Bangpra Reservoir, the main reservoir for Chonburi,
is still full and has enough water to get through this dry season.

Ariyawat Nuamsawat
Chonburi’s Irrigation Department says there will be plenty of water to go around during the usually dry winter months.
Bunsom Yutithampinyo, head of water distribution and irrigation system adjustments, said the area actually has more water than a year ago and he doesn’t foresee any shortages before the traditional rainy season begins in May.
He said area reservoirs had 113 million cu. meters of water on Nov. 1, up from 103 million cubic meters the year before. More than 126 million cu. meters of water was transferred from the Nong Plalai Reservoir Nov. 1, topping up local reserves to more than 186 million cu. meters.
Bunsom estimated Chonburi will use about 130 million cu. meters before rains begin in earnest. An additional 17 million cu. meters will be used for agriculture, 36 million cu. meters for industrial production and 3 million cu. meters for ecological systems.
Should the dry months last longer than planned, the area has still more backup, Bunsom said. The Brangpa Reservoir still has 66 million cu. meters of water remaining.
Long-term, the region’s water problems may become a thing of the past as construction of a new pipeline linking reservoirs with the lower Chao Phraya Basin begins this year. Currently about 400 million cu. meters of water is not being utilized. Once the pipelines are complete in 2013, about 70 million cu. meters of that will be headed to Chonburi.

Fisherman snags bomb on way to work

Boonlua Chatree
A Banglamung fisherman landed an unexpected catch when he found an unexploded bomb on a soi on his way to work.

A local policeman points to the explosive devise.

Sompong Thongpliew, 45, alerted authorities after he discovered the metal cylinder with a bolt on top wrapped with tape on Soi Wat Bunsampan 14. Police cordoned off the area and brought in the Royal Thai Navy Demolition Section to assist.
Pol. Col. Somnuk Changate speculated the device had been thrown away by local teenagers. A modified M-76 grenade, it had frightened the fisherman who wasn’t sure what it was when he first picked it up.

Suspected drunken city worker smashes car into shops, injures 4

Onlookers inspect the damage of what was once a car.

Boonlua Chatree
A city security guard suspected of driving drunk injured himself and three others when he plowed his Honda Civic into a Sukhumvit Road car audio shop and into a neighboring restaurant.
Driver Kanet Krongchon, 30, and Sutat Honyaem, 30, were both seriously injured as their vehicle split in half upon impact in the early hours of Jan. 16. Both employed in the Huay Yai sub-district office, Kanet is the son of a police sergeant and Sutat is the son of a Banglamung village headman.
Narongsak Thatsorn, 30, and his son Weerachai, 11, sustained minor injuries while they were sleeping in the NPK Car Accessories shop.
Somphob Thongsum, owner of the damaged restaurant, said he was cooking for customers when he heard a car approach at high speed. It then lost control, plowed into the audio store and careened into his shop.
NPK owner Waewta Tasanasorn said it was fortunate her store was closed at the time as the accident would certainly have killed someone. However, her store sustained thousands of baht in damage and she will be pursing the driver, who was taken from the scene smelling of alcohol.

Burglar’s tactics shock housemaid

Boonlua Chatree
A Thai housemaid got quite the shock when a burglar incapacitated her with an electric stun gun before stealing her valuables.

Wasana Tao-A-non explains to police what happened.

Wasana Tao-A-non, 26, a maid for a German man on Soi Pratamnak 5, was alone in the house Jan. 15 when she heard a motorbike park out front. She checked to see who it was, but saw no one until she was hit in the head and knocked to the ground.
She shouted for help but before she could escape a tall teenager shocked her several times in the neck. The boy then took 6,000 baht, bank books and two mobile phones from her handbag.
The thief didn’t steal anything from the house, perhaps fearing neighbors heard her calls for help. Police are now investigating.

Icelandic man drugged, robbed by streetwalkers

Boonlua Chatree
An Icelandic tourist who picked up three women off the street outside his Soi Buakhao guesthouse woke up with a big headache and a much smaller amount of money the next morning.

