Coolman... Real Cool!

A new tourist attraction has recently opened in Pattaya. As well as being a fascination in its own right, it allows tourists (and the locals) the opportunity to view Pattaya, Jomtien and the hinterland and our offshore islands in a new way - from the air, by helicopter!

Royal Cliff Beach Resort.

The Coolman Corporation has now commenced a regular helicopter service from Pattaya. Based next to the Pattaya Park Beach Hotel (the familiar "needle" in the sky) they have built a helipad with departure lounge facilities adjacent to it. Using a Kawasaki B117 twin engined helicopter, they are providing a most professional service for its customers. The corporation also has a facility in Bangkok, complete with another "back-up" helicopter.

It has certainly been an expensive exercise for Coolman, with the terminal costing B. 10 M and the helicopter itself US$ 3 M. Director Suradaje Charattrakool feeling that with the "high season" approaching it was now time to make a positive move in the tourism direction. Coolman are to be congratulated in bringing Pattaya "up to date" with this aviation venture.

Jomtien Beach.

Whilst there are two short sightseeing routes flown from Pattaya Park, Coolman are also offering flights to Rayong (30 minutes), Hua Hin (40 minutes) and Bangkok (25 minutes). In addition, the helicopters can be chartered, on an hourly basis, by groups or businesses.

The helicopters carry two pilots and eight passengers in comfort. Being a somewhat nervous flyer myself (I get vertigo standing on a chair), I was very pleasantly impressed with the smoothness of the flight, and indeed the smoothness of the entire operation. Even the mandatory, "Please pay attention while we show you the safety features of this airoplane," routine was handled with the appropriate degree of seriousness by the two ground staff.

Ocean Marina Yacht Club.

So what was the trip like? Breathtaking! If you are a camera buff, do not forget to take it up with you. You will get some spectacular shots. Guaranteed. You can happily blaze away through the perspex windows of the helicopter and still get good pictures, even with a simple "point and shoot" camera. However, if you want the "best" pictures, sit in the second row. On each side there is a little ventilation slide window just large enough to poke the lens of the camera through and your pictures will turn out crystal clear. Use a polarizing filter to turn the water luminescent green or tropical paradise blue and you will have the shots of a lifetime.

The island trip goes out to Koh Lan and Koh Sak (some trips even land there for a two hour frolic on the beach), returning over South Pattaya, going behind the Big Buddha and back to Pattaya Park helipad. The other sightseeing trip, the inland experience, tracks down Jomtien Beach, over the Ocean Marina and then turns towards Wat Yangsangwararam. It then continues on to the lasered Buddha image on the side of Khao Chee Chan mountain, back over Nong Nooch Tropical Gardens then returning along Jomtien Beach and finally back to Pattaya Park again.

The 15 minute sightseeing trips are US$ 60 per person, and do represent good value for the tourist dollar. Charter hire is US$ 1,500 per hour, and split between eight becomes a reasonable proposition for individuals, whilst corporate bookings for staff incentives or customer rewards would be a new and novel outing.

It was fun, or as the "hip" generation would say, "Cool Man, Real Cool".

You can contact Coolman at 01 312 3122.

The last voyage and a farewell to the sea

Many years ago, the famous Alfred Hitchcock produced an amusing film called "The Trouble with Harry". Harry happens to be a corpse, which is buried and dug up several times and at one stage even given a bath and clean clothes. The reason for this weird behaviour is that different people alternatively think that they have murdered poor Harry. Finally a doctor decides that what really killed him was a heart attack.

When I recall my last voyage as a Chief Officer on the MV Silindoeng in the summer of 1961, I always think of this story. Well in advance I had written to the Company that I planned to spend my European leave in Thailand instead of the Netherlands. My intention was to give them three months notice, once I decided that I was able to live in Bangkok and maintain myself as an artist. The management was most agreeable and those last months they juggled me around from ship to ship so that I could disembark in Bangkok when time was due for my leave. I had send my luggage, including my dress uniform and much hated cap, well in advance to Bangkok, as I did not expected to wear it for those last few days on board.

