establish why we came here. The bars, girls, nightlife, golf, restaurants, copied merchandise, the cheaper hospitality of it all are the reasons we love this place, take that away and we stay away.

Can the owners of such places form a committee to conduct their own surveys and petitions and submit them in huge numbers so that this whole mess can be sorted out quickly?

Yours sincerely,

P. Cavallini

Baywatch blues

Dear Pattaya Mail,

Having lived in Pattaya for many years it saddens me to see Pattaya lose so much of the tourist business to other places. Lets face it; Pattaya is becoming less tourist friendly. I really cannot understand the logic of the system. For months now police have been controlling Jomtien Beach, banning the use of plastic chairs. Due to a back problem I cant use low deck chairs so its bad news for me.

The police authorities also have removed cupboards and made life impossible for the people who run the beach. This week police removed chairs that had been moved so it seems that one cannot move a chair to join friends or avoid the sun. The use of gas is banned so no hot drinks.

The authorities want to improve the beach so they are building a ridiculous walkway that actually halves the size of the beach. If they wanted to improve the beach they should have widened the existing road and made a drainage system to avoid flooding in the rain season. Put taps along the beach so visitors could wash their hands. Toilets could have been built and Thai style cabanas at each section so the beach owners could serve their customers. Now even cupboards are banned so there’s no storage space allowed to keep glasses or equipment. No hot water to wash things. Do the authorities, I wonder, ever take hygiene into consideration or consider what tourists needs are?

I used to enjoy sunsets at Jomtien; now the beach has to close at six thirty. They do not want vendors or massage and manicure services, have they forgotten that tourists come here for a holiday and actually enjoy these services?

It seems to me that with each and every so called improvement in Pattaya disaster reigns. First they close the discos early forgetting some tourists come to play, now they are ruining the beach. Surely someone on the committee has some common sense? Real improvements would be filling in the pot holes that cause so many accidents, removing all the litter that we see dumped in back streets. The recent brainwave of closing the beach road has caused traffic chaos all over Pattaya. So holiday makers, let’s sit with baited breath and see what the next improvement will be.

And in response to the complaints about the Rabbits’ golf buggy; I think whoever complained must be mad. Many people are grateful that they can use such a service, this is a positive improvement and we should be delighted that the owners have opened such a tasteful resort and good restaurant for everyone to enjoy.

Yours,

Mr. J Thomas

Landfill scandal continues

Editor;

Remember that unauthorized landfill project on Pattaya/Jomtien boundary line? Well the landfill stopped for many weeks but has recently resumed, and isn’t it interesting that now they are doing it at night. The only problem is that the residents of the area have to put up with the noise at night instead of in the daytime. I don’t expect corruption to ever end in Thailand, but wouldn’t it be great if/when someone got caught with their pants down, that they would move on to other illegal acts and not pursue the same acts that got them in trouble in the first place?

Charles Wolfe

Pattaya is becoming a concrete jungle

Dear Sir;

As you obviously know there is a building epidemic in Pattaya at the moment. I feel the city planning department is being very short sighted. How many more shop houses are needed when the existing ones are still empty?

Even the marsh lands between Soi 17 and Soi Kapi are being filled to build yet more houses. This fill-in will caused flooding to all the surrounding areas, but as long as one developer can make a quick profit for himself and his friends, who cares?

Well I do, I have lived in Pattaya for 10 years and in another 10 years I would like to see a few green open areas left. You say you would like a better class of tourist to visit Pattaya. That will only happen if you provide a better environment for them to visit, a few park areas with trees to walk round like every other city.

If this matter is not addressed soon, I believe in a few years Pattaya will become a concrete slum, and your tourists and long time residents will have moved on to greener pastures.

Sincerely yours,

Long time resident

Might be better to find a new home for your beloved dog

Dear C Schloemer;

Based on my experience seven years ago when I brought my canine pal from England I would advise Ron Fleitman to think very carefully before importing his dog.

Firstly, if he wants to see his pet again he must be sure it is carried on the same flight that he uses which should be fine until he lands at Bangkok airport.

Your information is correct but fails to address the problems and dangers which will most likely arise immediately following arrival.

Even though the dog will be classed as “accompanied baggage” it will have travelled in a container in the cargo hold and so will be off-loaded as cargo, treated as such, and taken to the incoming cargo warehouse which is off-limits to all but Thai employees.

The dog will receive no special consideration and its immediate welfare needs will be completely disregarded. It will be given no water and will be dumped in any convenient spot surrounded by boxes and other cargo, and it will be left alone in fear and utter despair.

In the meantime Ron Fleitman will have to run the gauntlet of Thai customs and officialdom. He will be interrogated by several officers in sequence each one will demand sight of his passport and other documentation. They will want several photocopies but there will be no access to a photocopier on site. He will be asked the value of his pet pal (which must be very high of course - why else would someone spend all that money to transport a mere dog to the land of millions of canines?), and after some negotiation will be charged duty on the agreed “value” and the cost of the flight.

Pleadings such as the dog is regarded as one of the family and loved will fall on deaf ears.

All of this will take between five to eight hours and if not completed in that time Ron will have to return the next day assuming of course that is not a Saturday or Sunday or bank holiday when customs are closed.

I was lucky and got my pal released after eight hours but he was in a poor state. I was told that many less robust animals do not survive the ordeal.

So, Ron I know it is difficult to contemplate permanent separation but it really could be in your dog’s and your own best interests to find a good home for him in the US and not bring him along.

Eric Southcott

Sriracha

Another traffic nightmare

Dear Sirs,

Well, it is 11 a.m. on a Saturday morning and traffic on Beach Road is backed up past the Royal Garden Shopping Center. The left lane is at a stand still, solid baht buses all the way to Walking Street (over 70), and the right lane is moving at a snail’s pace. As you finally get near the Pattaya Pier (about a 20 minute trip from the Royal Garden), the baht buses are double and triple parked just waiting for a few sailors. Almost all the baht buses are empty and anyone with a little common sense realizes it is senseless to board one of the buses anyway because of the traffic jam and therefore much quicker to walk.

The police are nowhere to be seen, so the baht bus drivers do whatever they like. If anyone thinks the baht bus drivers can regulate themselves as to a limited number of buses assigned to specific routes, color codes or not, they are crazy. They are just as crazy if they think the baht bus drivers will follow a new code of ethics or driving standards established by the city council. Anyone who has been in Pattaya longer then five minutes and has half a brain knows there is little if any enforcement of driving rules or regulations. The so-called strict enforcement of the motorcycle driver and passenger helmet law as of April 1 is a great example or joke. I have yet to see a passenger on a motorcycle in Pattaya with a helmet and I would guess at least 50% of the drivers never wear a helmet. One can easily list a 100 other examples. The bottom line is zero enforcement = zero compliance. The days when police are present and regulate the traffic flow around the Walking Street curve, traffic moves smoothly. As soon as they leave, it immediately backs-up as the baht buses park and block lanes of traffic.

I am happy to see the city council is spending lots of money to improve Pattaya’s image and a make it more enjoyable for tourists and residents, but solving the traffic problem should be at the top of the list. A good place to start would be an effective enforcement program.

A wishful thinker!

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