Editor;
I live in View Talay 2B in Jomtien and for the past 4-5 nights have really enjoyed the extravagant fireworks displays from Bali Hai. They must have cost many, many thousands of baht!
Have they really been enough to attract and encourage many tourists to visit Pattaya/Jomtien in the future?
Currently in front of View Talay 2 there is a giant ditch digger, lots of pipes, lots of mud and piles of dirt. Expats and tourists are picking their way through this mess, dodging cars, baht buses and motorbikes.
This whole fiasco has been a work in progress, or should I say NO progress for the past few years. Thappraya Road is the artery to Jomtien from Pattaya. I understand the original funds for this project somehow disappeared some time ago. So next to nothing of substance has been accomplished since then.
Wouldn’t it have been better to pour the millions of baht invested in the fireworks to complete the many still unfinished infrastructure projects (I can’t name them all there are too many) so that the tourists who come here and the expats who live here do not have to endure the constant travel delays, congestion and hassle of this never ending construction problem all over the city?
On top of Thappraya, the other main disaster is the half finished parallel road to Jomtien Beach Road. This disaster is in the face of everyone who has to visit Immigration on Soi 5, which is most of us.
I know some of these events are the way of life here, that we shrug off and continue to enjoy “the Thai way” of life, but when I see thousands of fireworks exploding in a matter of minutes, it seems tragic that we can’t put that money to a much better use. It’s even worse than the pedestrian crossing fiasco!
Thanks for reading, maybe next year we can cut the whole thing down to one big blast New Years Eve.
Mike the Mechanic
