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Smoking, smoking, smoking

Looking for help from Filipino Community Thailand

Are crash helmets really law in Thailand?

Get real

Personal freedoms

Inequities in coach prices to Bangkok and back

Smoking, smoking, smoking

Editor;

I do not think there has been a Mail Bag for the last 2 months without somebody complaining about smoking.

Smoking in bars - what is the problem?

The types of bars in Thailand are “open” bars, so you get smoke creeping in off the sidewalks, and car exhaust fumes coming in off the roads.

There are numerous bars about where the bar is closed off and air conditioned. Why don’t you use them and give smokers some peace?

It is all about choices. If you don’t like smoking, use the bars that have air conditioning, and let the smokers use the other bars.

The choice is yours. Quit moaning.
Paul Sheppard
Ratchaburi

Looking for help from Filipino Community Thailand

Editor;

I am a former teacher at the International School of the Regents and member of the Filipino Community of Thailand Pattaya Chapter until my family moved back to the Philippines in 1998.

Our son Francis Rodge P. Godoy was born there, at Bangkok-Pattaya International Hospital, registered at the consulate and was baptized at the St. Nikolas Redemptorist Church in Pattaya. He was born on March 17, 1997 and was baptized sometime in May of the same year.

He is now in high school and will be studying in a Catholic school that includes a “Baptismal Certificate” as a requirement. The problem is we did not secure a copy of this document when we travelled back home in 1998.

We are hoping there would be a member of the FCT that can graciously assist us to procure a copy of the baptismal certificate from the St. Nikolas Redemptorist Church in Pattaya and send us even a scanned copy to <[email protected]>.

We sincerely hope this get to your attention and hopefully pass on to an FCT member who would be willing to help.

Sincerely,
Lorenzo Godoy
Marienelle P. Godoy

Are crash helmets really law in Thailand?

Editor;

Are crash helmets really law in Thailand, when riding a motorbike? It would seem, like most other laws in The Land of Smiles; only when it suits the local police to enforce it, or when a farang is involved.

I have been a resident in Pattaya for many years now and it still baffles me that locals still ignorantly disobey the rules or the laws (and let’s just include many expats that are here as well; doing exactly the same thing. I am sure in their own countries they would not do this).

Back to the issue about the crash helmets. How many times do you still see people riding motorcycles without a helmet on, or with a helmet perched precariously on top of their head, with a site safety helmet on, or any other item except a recognised crash helmet? Even, I have witnessed many policemen with their flat cap hats on riding motorcycles along the busy Sukhumvit Road, sometimes they do have a crash helmet on but this is not fastened correctly.

I guess it’s still a case of not really comprehending that it’s for their own safety and will save them from a serious head injury when they have a crash.

Anyway, this issue is particularly evident every day I take my kids to school. I pass down the Phoenix Golf Course road in the mornings out to the 331 road. The small village market place just past Phoenix Golf course where every morning the police (yes the police) are assisting the kids to cross the road. The amount of small younger children riding motorbikes to school that are clearly not old enough to even have a licence, and with up to two or three friends as pillion passengers on the back are clearly not physically strong or big enough to even ride the motorbike by themselves, let alone with additional weight of friends on the back.

Then, the amount of everyday local people that go by on their motorbikes, not wearing any head protection, even smiling, as if knowing the police. The police acknowledge them in a friendly smile or wave back.

Two days ago whilst I was returning along this road in the afternoon with my kids in the car, the police made me stop in the road to wave across two sets of small kids on motorbikes (3 kids on one bike) just coming out of the school, and they were trying to make “wheelies” and nearly crashed. All the policeman did was chuckle to himself and the kids in that Thai “mai pen rai” attitude.

I wonder if it would have been the same if they had crashed and injured themselves.

Anyway it still bemuses me that the wearing of the motorcycle crash helmet is still just a matter of when, where and who you are.

