HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Ripping off the farangs again

Soi Khaotalo is a mess

Re: Eric Bahrt’s: letter a fool to generalise

We have a drastic water shortage

Rabid dogs don’t read

Kudos to “Bill”

Ripping off the farangs again

Editor;

I have been living and working in Thailand for more than 3 years now, but still manage to get caught in the 2-tier price system. Usually I ignore it and just pay up, but this one was too much to swallow.

I had suffered from a bad throat for 3 months and no pharmacist could offer any help. So I found a specialist ear, nose and throat doctor in Soi Nernphlubwaan. I went to see him and he examined me very professionally with all the right kind of equipment, etc.

He said it was nothing serious but I would need to have a nasal spray and a throat spray and some medicines. He said the sprays were special from overseas and would cost me 1300 baht. The medicines were also special and came from abroad!

My bill for 4 minutes consultation and these expensive foreign medicines was 2500 baht. The second visit one week later took 1 1/2 minutes and some more special medicines at a cost of 1500 baht. The third visit a further week later took 45 seconds, more medicine and a bill for 1000 baht.

I went to several pharmacies with my special medicines and found I could buy them over the counter at very different prices, some of them 75% less than the doctor charged me from his stock. The 1300 baht inhaler from the doctor could be bought between 200 and 283 baht, the medicines at 57 baht each could be bought for 10-15 baht each.

So beware of specialist doctors ... they can see us coming!

Disillusioned Farang yet again

Soi Khaotalo is a mess

Dear Sir

We have heard a great deal recently about the condition of Siam Country Cub Road. However, nothing is mentioned regarding the deplorable state of Soi Khaotalo. I think this is one for your bay watch camera team. Raw sewage runs down the soi, the craters of the moon are challenged in their size and depth and all in all provides a miserable daily experience for both Thai and farang residents. The aforementioned sewage is used to damp down the dust and becomes airborne when dry. Will the person responsible for this disgusting state of affairs resign in shame?

Khaotalo Resident

Re: Eric Bahrt’s: letter a fool to generalise

Dear Sir,

I read Eric Bahrt’s reply to my last letter to PM and, unlike Mr. Bahrt, I do have a copy of my original letter. In this letter, I said that “if his (Dr. Corness’) kind of thinking had prevailed 60 years ago, he would probably he speaking German and saluting a swastika today!”

I don’t know Dr. Corness and don’t know his views on WW2 but they have nothing to do with this discussion. And which countries supported which country during the Iran-Iraq war also are irrelevant. I’m sure Mr. Bahrt realizes that interests, loyalties, and minds change with time. A good example of this is American veterans who are now part of the peace movement.

As for former President Jimmy Carter - he is already universally recognized as the worst US President of the last century. He was paralyzed into inaction in 1979 when Iranians took 70 Americans hostage in Tehran, and inserted himself (then a private citizen) into the North Korean problem in 1994 encouraging the subsequent agreement between the US and NK, which may yet result in a nuclear war in Asia. And as far as the “director of the American CIA” statement, the director has since testified several times before the US congress in the last several months that Iraq is a major threat.

I’m sorry that Mr. Bahrt does not have the facts on his side, but he certainly proves the old idiom that people who don’t have the facts on their side resort to name-calling.

Al Ferron, Pattaya

We have a drastic water shortage

Dear Editor

“We have a drastic water shortage!” Pattaya Water Authority. I have been following the water shortage problems for some time now and you might think this to be a farcical headline, but I believe the problem is a serious one that needs further consideration and as you read on a Save Water Campaign might be appropriate.

Our last “wet season” was unusually dry and monitoring showed that this has been the same since 1998, but no action has been taken until recently when the idea of a new pipeline was proposed as reported in a recent Pattaya Mail. This will take at least 4/5 years to construct even if permission were given this week. In the meantime we all know the problem so what can Pattaya do until then?

Forget drugs, social order and crime - a bigger threat is with us and that is the lack of water for the city, which will effect long term development and tourism if not solved now. Already areas are cut off for long periods of time and pressure is permanently reduced. How would you cope with no water at all for three weeks as residents in parts of Jomtien had to recently? Hotels are buying water at a cost of 100 million baht to satisfy water hungry guests so that they can have three showers a day using clean towels every time and sleeping on new linen daily instead of campaigning to improve things and to save and simply ask guests to help as many hotels all over the world do.

