Lawn ornament contest in Petchburi Province

Remember those ubiquitous plastic ‘lawn flamingos’? And those rather large ceramic gnomes whom some people thought were cute and others wanted to smash?

The proud oxen stand watch in front of the bovine racetrack.

Well, if you do and liked them, take heart! The art of ‘garden kitsch’ is not dead. Thailand is doing it in a big way. We do mean big.

Thailand, which has a fondness for getting into the Guinness Book of World Records with such accomplishments as the ‘largest wokful of fried rice’ and the ‘largest moon-cake in the world’, is now sponsoring the ‘Phra Nakorn Khiri Muang Petch celebration’.

The festival is the 13th since its inception. It will be from February 13-21, 1999. This will be a doubly joyous occasion as it coincides with Chinese New Year.

Patchburi’s beautiful Khao Wang (Palace Hill), a must see for the visitor to this ancient province.

Aside from ‘lawn-kitsch’, the festival will feature the opening of ‘the largest Rose Apple’ (a Thai fruit) in the world. We’re talking big here.

The festival will be in Petchburi Province, which is, all jokes aside, famous for it’s sweets. During the Ayuthaya Period in Siam, there was a large Portuguese colony in the province. The Portuguese brought recipes for sweets which were congenial to the Thai sweet tooth.

The recipes passed over fences from Portuguese to Thai households. In inimitable Thai fashion, a bit of jasmine flavour was added, cloves were substituted for cinnamon and soon the Portuguese were asking for the adapted recipes of their own sweets.

Many beautiful temples were built in Petchburi and the visitor need but look left or right to see them. The best view is from the summit of Khao Wang (Palace Hill). Khao Wang is one of Petchburi’s true beauties and should not be missed by the visitor.

But on to the fun stuff. To see the ‘world’s best lawn kitsch’, one must go to the official Oxcart Racing Track. In front, there they are, standing majestically as any real ox. Two beautiful ceramic animals and a cart.

This will make any collector of ‘lawn flamingos’ feel like a real piker. Be forewarned; these are carefully guarded and light-fingered collectors will be prosecuted.

Carrying on the ancient art of Thai massage

by Apirat (Add) Muangsirikul

Pattaya Beach still has some enchantment left, as can be seen from the number of tourists who visit. One of the enchanting and just plain relaxing facets of the beach is Thai traditional massage.

Beach masseurs may be seen every day, bending limbs, stretching bodies and soothing muscles not used, and sometimes never heard of, by the owner.

Auntie Jaeng is one of those rarities, a real Thai masseuse. She has been practising this ancient art for more than 20 years. In the past, she had many customers waiting for her services and they often had to book a massage a day in advance.

A true Thai masseuse like Auntie Jaeng will stretch muscles you never knew you had.

Even with the collapse of the economy, she is still able to make a very good living, as she knows what she is doing.

At 53, she is still in such good shape that one very embarrassed male tourist lost an arm-wrestling match to her. She maintains that it is the constant use of her hand and arm muscles and the fresh sea air which keep her in good shape.

However, her son and daughter, both married with children, have often asked her to live with them. "They seem embarrassed that I’m a masseuse. This new generation! They forget that what I’m doing is an art form and I’m proud of it. Besides, I would get lonely sitting around the house all day. I suppose I could cook and clean but I do that anyway. Why should I give up meeting new people and knowing that I can help them feel better? I also make money and know that I don’t have to depend on anyone but my abilities and myself. It’s a good feeling."

Auntie Jaeng told us that she learned traditional Thai massage from her grandfather, a well-known practitioner of the art. "It’s a lot more complex than one thinks," she explained. "When I first asked my grandfather to teach me, he looked at me as if I were asking for punishment. Little did I know," she said then laughed.

"He brought out charts of the human body which had ‘spider-web’ patterns all over them. I learned that it wasn’t just ‘kneading dough’. The body has many ‘meridians’ which influence the functioning of the various muscles, bones and organs. After about two years of memorising the various meridians and gradual learning, I was beginning to understand the complexity of it."

We asked Auntie Jaeng if she had any regular customers. "Certainly I do," she said with confidence. "After 20 years of practice, if I’m not an expert, I never will be. My Thai and foreign customers also pay the same price. I find the idea of making guests to Thailand pay more very wrong."