On the tenth of August of that year a colleague replaced me on the MV Siao on the roads of Penang or Georgetown and I was flown via Singapore to Sandakan on the northeast coast of Borneo, to join the MV Silindoeng. I had to take over from another colleague whose wife in Singapore was going to have a baby. Her tenth I believe it was. This chief officer was going to stay on board until the next day in Jesselton (now Kota Kinabalu) and share his cabin with me for the night. This was a dubious pleasure as the huge man drank a lot of beer and consequently sweated like a racehorse. To stem this deluge he had little square pieces of cloth, which he hung to dry all over the chair, washbasin and sides of the bunk.

Our captain was a good man but a bit of the Charlie Brown type. He had acquired the nickname of "Fat Jansen". The chief engineer was a friend of mine and we carried two passengers, a New Zealand couple in their early fifties who were visiting Southeast Asia for the first time in their lives. After I was introduced to everybody, we set sail for Jesselton in the late afternoon. The north point of Borneo features a large barrier reef and navigation is difficult and demanding.

I turned in at about ten when my colleague was already fast asleep on the sofa. The captain and the third officer were on the bridge and second officer, who had the twelve to four watch, was asleep. At midnight the captain banged on the door of the cabin with the words, "Chief wake up, I believe a passenger has died!" He was most agitated and nervous obviously not knowing how to handle the situation. I went to the passenger cabin occupied by the New Zealand couple and found the lady in a pink nightgown, stretched, apparently lifeless, on her back in bed. The Chief engineer had meanwhile joined me and the husband was nowhere to be seen. I was told that when she came back from the bathroom earlier that evening, she had complained about a pain in the back of her head and when the husband called her a bit later she had not responded.

Officially in the Dutch merchant navy the Chief Officer is the ship’s doctor on board of freighters, but in this particular company the Chief Engineer had this responsibility. Our training in medical science was rudimentary, slightly more than a course in first aid, and in the book we studied from during the training, it was written that we were not to assume that somebody was dead unless there was rigor mortis or decapitation. None of this was apparent, so the Chief Engineer and I went to work trying to revive the lady. Somebody else had joined us but I forgot who, and we gave her artificial respiration after a fashion and heart massage while the other person tickled her feet. None of it worked and after some time the captain appeared and asked me if Aqua Velva would help. I answered that we could always try and whenever we raised the arms of the lady the captain would move in with a handkerchief, soaking wet with the popular after-shave lotion and hold it under her nose.

This absurd situation went on for hours until about three thirty in the morning the ship dropped anchor on the roads of Jesselton. The motorboat was lowered and the second officer went ashore to fetch a doctor. At about four the doctor, a young Malay or Eurasian, arrived. He opened the lady’s, eyes, took his flashlight, switched it on and looked into them. Then he said accusingly, "But she is already dead!"

I felt guilty and responded, "But that was not in my book". At that point the husband returned from wherever he had been and offered us all a beer in the "Salon" or dining room, because we had been so wonderful. This was at four thirty a.m. and the whole night struck me as unreal.

The next morning the captain decided that the lady had to be taken off the ship in style, so he ordered the Chief Engineer and me to don our dress uniform and carry the lady on a stretcher through the windows of the "Salon" or dining room, on to the jetty where we had meanwhile moored. As I had no dress uniform and no cap, I had to borrow a uniform, but the problem of the missing cap was not easily solved, as I have an unusually large head. I tried the caps of the other officers and finally found one in the cabin of the third engineer, which almost fitted me. The owner was blissfully asleep. I had no choice and took it without waking him.

When we carried the lady through the window, the Chief Engineer went on the jetty where the hospital ambulance was waiting to receive the front and I followed reaching over my head to take the end out of the window. While doing so the stretcher scraped my cap, which wasn’t very secure because it was too small. It fell off, into the sea, between the ship and the jetty. The native workmen on the wharf shouted with glee and two of them jumped into the sea and retrieved the object. Fortunately the husband was not present during this disgraceful performance, but the captain was cross with me for showing so little respect.