In January the governor of Chonburi, Sawarng Srisarkun investigated the problem and as if not to scare tourists off, found the supply to be “not yet at critical levels” according to Kamol Pachakorn the manager of Pattaya Water Authority. But only a month later, after increasing supply by between 50% and 100% from the five Pattaya reservoirs, Kamol told still complaining residents, “We have a drastic water shortage and reserves are dangerously low!” Now the problem has reached the deputy minister of interior who reportedly said, “we are not yet in great danger of a water crisis.” Who are you to believe?

The present situation is desperate in my opinion and from recent views of the five lakes supplying the area you can see we are in for a very serious time. Huay Charknok reservoir is empty (as my picture shows) and others so low you can walk across them. Pressure is down and many residents rely on tanks to fill during the night at the dribble rate if available. Others are buying water but I see many tankers filling at dreadful holes and wastewater sites around the city and I wonder where this is going and about the health risks involved.

It is time for action, not words, better cooperation between the various authorities would help and a ban on new buildings (or water connection) of any kind until the pipeline arrives would hasten the pipeline I am sure. A lead should be given by the City to SAVE WATER. Many Spanish tourist cities and others have regular water saving campaigns and it does not harm tourism, so why not here? Ban the washing of cars, hosepipes and watering gardens by the tanker full as seen recently at many hotels and condos across the city.

The Pattaya Mail have reported the facts about your supply so think twice about throwing away precious water, try to save it by simple methods. Turn off the running tap, forget the garden for a time or use wastewater on it, shower with a friend! Hotels and condos stop watering the grass, arrange for linen to be changed less often and most of all get the city and water authority into account for their lack of real action to date. A “Save Water Now!” campaign might be a start. If not, with reservoirs at their lowest in recent memory, I agree with your feature writer that we face the worst water crisis in recent Pattaya history.

Signed,

Peter Topman

Rabid dogs don’t read

Dear Editor,

On April 18th it was reported that the mauling of 11-year-old boy by a gang of dogs has prompted Bangkok’s City Hall to tackle the problem of stray dogs.

Bangkok Governor Samak Sundaravej said a pack of starving stray dogs attacked a boy at Pathumwan Institute of Technology. The dogs were detained for two weeks for a rabies check.

Asked why Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) hadn’t removed the dogs as requested by the institute before the tragedy occurred, Samak said BMA would have taken the action certainly, if it had been asked.

Dear me. Just where DO the Bangkok authorities live? Another city? Another country?

Noppakrit Jantik, assistant director of Kasetsart University’s Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital said that according to the World Health Organization (WHO), dogs must remain in custody for 150-180 days after they attack people. In Thailand, they commonly are quarantined for only a month.

So what about Pattaya and its environs? Are our authorities more on the ball than they are in the capital city? Packs of stray dogs rule the streets and sois here and most of them do not have collars and tags.

Oh, yes! We have all seen the signs reading “Rabies free area” along stretches of Jomtien Beach and Pattaya Beach. Excuse me if I point out that firstly - dogs don’t read. Secondly, rabid stray dogs do not observe boundaries. Of all the laughable attempts at public relations hubris in Pattaya City, this is one of the most amusing. Who thinks up these hair-brained ideas?

C.S.

Kudos to “Bill”

Dear Pattaya Mail,

I would like to commend Bill (“It’s a Strange World”). He had the guts to say what so many won’t; The United States is, and must be the “world’s policeman”. Piggy-backing on his sentiments, I feel compelled to add a few thoughts of my own, as an Operation Iraqi Freedom Veteran.

The next time someone wishes to condemn the US for its “war-mongering”, they should examine what gave them the right to voice their opinion. If they are Iraqi, they are just enjoying their newly-found rights. If they are Thai, they can speak freely only because the US defeated the Japanese that occupied their country. If they are Dutch, Italian, French, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, or from almost any other European country, they can voice their opinion only because the US helped to oust the Nazis from their land.

I can go on and on. However, I think most of your readers have gotten my point by now. I am a veteran of both Gulf Wars and never regret the hardships I endured or the irreplaceable months of my life it cost me, because I can see what a difference it’s made in those tormented people’s lives.

Next time one of your readers is typing a letter denouncing the US for its current endeavor, or for an upcoming one, they should reflect on why they can. If the US won’t be the “World’s Policeman”, who will?

Michael

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