It also makes me laugh that in Pattaya there is a forum coming up that amongst other things is going to talk about the safety and importance of wearing crash helmets. So if city ‘big wigs’ and police chiefs alike are aware of how important it is, why do they not enforce the matter more stringently, especially in the more local areas where the kids are riding to school on motorbikes and the locals go about their day pottering around on motorbikes?

Tony
Phoenix

Get real

Dear Sir,

I just read today’s Pattaya Mail. More specific, the letters section. It seems that recently there has been several letters sent to the Pattaya Mail concerning cigarette smoke and pollution. As an outsider looking in I feel that these are written by guys who do not have a grasp as to the real issues in Pattaya.

I have lived here for a while and feel there are bigger issues. For instance, water - there is not enough! I continuously buy a truck load for two hundred baht a day. Yes, six years now!

Vegan issues; cigarette smoke; guys get real. The Pattaya Mail should be about local issues surely.

Regards,
Billy Sheal

Personal freedoms

Editor;

First off, I would like to say that I respect Mr. Lawrence Remington’s opinions. However, sir, if you prefer to live in a country that has passed the laws that you so espouse, then why are you living here, and not there?

It truly is a Pandora’s Box (I quote John Arnone there) when you give all powers of personal choice over to the politicians. I say again, let’s allow capitalism and personal choice to dictate personal freedoms. If a bar owner found that he could make more money by not allowing people to smoke in his bar, does anybody think he would not put no smoking signs everywhere? I’m sure he would.

There used to be the “Bill Bentley’s Smoking Pub” at Don Muang Airport. If you don’t smoke then don’t go there! Government made them shut down in a rather anti-capitalist move.

Woo-hoo! Say the busy-bodies that campaigned for it, even though they never set foot inside the place. They were doing the smokers a favor.

Smokers may pollute a wee bit, no doubt about it. Take a walk down Jomtien Beach in the morning as I do for my exercise. Absolutely horrible amounts of plastic garbage that washes up everyday.

Ride a bicycle around some areas of Jomtien. Garbage, plastic bags, strewn all over the place.

It looks a lot like Sanaa Yemen or Daka Bangladesh. I never toss a cigarette butt on the ground. I roll the fire out and put it in my pocket, then they go in the proper waste basket.

For certain, I detest litter and I refuse to litter. Complaining about cigarettes/smokers is like complaining about someone bringing a bucket of sand to the beach here in Pattaya though.

Many things here get on my nerves a bit (mostly noise pollution), but I try to have a bit of tolerance and live and let live.

Best regards,
Ken

Inequities in coach prices to Bangkok and back

Dear Editor;

I wrote to you a few months ago about employees from the electric board going around and ripping customers off by telling them the electric cables outside their homes needed renewing. You told me in your email not to expect too much at you were right. I never heard anymore about it.

Well, I was ripped off again yesterday. I went to Bangkok on the coach. I caught the 7 a.m. coach from the Roong Reuang bus station on North Road. The woman at the window charged me 130 baht for a single ticket to Ekamai in Bangkok. It was only when I looked at the ticket on the coach that I noticed the fare printed on the ticket was just 113 baht. Thinking that this was a genuine mistake I thought no more about it.

Having dealt with a small bit of business in Bangkok, I went to the coach station at Ekamai to catch the next available coach back to Pattaya. I went to the number one window which is correct for Pattaya. In the window was a large printed price of 120 baht. Asking for one ticket to Pattaya I gave the woman 120 baht, only to be told the price was 130 baht. I then pointed to the printed price of 120 baht. The woman then said something in very bad English which I didn’t understand, so I gave her an extra 10 baht. The coach was ready to go as I got to the pick-up point at 12 noon.

Sitting beside me on the coach was a Thai woman who spoke fairly good English. During the trip back to Pattaya I asked how much her ticket had cost. She told me 113 baht. Getting the ticket out of my pocket to show her what I’d been charged, I noticed that the printed price on the ticket was again 113 baht.

Have any other falang experienced this? I can’t imagine that it only happened to me and for that to happen twice on the same day at different places seems very odd in deed.

Yours faithfully,
Carl Morgan

Letters published in the Mailbag of Pattaya Mail
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