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Brunei is a tiny but very wealthy country

PCEC member Ian Frame spoke at the March 30th meeting. ‘Living in Brunei’ was his very interesting topic.

The pedestrian has the right of way! No, it is not Thailand or many other Southeast Asia nations. But, there is one; it is the tiny country of Brunei. This fact was one of many mentioned by PCEC member Ian Frame at his presentation to the Pattaya City Expats Club at their Sunday, March 30 meeting. Ian lived and worked in Brunei for 30 years, from 1980 to 2010.

Following Ian’s talk, MC Judith thanked him & presented him with a PCEC Certificate of Appreciation.

Brunei is a tiny but very wealthy country of 400,000 people occupying 2,000 square miles on the northern part of the island of Borneo. Brunei shares the island with Malaysia and Indonesia. Brunei is wealthy because it has oil and lots of it according to Ian; oil being it’s only industry. Oil was discovered in 1929.
Oil wells are everywhere, including offshore where drilling began in 1957. Ian explained that the most prolific offshore field is owned by the Champion Group. It is located in 30 meters of water about 70 kilometers offshore. This field holds 40% of the country’s known oil reserves and produces around 100,000 barrels a day. The field has more than 260 wells drilled from 40 platforms. A central field complex, called Champion-7, has living quarters for about 160 personnel. The workers spent one week on the platform and then one week off. Ian worked on and off an oil platform during much of his time in Brunei. His job was to keep all of the instrumentation in good working order; later he moved to another position that was onshore.
Ian described Brunei as a “Malay Islamic monarchy.” It is run by His Majesty the Sultan. There is no parliament and there are no elections. There is also no income tax. Brunei became a British Protectorate in 1888. It regained its independence in 1984. A British Army Gurkha regiment at the request of the Sultan is still stationed in Brunei. The capital city is Bandar Seri Begawan. Ian lived in Kuala Belait.
Brunei is a member of the British Commonwealth, ASEAN, and APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation). The Brunei dollar is managed jointly with the Singapore dollar. Ian said they are kept equal in value; Singapore dollars are legal tender in Brunei as are Brunei dollars in Singapore. Brunei is currently ranked fifth in the world by GDP per capita. About 75% of the population are Malays and 10% Chinese. The rest come from a variety of countries. Many domestic workers come from Indonesia and the Philippines.
The retirement age in Brunei is 55. Brunei is mostly a “dry” country, Ian said, though foreigners are allowed to bring some alcohol with them when they enter the country. However, nightlife is available on the Malaysian side of the border. Also, there are about 150,000 cars, but very few motorcycles. Public transport is almost non-existent as Ian said that everyone owns a car. Further, Brunei is very clean and that garbage is not thrown away at the roadside or in the bushes. Unlike its immediate neighbour, Malaysia, Brunei does not allow logging, and so has been able to preserve its forests.
It rains a lot in Brunei, Ian explained, so flooding is pretty common. As a result, many buildings are on stilts. Ian said that the house he lived in for 14 years was similarly built as he showed pictures of the flooding that happens about twice a year when there is heavy rain and high tides. In describing his house, Ian mentioned that initially he had rats as his guests; that is until a snake moved in. Ian said he and he snake managed to share the house without difficulty. Ian also described the people and commented on how very friendly they were. Ian said that he attended in one particular year 13 weddings in families of his co-workers.
Ian devoted the last part of his talk to showing his audience photos of the wildlife in Brunei. (Ian is a wildlife photographer and has spoken twice before to the Club about assorted snakes, lizards and insects in and around Pattaya.) His Brunei wildlife photos were extraordinary beautiful and included monkeys, snakes, lizards, tree crabs, hornbill birds, turtles and even a crocodile and a very tame civit cat. Ian has posted many of his nature photographs on his blog at http://pattayadaze.wordpress.com/
After Ian concluded his presentation, Master of Ceremonies Judith Edmonds brought everyone up to date on upcoming events and called on Jerry Dean to conduct the always interesting and informative Open Forum where questions about Expat living in Thailand are asked and answered.
For more information about the Pattaya City Expats Club, visit their website at www.pcecclub.org.


Lions drive education goals at Pattaya Technical College

Lion Bhunanan Patanasin (5th left), president of the Lions Club of Pattaya-Nongprue, presents a used car to Pattaya Technical College for their education.

Warunya Thongrod
The Lions Club of Pattaya continued efforts to drive education for area youths, donating a used car to Pattaya Technical College for maintenance classes.
Club President Bhunanan Patanasin and other members presented a 1999 Peugeot 306 to school Director Pariwat Thaniro March 24.
Lion Phisit Jitphisutsathaporn said the car was deteriorating as it waited to be sold, so the club thought it would benefit the college more, as students could practice maintenance and repair on it during shop classes. If the car had been new, he noted, it wouldn’t be of much use to repair classes.
The car was the second the Lions Club has given to Pattaya Technical College. It also plans to present an old car to Sattahip Technical College.
Pariwat thanked the club for supporting student education by giving cars and other appliances for student to practice on. Beside cars, the club has given regularly to the club such items as televisions, computers and car engines.
Every month, the Lions Club of Pattaya does charity activities. Earlier, the club gave a water filter and a dispenser to Baan Thunglom School and bought lunch for students at the Redemptorist School for the Blind.