Sigurdur Hafstensson shows police his empty wallet, emptied by women who drugged and robbed him.

Sigurdur Hafstensson, 54, called police early Jan. 16 to complain that his planned party with the three women of the night didn’t go as planned. He told officers one woman gave him a glass of water upon entering his hotel room and he passed out. Besides drugging him, he said the woman also stole 8,000 baht, $2,500 and two mobile phones.
The officers checked the hotel desk and discovered that it was still under construction and not officially open. Hafstensson was the first guest and therefore there was no security camera footage available. Still hoping police can arrest the women, the tourist gave their descriptions to officers at Pattaya Police Station.

German dies while waiting for doctor

Boonlua Chatree
A diabetic German man died in his Jomtien Beach condominium while waiting for a doctor to arrive.
Friedrich Klaus Dietrich, 60, died with a friend and two caretakers standing by in his View Talay B condo Jan. 15. They had been waiting for a physician to come after Dietrich reported feeling tired and ill.
Authorities found him fully dressed lying on his bed with no signs of violence or disarray. Medics also found a large supply of diabetes medicine and presumed the German died of complications from the disease or a heart attack.

Italian dies, German seriously injured in motorcycle collision

Boonlua Chatree
An Italian man died and a German was injured when their motorcycles collided early Jan. 17.
David Tomasi, 35, was pronounced dead at the scene on the Soi Kopai / So Bongkot intersection with South Pattaya Road. He died of injuries sustained in the accident, including a broken skull and numerous broken bones. He had not been wearing a helmet. German Raimund Norbert, 35, was taken to Pattaya Memorial Hospital with serious injuries.
Witnesses stated that Tomasi was driving quickly along South Pattaya Road on a Suzuki Hayate motorcycle with Norbert on a Honda PC Ex. Witnesses reports vary with some claiming the German tried to overtake another vehicle and lost control and others claiming the Italian cut into the opposing lane to avoid traffic.
The one thing most agree on, however, is that had Tomasi been wearing a helmet, he may still be alive, no matter whose careless driving was to blame for the high-speed collision.

Musical arts students learn to sing a military tune

Patcharapol Panrak
About 500 students from Mathayom Sangkeet Wittaya School in Sattahip were given lessons in discipline, manners and tolerance from trainers at the Royal Thai Navy’s Recruit Training Center in Bang Saray.
The Jan. 12 excursion also focused on developing the students’ interest and talents in music. The musical arts school accepts both Thai and international students and offers formal training in music, as well as university preparation courses.
Field trip leader Kanika Yaempairoh said administrators believed that the students would benefit from learning how the military instills discipline in its troops and that the education camp will benefit them as citizens in the long run.

Some students had their faces painted whilst others sang a military tune.

Chatchai wins Ban Suan mayoral race

Theerarak Suthathiwong
After contested and chaotic ballot counting, Chatchai “Ek” Chatlim of the Ban Suan Democracy Group has been officially announced as the winner of that municipality’s mayoral election.

Chatchai “Ek” Chatlim of the Ban Suan Democracy Group has won the Ban Suan mayoral race.
Results from the Ban Suan City Council elections were also announced Jan. 14 with the Democracy Group taking 14 of 16 seats. The newly formed Ban Suan New Look Group won the other two seats.
Ballot counting had started Jan. 10 but was halted by a complaint from New Look mayoral candidate Chakkrwan Tangprakob, who was trying to become the latest member of the locally powerful Kunplome family to win office. Chakkrwan, son of former Ban Suan municipality head Wattana “Kamnan Nong” Tangprakob and Somnuan Kunplome, the head of Huay Kapi Sub-district since 2002, protested that some ballots didn’t have the seal of the Chonburi Election Commission.
The ballot boxes were then resealed and locked up in a police vehicle until all four parties contesting the election could send their representatives to monitor the vote count. With the mass media also in attendance, it proved a chaotic scene but, in the end, Chatchai was found to be the winner with 9,209 votes while Chakrawan finished second with 8,318 votes. Monthol Theera Tanatheerapong of the Raorak Ban Suan Group finished third with 4,037 votes and Sawatchai Chamchamrat from the Ban Suan New Power Group ended up with just 347 votes.
Total turnout was 23,564 people out of 44,962 registered voters. Only 21,911 ballots were ruled valid and 178 ballots were thrown out for not having the election commission seal.
CEC Director Pulsak Sangkaew downplayed fraud accusations saying the ballots missing the seals were probably mistakenly not stamped by commission staff.