At the request of the husband, the lady was cremated at a Hindu cremation pile in the open air and afterwards he took the ashes with him on the first plane out, back to New Zealand. We left that night and my seaman’s book says that I signed off in Bangkok on August 28, 1961, 37 years ago.

Shopping Spree

Beauty, Health, Fashion, and many other shopping tips by Ariyada

Believe It Or Not! Ripley’s Shop is what it’s all about

I guess everybody knows Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Museum at the Royal Garden Plaza. Did you also know that right next to the museum is a shop with lots of funny things on sale?

The entrance to the museum is built like a cave and this very cave extends right into the shop.

Lots of stuffed animals are on display, from small to huge, and from 90 to 1,115 Baht. Fancy mirrors hanging on the walls sell for about 2,000 Baht each. Funny shaped clocks, like the one in the shape of a saxophone player that can wake you up to Luis Armstrong sounds, and many others can be bought for 1,500 Baht. Sculptures and musical boxes, each 435 Baht are on display next to table tennis balls - except they are permanent ice cubes. One-way Kodak cameras are on hand to take photographs of you as the "Glamour Star of the night" while wearing a T-shirt with iron-on stars, for Baht 270, are also available. T-shirts en masse in good quality and any size and color, priced between 350 and 425 Baht are also on display, along with lots of women’s wrist watches, in all different shapes, between elegant and very fancy, priced between 250 and 1,200 Baht. There are also other T-shirts, which come with permanent color sticks to design your own fancy painting, for the price of 500 baht each.

Khun Somjet Manawet, one of the salesmen there, showed me around since the manager was busy having lunch. He assured me that the colors wouldn’t wash off. Somjet was very friendly, helpful and eager to explain everything, and pointed out a perfect farewell gift for friends who come to visit: a heart shaped glass ball with a sail boat floating on the shore of Pattaya. But before your friends leave, you should throw them a party. Lots of neon sculptures are available, to give your party the perfect background and light. One big pack, enough for a few parties, costs Baht 990.

Ripley’s shop is a paradise for children. Pretty safety boxes in all shapes, though one is definitely for grown ups since it is a money laundry box. As soon as you put a coin in, it starts to move like a real washing machine, and I wouldn’t wonder if the money comes out perfectly whitewashed.

Kaleidoscopes expand one’s the imagination, allowing you to look into space, seeing all the planets and stars moving around. Puzzle games (to be glued together) for Baht 550 and Trio Timers are found next to each other, butterfly kits, balance games and Wizbits - creative creature designs - are perfect to keep the youngsters occupied while mom and dad are having a Halloween party.

Yes, all one needs for Halloween - or any other fancy party - is available at Ripley’s. Masks of all kinds, some funny but some very scary, are on display, all for around Baht 300 only ... and wigs to go with them. In case you are missing the teeth for a good bite - Ripley’s has them. To scare your friends totally, get yourself one of those artificial arms, turn on the battery and shake their hands. I am sure that after you’ve done so, you’ll find out who your true friends are.

There’s so much else, too many little articles to describe and write about. The best would be, if you were in for fun and enjoyment, to go there and check it out for yourself.

No joke for the Jesters

The Jesters Motorcycle Club (Thailand) has shown there is more to owning a Harley Davidson than a love of big bikes, tattoos and bandanas. Their latest Club project shows that they have a love for the welfare of children as well.

Jesters outside the Fountain of Life classroom they built.

In a compassionate "Care for Kids" campaign, the big bikers have "adopted" the Fountain of Life Center as the recipient of their club’s latest charity drive (or should that be "ride"?). Getting Delaney’s Irish Pub behind them, they are in the process of putting together one of the best fun charity promotions to be seen in Pattaya for some time.

"Woody" Underwood, spokesman for the Jesters, is determined to get enough money together to give the Fountain of Life Center at Srinakorn a much needed third transport vehicle to get the needy children to the Center and returned home after classes finish.

Sister Michelle at the Fountain of Life Center looks after the educational needs of more than 100 children daily, and with only two old pick-ups, the collection and delivery of the children takes four hours every day, valuable teaching time that is lost to the students.