Dusit Thani Hotel holds blood drive

Neoh Kean Boon, Resident Manager of Dusit Thani Pattaya donates blood to the Red Cross.

Warunya Thongrod
Fifty employees from the Dusit Thani Hotel donated blood to patients needing regular transfusions during a mobile blood drive administered by the Chonburi Red Cross.
Residence Manager Neoh Kean Boon led staffers in the March 31 event, which collected 830 units of blood totaling 2,500cc.
The Dusit Thani Pattaya is a branch of Dusit International, founded in 1948 by Chanut Piyaoui. The first hotel was the Princess on Charoen Krung Road in Bangkok and today Dusit has a portfolio of deluxe hotels: Dusit Thani Hotels & Resorts, dusitD2, Dusit Princess, Dusit Devarana, and Dusit Residence Serviced Apartments. It also operates the Devarana Spa.


Heliotrope builders show off solar-assisted yacht

Crew members of the Heliotrope (L to R) Philip Guenat, Bakri Cono Shipyard Director of International Sales; Tanyapa Simsin, Caroline Lezb and MD Bernard Lamprecht.

Veechan Souksi
Owners of the Heliotrope luxury yacht showed off their solar-assisted cruiser during a March 25 party at the Ocean Marina.
Managing directors Bernard Lamprecht and Philip Guenat and Bakri Cono Shipyard Director of International Sales Caroline Lezb welcomed friends, builders and fellow yacht owners to the event, which featured a tour around the 65-foot vessel, which finally is ready to launch after years of design and construction.
The Heliotrope provides 4 en-suite cabins, a large living-room, a 50 sq. meter fly bridge, ample sundeck and two fully equipped barbecue kitchens. The atmosphere of the inner Heliotrope can be described as a luxurious dream home and it responds to all needs for a relaxing holiday cruise.

MD Bernard Lamprecht gives a warm welcome to his guests.

It also features an intelligent sinking platform for easy access to the water, a jet-powered tender and scuba-diving tanks. The engine is nearly silent when it runs with the solar energy support and is environmentally friendly.
“The Heliotrope is one of the most technologically advanced and sophisticated boats in the sea. It is also marked as the first luxury solar-assisted powered catamaran in the world,” said Lamprecht. “All parts and furnishing products are made in Thailand.”

The Heliotrope is outfitted with beautiful and luxurious furnishings.

He said Rafael Domjam, founder of the Planet Solar concept, is still with the group and working on more improvements while searching for newer technologies to make the Planet Solar concept more sufficient.
The boat is being showcased at the Singapore Boat Show beginning April 10.
“The objective of this trip is to introduce my beautiful baby to the world and to see if she can hit the market. We will be pulling up our anchor on April 14 to make our trip back to Thailand,” he said.


PILC raises charity funds at annual garage sale

Helle Rantsen (center) shops with good friends Mat and Porn.

Helle Rantsen
Just 50 minutes from the busy life of Pattaya you will find the smaller city of Ban Chang and its local hospital. On the 3rd of April, PILC conducted the annual garage sale on the premises to raise funds for the food deliveries carried out by the hospital. For about 14 years PILC and others have been supporting the monthly food deliveries to the very poor organized by homecare nurse Mat.
The annual garage sale is supported by PILC members who for a year will be donating cloths, shoes, household items, toys, furniture among many other things towards the garage sale knowing that by their donations they will be supporting those in need.
This year’s garage sale was a huge success, raising 58,000 baht, and was enjoyed by all the participants both shoppers and organizers. It is a community event and something the locale shoppers look forward to just as much as the organizers do. Mat and president of PILC Helle Rantsen would like to extend a thank you to all those who supported the garage sale and have all ready started the collection for next year’s garage sale.


Hilton Pattaya joins Earth Hour 2014 movement in support of energy conservation

The Super Hero and Hilton Pattaya team gathers for the Earth Hour 2014 count down session in the welcome lobby.

Hilton Pattaya joined Earth Hour 2014 by organizing two major events to raise Earth Hour awareness among team members on Friday March 28 and Saturday, March 29.
The first was a staircase race from level 1 to level 34 arranged on Friday March 28, to raise awareness of team members not using lifts but using stairs, especially during peak hours. The vertical race was joined by more than 100 team members to kick off the 2014 Earth Hour activities.
The Earth Hour event on Saturday, March 29, was started with a Earth Hour countdown session at the welcome lobby to switch off all unnecessary electricity from 08.30 p.m. until midnight, which resulted in 14.65% of energy saving, 927.72 kWh of electric saving and 528 kg of CO2 reducing during the session.
Hilton Pattaya joins some of over 3,900 hotels within Hilton Worldwide’s portfolio of brands who were expected to take part in the event that will mobilize more than one billion people worldwide.

The Earth Hour logo is lit by candles on the level 16 sundeck.


HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]

Brunei is a tiny but very wealthy country

Lions drive education goals at Pattaya Technical College

Dusit Thani Hotel holds blood drive

Heliotrope builders show off solar-assisted yacht

PILC raises charity funds at annual garage sale

Hilton Pattaya joins Earth Hour 2014 movement in support of energy conservation

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