CAT, city sign deal to bring fiber-optic broadband to Pattaya

Vimolrat Singnikorn
CAT Telecom has plans to cure the slow-Internet blues of Pattaya residents by making the city the first in its nationwide rollout of “Fiber to the Premises” broadband access network for residential and business users.

(2nd from left) Mayor Itthiphol Kunplome (left) and CAT Telecom President Jirayut Rungsrithong (right) sign an agreement to bring FTTP services to Pattaya.

CAT’s two-phase project has an initial budget of 500 million baht. The first phase will see direct fiber connections to Beach, Second and Third roads with the second phase connecting all of Pattaya, Jomtien Beach, Banglamung and Nongprue. Construction will take about 10 months.
At the Jan. 19 signing of the FTTP memorandum of understanding between the city and CAT, Mayor Itthiphol Kunplome said that as Pattaya expands and becomes a more-popular tourist and economic center, available telecommunications infrastructure must be improved.
In addition to simple Internet access, the super high-speed fiber-optic cables will connect CCTV system, water plants, traffic control and more.
CAT Telecom in July approved a 6 billion baht plan to roll out FTTP technology to major provinces across the country within three years, initially targeting 300,000 high-speed service users. CAT plans to collaborate with utility providers to share existing resources including electricity poles to help deliver its fiber connections to customers’ premises.

Sucker fish panic in Naklua

Theerarak Suthatiwong
A deadly tide, not poison, is believed to be behind a mass die-off of remora “sucker fish” in the Naklua Canal.
A crowd of Naklua Market-area residents went into a tizzy when hundreds of the algae-eating fish were seen floating on the surface Jan. 19. Residents feared the city had poisoned the canal to kill off the bottom feeders, which might end up poisoning them too.

A Naklua resident shows reporters some of the dead fish seen floating in the Naklua Canal.

Deputy Mayor Verawat Khakhay quickly put down the rumors saying the city wasn’t exactly sure why the fish died, but that most likely it was due to tidal changes.
That morning saw a very low tide that left only a small amount of water in the canal, which quickly heated up. When high tide returned, the canal was flooded with cooler water that sent the remora into shock, he said.
Nonetheless, some dead fish were taken for examination to be sure it was nothing more sinister than nature behind the suckers’ demise.

Ride Robert, ride

Frenchman sets out to bicycle around the world

Robert Lambrich has been biking in nations across
the world to encourage people to use bikes instead of cars.

Theerarak Suthathiwong
In the movies, Forrest Gump ran across America when his mother died. When Robert Lambrich’s Thai wife died, he decided to bicycle around the world.
The 45-year-old French national was spotted on Sukhumvit Road in Pattaya Jan. 15. He was quite the sight, with no shirt, dirty shorts and a few belongings on the back of his $300 Dutch bicycle. Before he stopped to chat, he waved to passers by, many of whom waved back or even took pictures.
Lambrich said his wife died in a car accident about four years ago and ever since he’s been biking in nations across the world to encourage people to use bikes instead of cars to both prevent accidents and reduce global warming.
To date he’s traveled through 15 countries, including Pakistan, Russia, China, Vietnam, and Colombia as well as frequent jaunts through Thailand. He rides for about 12 hours a day, has only some clothes, a sleeping mat, medicine and a mosquito net for possessions and sleeps wherever his finishes his daily ride.
Many times, he said, he’ll stop in a community and tell them of his adventure and locals are so impressed, or sorry for him, they give him money to continue. But Lambrich said he only spends about 100 baht per day, dines mostly on khao man gai and that gets him a long way down the road.