Next week we will have even more details on the Jesters/Delaney’s Charity Drive. This will take the form of a charity evening, being held at Delaney’s Irish Pub on September 19th. Kim Fletcher from Delaney’s has indicated the need for sponsorship and donation of raffle items that could be auctioned off during the evening. Those who would like to be involved with some sort of sponsorship can contact Kim at Delaney’s (710 641), "Woody" Underwood at Tahitian Queen, or speak to any of the Jesters. In the meantime, just wave to the Harley riders, their hearts are in the right place.

Successfully Yours: Laurent Betourne

by Mirin MacCARTHY

Laurent Betourne speaks English with an undeniably French accent and an irrepressible enthusiasm to match.

Laurent is a relative new-comer to Pattaya, but has already made his presence felt in the international hospitality industry. Perhaps all the publicity given to the World Cup in France has helped him establish himself - and mention of France’s win brings out an even broader smile. Laurent is, after all, and above all, proudly French!

Laurent Betourne.

One of eight children from a medical family in Burgundy, he initially wanted to be an actor, an architect or an interior designer, none of which really met with the approval of pharmacist Papa Betourne. But even in those early formative years, Laurent was to show the quiet strength that has brought him to the top of his field today. Declining the prompting towards the hallowed halls of academia he took off to Hotel School in Paris instead. "For me, independence was more important than education."

After graduation he began his adventures, using the portable skills he learned working in the hospitality business. He began to understand that education takes many forms, and in fact, all of life’s experiences were indeed part of the learning process.

Joining up with the hotel management people, the Accor Group was the next turning point in Laurent’s life. "Accor believe in putting Staff in challenging positions. It brings out new ideas and gives you different objectives to achieve. It is very important to go somewhere you do not know."

Those challenging positions had Laurent chasing through the Middle East, Turkey and Cambodia, eventually arriving in Chiang Mai in 1994. From there he went to Phuket, a detour to China and finally to Pattaya to take on the responsibility as General Manager of the Mercure Hotel Pattaya Resort.

"China was a great challenge. There are a lot of expectations on you, not just from my company, but from the local people as well. They want to learn from you, they want you to show them everything. You really have to push yourself, but it gives you confidence, intellectually and mentally."

The tour of duty in China also changed his attitude towards formal schooling and education. "Now I believe in education. You have to be able to communicate at all levels. Experience is a good teacher, but how can a country expect to catch up if the children are not taught the new technologies?" Like so many people, Laurent has found that the lessons he has learned from life have brought him to the same ideas as his father espoused all those years ago!

In the positions as General Manager of hotels he has also found that he has been able to experience many of his boyhood ambitions. "The hotel is like a theatre," he said enthusiastically, "we have all so many parts to play! And you have to be able to decorate and design the appearance of the hotel. It is like being an architect in so many ways."

Success for Laurent is in achieving the objectives he sets for himself in each new scenario. "You have to learn fast and evaluate the people and the market you are in." It is the continuing challenge of new places and new goals which keeps Laurent going. "When I don’t have any new challenges it will be time to retire!" But with a wife and two young children, retirement is a long way off for Laurent Betourne.

Away from work he enjoys his times with his family, and playing golf, a sport he considers "another challenge!"

Laurent Betourne meets every day with enthusiasm, quietly drawing on his experiences to give him the satisfaction he enjoys in doing his job well. "Every day is different. If you knew the recipe of life, then life would be just so boring!" I am sure Laurent will never let himself become bored.

AutoMania

by Dr. Iain Corness

Autotrivia Quiz
Last week’s one was easy. The "Route 66" shield sign was used by the American oil company, Phillips, who called their service stations and their fuel, "Phillips 66". Too easy!

The new wonder fuel “Bio Diesel” (otherwise known as chip fryer!”.

Now then, did you know that there are "Hearse Societies" all over the U.S. of A? Yes, folks, these guys (and girls) are into hearses. Now myself, I really don’t think I’d want to be seen dead in one, but there are all these people over there in the Land of the Free riding around in long black limo’s with blue cathedral windows. They are inordinately proud of these vehicles and categorize them as "end-loaders" or "side-loaders"! One of these clubs is called "Grim Rides". So help me! This is true autotrivia!

