Road closure

Editor;

With the increase in traffic due to the flooding in Bangkok, Sukhumvit and throughout Pattaya has been a nightmare particularly if you are driving a car. I have written before criticizing the method of directing traffic used by the police here in Pattaya. I was under the assumption that they are there to help but it seems something is missing as they seem to making a mountain out a mole hill.

I doubt it would happen but maybe someone in charge or the person who actually made the decision the last two weekends as to how they come to think closing Siam Country Club Road at Sukhumvit would actually make the traffic flow better?

By closing Siam Country Club Road at Sukhumvit, this is actually what you are doing. You force vehicles to turn left only at Siam flooding Sukhumvit, now the vehicles must contend with vehicles coming out of Nernplabwan. Now you have vehicles from Siam and Nernplabwan creating a bottleneck at Pattaya Klang since they need to turn around to head back north down Sukhumvit since Siam Country Club Road is closed off to turning into Sukhumvit. By doing this the police actually created a traffic jam that didn’t exist earlier!

Also, the closure of Pattaya Klang and Second Road requires vehicles that want to travel up to Sukhumvit, must now travel up to the Dolphin circle to Pattaya Nua to get to Sukhumvit which now creates a traffic backlog on Pattaya Nua and once across Sukhumvit another backlog on Sukhumvit until you get past Pattaya Klang.

This coming weekend do us all a favor and shorten the signal lights and stop giving preference to Sukhumvit traffic at the junction of Pattaya Klang and Siam Country Club Road to no longer than 45 seconds. If you need to come out of your air condition booth do so only to stop vehicles from running the red light and blocking intersections. That is the solution and not closing the intersection so that vehicles can go around and around only to come back to the same point. Give it a try you might find out it is that simple, otherwise stay in your aircon booth. Instead of being the solution you are the problem!
Jeff Chumuchi

Ayutthaya residents help their neighbors the Great

Predee on left with Preda on right.

Editor;

The sons of a local Thai resident found shelter for themselves, their children and many members of their extended family here in Pattaya thanks to their mother, Mrs. Wattanee (Malee) Donahue and her husband, Paul, of Jomtien Nivate.

A total of 30 persons ranging in age from 1 month to 105 years (yes, that’s right, 105) have been put up in the Donahue’s home as well as in a once empty home owned by her and her husband next door.

Grateful for the shelter they have been provided, the sons, Predee Vilianon and Preda Vilailert, along with their mother, pooled their resources and along with other family friends, have put together four truckloads of individual family packages to be delivered by their own boats to their isolated neighbors stranded in their neighborhood of Ayutthaya. The packages included the standard dry goods, water, diapers, sanitary napkins, hand soap and clean used clothing.

Ladies & young girl putting packages together.

105 Year old Grandma.

“Kaem ling” (monkey’s cheek)

Editor;

Thailand is blessed with a knowledgeable and sagacious monarch who has personally conceived, nurtured and supported more than 3,000 royal innovation projects intended to benefit the well-being of each and every devotedly loyal subject, setting an inspiring example for one and all. One of His Majesty the King’s most impressive ideological contributions to help solve the complex problems related to flood management is known as the Monkey’s Cheek (Kaem Ling). Based on childhood memories, His Majesty observed that most monkeys, when given bananas, first store them in their mouths, then gradually chew and swallow them. This metaphorical model, intended to help alleviate the annual monsoon season overflow, aims to temporarily store excessive levels of rising water during heavy rains and afterwards, draining canals and water gates, flushing excess out to the sea.

Suggested strategic options to control flooding in Bangkok and up-country have mainly focused on building more dikes to prevent overflow, enlarging existing canals, digging up new ones and constructing reservoirs at various chosen sites where appropriate. In 1995/2538, the initial experimental Monkey’s Cheek project was successfully undertaken in Thonburi, and subsequently replicated in dozens of provinces. Presently, the likelihood of extreme rainfall and severe weather disasters has been significantly increased by rising greenhouse gas levels related to Climate Change, causing havoc to predicted expectations, and calling for adjustment to nature-related conditions and accommodation to rapidly evolving contemporary Information Technology demands.

Thai contemporary society has become increasingly urbanized and prosperous, whereas the country’s rural eco-environment has deteriorated, resulting in abusive overuse and misuse of valuable natural resources and an inequitable gap between rich and poor; haves and have nots; agriculture and industry; overdeveloped greedy and underprivileged needy; top-down Bangkok-centric power and bottom-up decentralized local community authority.

The daunting challenge for progressive water conservation and water management visionary planners is how to best implement and expand His Majesty’s innovative sufficiency approach in order to ensure sustainable development. The key objective of shared Information Technology theory is to reinvent policy guidelines which are eco-friendly and respectfully perceptive of nature, by empowering rural cooperatives to utilize state-of-the-art practical common good decision-making techniques, with open brainstorming input from all parties involved, regarding crop production, processing, marketing, education, health, social welfare and fair trade.
Long Live The King!

Dr. Charles Frederickson
Bangkok

Just some of the joys of living in Pattaya

Editor;

Thank you for your always interesting publication - some articles tongue in cheek, i.e., Friday 11th Nov. ‘Two tourists were injured when a bouncer in a South Pattaya disco and four other Thai men beat them before (the bouncer) fired a handgun in the air. The Russians were treated for injuries at Pattaya Memorial Hospital. Both were extremely drunk and unable to give statements to officers at the time.’ So far so good, it then gets a bit murky and had I not lived in wonderful Pattaya for twelve years I would find a bit strange.

‘Police who arrived to find the club still open illegally at 6 a.m. on October 31st… The police pledged to continue with their investigation though they took no action against the disco for operating past closing time or for its overzealous security guards.’ One would have to wonder why wouldn’t one, if one had not lived here for some time!

It seems would also seem strange to me there is no city water in many areas of Pattaya despite this being in a previous Pattaya Mail. Had I not lived here many years, ‘The Pattaya area still has more than enough water for the summer months, city waterworks officials say. Suwit Sangkhae, chief of water-supply production at the Provincial Waterworks Authority, told the Pattaya Business & Tourism Association March 4.’

I emailed the Provincial Waterworks Authority and the Pattaya Business and Tourism Association, no reply from either, no surprise there.
Best wishes to your readers,
RW

Road closure

Ayutthaya residents help their neighbors

“Kaem ling” (monkey’s cheek)

Just some of the joys of living in Pattaya