HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Dolphins place is in the ocean

Upset by anti-gay sentiment

Official propaganda

Some believe it’s only a matter of time

Please fix the footpaths

Bali tragedy could be repeated in Pattaya

Truly disturbed by invasion of privacy

Eating meat is bad karma

Dolphins place is in the ocean

Dear Editor;

One of the worst things about the tourist trade in Thailand (or anywhere else) is its exploitation of animals. Dolphins are a particular sad example. The story by ‘A Reader’ forgot to mention anything about the conditions the dolphins were kept in.

Dolphins are intelligent aquatic mammals and their place is in the ocean not as a tourist attraction. It may just be acceptable to see them in their natural environment where, if conditions allow, they may choose to interact with humans. Keeping them in captivity is not acceptable and should not be encouraged.

If you want to see dolphins the best place to do it is get on a boat and go looking. The chances are pretty slim and you may need binoculars.

I was fortunate enough to see a number near Samasan last October, on a diving trip from Pattaya.

Peter
UK

Upset by anti-gay sentiment

Dear Letters Editor:

As a frequent visitor to Pattaya I, along with dozens of my company’s business folk, have spent thousands of dollars lavishly on meals and accommodation at some of Pattaya’s top hotels. I believe we have always obtained value for money and received excellent service.

However, I was dismayed to see the lurid anti gay comments from one of the managing directors printed in your paper. This person advocates driving gays out of Pattaya. Well, the comments have been printed throughout Europe, the USA, U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Gay visitors have been advised to give the hotel a very wide berth on future visits to Pattaya.

We do not have to tolerate your discrimination. We will spend our dollars with the other hotels that appreciate our twice-yearly loyal custom.

Dr. Colin P. Robinson

Official propaganda

Editor;

Your recent article on the raids at two nightspots for staying open after 2 a.m. ended with the usual official propaganda. The last paragraph indicated that a report would go to the regional police commander and the governor and could affect the establishments continued business in the future. Do the authorities really expect anyone to believe this? We all know that money will change hands in the form of official fines plus some additional non-accountable charges and it will be business as usual.

Laws such as closing times, the traffic legislation, etc., may have been enacted with the best of intentions, but were so easily converted to the personal gain for people who happily roll along thinking the public may actually believe the rubbish that passes for official statements.

D. Donnelly

Soi Soonvijai 4

New Petchburi Road

Bkk 10310

Some believe it’s only a matter of time

Editor;

Hello partying and clubbing members of Pattaya. If you think you are safe out at night here at a club, on Walking Street or any other large tourist venue (don’t need to mention the clubs do I?) after what happened in Bali over the weekend, you might want to think twice, have your head examined, or wear a lead suit and gas mask.

If you look right behind the famous Walking Street to an area that for some reason can stay open until 4:00 a.m. or 2 hours past the imposed government curfew and think those revelers are all making suits during the day, again follow my advise from the last sentence. If you ask why, no one person or any social campaign can explain this phenomenon, oh ya, that’s right!

Targeted and well-planned terrorism is now alive and well in Southeast Asia!

Staying in at night as the party is over,

Jomtien Joe

Please fix the footpaths

Editor:

To the mayor of Pattaya - I am a tourist who has come with his family to Pattaya every year for the last 9 years. While we don’t care about whether there are nude shows or not, because we never go out of our way to see them anyway (we don’t know if they exist now or not), we do think that something should be done about the footpaths in the city.

In our hometown we take great pride in having wide and clean footpaths that allow people to walk around, from one place to another with safety, even pleasure, because we usually have trees on them or flowerpots. An evening-stroll around the city (in the summer) is a real pleasure because we have these cared for walkways.

In Pattaya (as in Calcutta, we found) it’s highly dangerous to walk on what here are called footpaths. Most of the time there aren’t even any footpaths. People have to walk on the streets together with cars and motorbikes.

This is a real issue! Not whether there are hidden away nude shows or not. Or that the deckchairs on the beach are lined up same as tin-soldiers (troops on a parade ground). If one of my family members ever comes to fall or have any sort of accident because of the absence of good footpaths, we will never come back to Pattaya again. Safety is a major issue with us. A topless show cannot hurt us. A big pothole in the walkway can break our limbs.

Yours sincerely,

Percy W. Higginbotham

Amsterdam, NI.

Bali tragedy could be repeated in Pattaya

Dear Mailbag,

Everyone in the world is horrified by the recent terrorist attack in Bali which appears to be the work of Bin Laden’s fanatical Al Queda. The first thing that sprang to my mind was the obvious vulnerability of an attack on Pattaya. Apart from, I believe, the Hard Rock Cafe I can see no real evidence of a trained and capable security presence anywhere except when the American navy is in town.

Bali is a wake up call. Bear in mind that semtex will fit into a shoebox and obliterate completely any (nightclub) target. Semtex has been available to the IRA for decades and these terror organisations will have it.

There is a general belief that in Pattaya Bin Laden is a bit of a hero, hence all the disgusting tee shirts all over the place lauding his image. The cold hard fact is that apart from the inevitable appalling loss of life after a soft target attack, Pattaya as a holiday destination would be finished, as Bali will probably be for years.

The businesses in Pattaya controlling nightclubs, hotels and shopping centres must start now with a renewed vigilance and realise that they may be vulnerable and take the necessary precautions and forget the cost and simply remember that one successful attack means no more business and maybe no more Pattaya.

Best regards,

Richy

Truly disturbed by invasion of privacy

Editor;

I have been coming to Thailand since 1984; I have been here this time for 5 months. I’ve seen the ups and downs of Thailand during that period, but I am truly disturbed at the level of arrogance displayed at this time to foreigners who come here to invest, buy your products or just spend their hard earned money.

I happened to be (in a nightclub) the night it got raided. I left at around 2:30 a.m., so I wasn’t subject to being rounded up by the police, but I would have been furious to have been forced to give a urine sample without probable cause. Just because I had beer in my hand and was dancing past 2:00 a.m., is not probable cause.

I do not use drugs, I never have. I have nothing to hide.

When I left there must have been well over 350 people in club, according to your report 8 Thais and 2 foreigners tested positive for drugs. That means over 340 people (over 97%) were subjected to a rude, invasive and unwarranted procedure. Did the police apologize to these people? I doubt it.

The same law abiding citizens that you are more than happy to do business with during the day are the same law abiding citizens that in the evening go to a club, have a couple beers, dance and blow off a little steam. We shouldn’t be subject to a random drug test just because we were not wearing a watch!

By the way, if all civic officials and police were ordered to undergo a random drug test, I wonder how many would pass?

There is a saying, “The next step after arrogance is failure, so you better step back before it’s to late.”

Maxx Barke

Eating meat is bad karma

Editor;

I was amused to read (Pattaya and Naklua celebrate Vegetarian Festival Oct. 18) that if you’re a vegetarian nine days a year you will get “good karma”. But doesn’t that mean you’ll get bad karma the other 356 days a year when you’re eating dead animals? If you really want good karma, be a vegetarian all the time.

Eric Bahrt

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