So for this weeks question - there is a famous "cult" movie about a guy who was in to funerals, and drove a hearse. For the Automania Free Beer of the Week, what was the name of the Movie? For TWO BEERS, what were the names of the principal actors, who did the music and what was the brand of the customised hearse? Fax or email the editorial office! It’s a fabulous story, and if you don’t know, you’ll have to wait till next week! "Rust In Peace!"

Fuels Paradise
Alternative fuels are still all the go, with wild and wonderful claims being made by all sorts of people. The following is from what I call "The Lunatic Fringe" - there is a motor home touring the United States as you read this, powered by a fuel they call "Biodiesel". This is made from old chip fryer oil and powers the "Veggie Van". It’s real, stop shaking your head!

Apparently the chip oil burner has less emissions than standard diesel fuel, but leaves the aroma of French Fries behind it. A whole new meaning to the phrase "You want some fries to go?"

Needless to say, the van has flowers painted all over it, so you won’t miss it as it comes towards you. Personally I reckon they should have some guy in a clown suit driving it. They’d probably pick up some sponsorship from Maccas - or some old chip oil if nothing else!

According to the proponents of this el cheapo fuel, old Rudi Diesel himself was into peanut oil in 1900, and by 1911 was proclaiming it would save the world. If I remember correctly, ex-U.S. President Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer too. Wonder he didn’t convert the entire US Army to it! Certainly would have taken the wind out of the Arab oil cartels, wouldn’t it?

If that’s not enough, there’s the Ethanol Challenge going on as well this year. This competition is to convert a Chev Malibu to run on ethanol instead of petrol. Now for all those guys propping up a bar somewhere while reading this, "ethanol" is just the chemical name for the principal constituent of alcohol!

I really think we are going about this the wrong way! My local servo sells petrol for 12 Baht a litre. My local pub sells beer for 45 Baht a 300 ml glass, which works out to be around 150 Baht a litre. What do these alternative fuel people want me to do? Put the beer in the car and drink the petrol? Certainly would reduce the bar bills, if nothing else. Forget this one, even 97 octane tastes terrible! Ever tried syphoning the stuff?

Then of course there are those vehicles that run on natural gas. If my natural gas is anything to go by, the Veggie Van exhaust would be a decided improvement! No, I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again. Stick with petrol, it’s still the best we’ve got!

Pick up a bargain on your pick-up
The options game is one the motor industry has played for more years than I can ever remember! This game is to pitch all advertising with the cost of the vehicle being expressed as the "base" price. This way a manufacturer can "appear" to have the cheapest vehicle in the class.

Mind you, the base vehicle is one with a steering wheel, a body, an engine and four wheels and not much else. You want carpet, sir? That’s extra. And metallic paint? That’s option number 36, and that’s another B5000.

The fact that the base vehicle is never actually bought in that configuration doesn’t matter. It’s just the "theory" of it all! In fact, there have been cases where it has been impossible to buy the "base" vehicle at all. By the time they rolled out of the factory, they already had options built in.

However, learn to play the options game, as a switched on consumer, and you will come out as the winner, but you’ve got to know at what level to apply your negotiating skills.

First, the distributor buys cars from the manufacturer and that price is generally fixed. The manufacturer doesn’t have any leeway, and so then, neither does the dealer / distributor. For you to get a discount, someone has to be prepared to lose, and it won’t happen at that level. After all, the base price is already advertised and "fixed". But the "options" are where you will find the necessary leverage.

The manufacturers and dealers generally "load" the options to give themselves some extra "profit" at that stage. Your job is to convert that extra profit into extra discount for you!

Go into the dealership and get a brochure with the "options" and prices. Be ruthless with yourself and chose ONLY the extras you truly need.

Now front the dealers and see what price they come up with as a total. Try another couple of dealers and start playing them off against one another. And you can play one brand off against another too! This is where you’ll really win. They have a healthy "profit" margin in the options, so squeeze! They’ll still make a profit out of you in the end, but you’ll end up with a bargain too. Try it next time!