HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Comparing Pattaya/Jomtien to Hua Hin

More road works again

Feeling special

No water, again

Treating the symptoms and not the illness

Keep your hands off Walking Street

Poor driving has nothing to do with religion

Comparing Pattaya/Jomtien to Hua Hin

Editor;
For all of you out there that habitually criticize the beaches of Pattaya and Jomtien, please take a close look at the recent photo of Hua Hin Beach. The debris is not only extensive, but dangerous.

While rotting vegetation forms the major part of the contamination, tin cans and glass bottles abound. Even fragile light bulbs are to be seen and of course, horse dung is everywhere!

Happy ex-pat in Pattaya

More road works again

Dear Editor,
I have recently returned to Pattaya for one of the four visits I make every year and once again I’m appalled at the state of Beach Road due to yet more construction.

Yes, I have heard the work is intended to make the sea frontage more attractive by removing the mass of electricity cables currently draped along it, but why now?

I have to ask how long it will be after completion when it is all dug up again for much needed modern phone cable system!

I have been visiting Pattaya for more than thirty years and during the last fifteen it is hard to remember a single occasion when the city council have not subjected us to dirt mess and dangerous conditions along the seafront.

The national government seems intent on driving away the visitors who came here for the “used to be” excellent nightlife and the city council appears determined to make family beach holidays as awful and dangerous as possible.

Yes of course we are told how wonderful it will be when the work is completed but how many times have I heard that story? Sadly most of us will have long since passed on to a better and less construction ridden place before someone in government stands up and says enough is enough.

Perhaps when all is lost the bureaucrats in authority will rue the day when they killed the goose that laid the golden eggs!

Yours Sadly,
Ken Jeffreys from England

Feeling special

Editor;
I read gleefully all the complaints from local expatriate residents about how they are not charged the same prices as locals - they forget they are guests in a foreign country. If you don’t like it (go home). I visit Pattaya 3 times a year and I love being overcharged - it makes me feel special.
Alex Pollock

No water, again

Dear Editor,
About 8 years ago a similar letter was published in the Pattaya Mail’s “Mailbag”... it seems that the same “problem” is occurring again.

In short, the people living in Soi Roy Lang no longer have any water. The water company has closed the pipe without giving any technical reason. So we need to buy water from the guys bringing it with their car, and pay them 120 baht for delivery.

If the “problem” lasts one month, our total bill could reach 1800/3600 baht instead of about 64 baht!

Good “business” isn’t it?

I hope that the publication of this letter in your newspaper will have some influence and bring the water again to the residents of Soi Roy Lang.

Thanks.
Philippe

Treating the symptoms and not the illness

Dear Sir;
The Thai government’s eagerness to limit people’s pleasure by reducing the opening hours of entertainment venues is symptomatic of the lazy approach of politicians worldwide to the problems of reducing crime. By implementing such a measure, which is relatively simple to enforce, politicians can claim that they are taking steps to reduce all kinds of problems, such as juvenile delinquency, underage drinking, drug abuse and antisocial behaviour, thus absolving themselves of any further responsibility to find solutions to the real causes of these inconveniently difficult issues.

In the same way, governments in Europe and elsewhere have trumpeted various high-profile curfews, antisocial behaviour orders and on-the-spot fines, round-the-clock licensing hours, curtailed licensing hours, zero tolerance policies, needle exchange programmes, parental fines, and numerous other ideas. Most of these have had at least temporary effects of one kind or another on the symptoms, but none of them has had the slightest effect on any of the root problems that they claim to address.

Early closing has a number of effects. Damage to the tourism industry, so often referred to on your letters page, is only one. Since holidaymakers will still not want to go to bed at 1 a.m., early closing laws will greatly increase the opportunities for baksheesh for those who are tasked with enforcing the laws. The numbers of otherwise innocent tourists and those serving them who will now be breaking the law will be enormous. And as tourist numbers inevitably decline, where will all the workers currently employed in the entertainment sector go? Back to their hometowns, where in the absence of any jobs, many will turn to drink, drugs and crime anyway.

Aiming for full employment and a national health service, putting into place at least a basic social security system, introducing and enforcing a fair taxation system for both businesses and individuals, really targeting corruption and ensuring basic education for all: these are terribly hard things to do, but even one minor achievement in any one of these areas will prove far more effective than sending people to bed at 1 a.m.

Yours sincerely
Richard Peacock
United Kingdom

Keep your hands off Walking Street

Dear Editor,
I wonder if anybody else felt the same way as I did when I looked at that “Artist Rendering of Walking Street” (Vol.X11 No.44).

I couldn’t believe anyone in their right mind would wish to tear the heart out of a buzzing, vibrant, unique and wonderful Walking Street that millions of people from all walks of life have travelled thousands of miles from all corners of the world to enjoy.

Just strolling from one end to the other, taking in all the colourful sights and sounds, enjoying being part of this most outrageous human circus, that’s full of fun and laughter.

People love to come here to spend their hard earned cash. Wining and dining overlooking the sea, watching the fishing boats on the horizon. After, they stroll around buying suits, paintings, gold rings and silks. They also have the chance to let their hair down and enjoy a drink or two and party the night away! And why not? What is life all about if you can’t have some fun?

I have lived in this unusual wonderful town for the last 12 years and like many falangs I have my little moans, but Walking Street is in my heart. I sit watching people, watching people!

It’s absolutely wonderful…

Now, take a long look again at that “Artist Rendering of Walking Street” and try to spot any kind of soul in that picture. You will be right; it’s completely soulless and clinical…

With no thought of what the normal people (who in their thousands return year after year) want to see, they want to turn our “party town” into another characterless Singapore.

I ask myself, “If they want to tear down our town and turn it into a boring, concrete, bleak seaside town which looks just the same as our boring seaside towns in England and France, why don’t they do it in Jomtien?”

That way the powers that be can have both. A soulless boring seaside town on one side of the hill and a vibrant party town on the other side of the hill. That way they can get the revenue from both instead of just one. Why destroy the golden goose?

Remember ‘Dead Duck Square’ and ‘The Market’? All that glitters is not gold.

We love our Walking Street. Keep your hands off!
M.J.B.

Poor driving has nothing to do with religion

Editor:
I just have to reply to Roger’s letter of 5 November: Thais are just as scared of dying as anyone else. In Mexico and the Philippines the population is very Catholic and very religious. They are also poor drivers. My girlfriend’s comment after reading your letter, “Falang Bah! One Thousand Percent!”

Last Monday, my daughter and I took the bus up to Bangkok. After about the fifth time the driver slammed on the brakes, my daughter asked me why the bus driver drives like her Mom and not like me – “You never have to stop quickly”. I responded with, “The Thai government doesn’t expect or require people to be good drivers so they simply aren’t good drivers. They have to stop quickly because they never took the time to learn how to drive properly or safely.”

I was then asked to explain what I meant by high standards, so I used this analogy. I expect you to do well in school; if I didn’t expect you to do well when you started school, you probably wouldn’t do as well as you do now.

Because I have high expectations, you have come to have high standards on your own and you now enjoy school and going well for your own satisfaction and no longer just to please me. I then asked her if I stopped looking at her report card, would she stop liking school. Her reply, “No, I like being number one in my class.”

She then began to make some parallels. She concluded that I park between the lines because I enjoy driving and parking between the lines is like getting an “A” on a test in school. I can back into a parking space or parallel park because I enjoy driving and I like doing this well just like she enjoys the fact that she has memorized her multiplication tables better than anyone else in her class. So she concluded, “High standards are when you do things better than you have to because you just want to and no one has to tell you if you are doing good (well); you just kind of know it.” I think she’s got this abstract concept under her belt.

Roger, the poor driving in Thailand, notably Pattaya, has little to do with religion and everything to do with low standards. It doesn’t take a lot of baht to have high standards, just the attitude and the will. As my daughter has already begun to realize, high standards have benefits, even if it’s just personal satisfaction. When driving, high standards can be the difference between life and death, or living life as a cripple. Contrary to your line of thinking, most Thais do worry about dying in auto crashes and are really angry that their government doesn’t take aggressive action against the “insane” driver who threatens their lives. If anything, it’s unfortunate that Buddhists tend to avoid conflict instead of considering a good proverbial “Tar and Feathering” of their ineffective politicians and civil servants.

I don’t think my daughter will suffer with this problem when she grows up; she already has designs on the PM’s job; that is unless she becomes a doctor.

Pattaya “Beach” Bum

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