Auntie Jaeng’s massages are 220 per hour for all
nationalities.

Pattaya is now implementing a system for people engaged in honest professions in beach areas. Overcharging tourists will be forbidden and the various professions must wear white outfits with numbers.

Auntie Jaeng may be seen giving massages on Pattaya Beach, in the area across from Soi 12. Ask uncle ‘Boonkuea’ who owns the beach chair concession. He will point her out to you.

TAT extends tourism years until 2003

While the Amazing Thailand campaign is scheduled to last only until the year 2000, Thailand’s years of tourism will not end until three years beyond that. The Tourism Authority of Thailand has launched a greater 5-year tourism plan which includes promotions to tap visitors from all over the world on their way to the Sydney Olympics, and those who plan to visit Thailand’s Indochinese neighbors.

From the Amazing River of Kings Year 1999, TAT will launch the Celebrating the World Heritage Year 2000, inviting visitors on their way to Australia for the 2000 Olympics to visit Thailand’s ancient cities of Ayudhaya and Sukhothai, and the Baan Chiang pre-historic site. Many light and sound events are also planned.

According to TAT officials, tourism promotion plans in 2001 will portray Thailand as the irresistible passage to neighboring countries under the ‘Gateway to Indochina’ idea. Buriram Province will be directly connected with Cambodia’s magnificent Angkor Wat and other Khmer sanctuaries.

Bangkok will celebrate her 220th birthday in 2002, initiating a ‘Bangkok 220’ year of tourism. That year the capital will be more modernized, with both elevated train and subway systems; the 5-year tourism plan would end in 2003 when Thailand will be the center for meetings and festivals under the code name ‘Thailand Rendezvous Year’.

Maintaining tradition

by Justin Brierty

All those who’ve noticed the small display of Thai fishing boats on Sukhumvit Road near the Rayong turn off, please raise your hands. All those who haven’t, try and take a closer look next time as this will give you an indication of this town’s heritage. Although highly developed now with hotels, condo’s, restaurants, bars and an estimated annual tourist turnover of between 1-2 million people, the once tiny fishing village that was Pattaya 50 years ago still manages to continue its tradition of being a fishing village.

Despite all the modern cons where cars, computers and consumerism in general are rapidly changing the way we live and think, this basic tradition and that of the farmer still carry on despite many of the financial and economic woes. Although droughts are slowing procedures down for the farmer in the north, his fishing friend in the south appears to be doing just fine.

Situated in the northern bay of the city at the Naklua (salt fields) fishing pier is a vast array of colorful fishing boats which off load their catch to buyers from Chonburi and Rayong. With the more popular fish, such as "Gow" and "Intree" fetching prices of between 200-300 baht per kilogram, local fisherman ""Lung", 38, is always on the prowl. With his trusty old boat "Sorponsamhut" to guide him and his crewmen "Witchara", 38, "Hom", 29, and "Lor", 28, Lung has seen many changes in the area. "It’s good to have tourists here to support the economy, but there needs to be more control of the area," Lung says. "Hotels and restaurants want their guests to eat local seafood, and we the fishermen do too, but we can only provide such food if the bay is kept clean from their rubbish," he says whilst cranking up Sorponsamhut’s engine.

"There aren’t too many times that we don’t go out. Sometimes we’ll be out for a week and other times we’ll go out 3 times a week. It depends on the weather, the moon and the condition of the boat."

Departing from the other boats at the pier and with shouts of "Chok Dee" (good luck) to boot, Lung’s crew members prepare to untangle the nets from the previous trip and check all equipment for the afternoon and night’s fishing.

With the glaring sun beating down on them and being an occupational hazard for fishermen in general, all aboard have faces that have worn the test of time out in the gulf. Although they occasionally wear caps to stop the sun’s heat, sun block doesn’t appear to be an option for the four.

Whilst Witchara and Hom take a small coffee break, Lor heads down to the infamous engine room where any major faults can leave them drifting down the coast. When questioning Lung about such experiences, he recalls a time in which the engine faulted and they were left drifting but managed to get the engine going again in time before any major drifting occurred. "Usually there are other boats in the area to assist if necessary, or sometimes I’ll send out a call to one of my friends who’ll come and help me," mumbles Lung.

When questioned about his past 13 years as a fisherman, and of any unusual sights that he’s seen over the years, Witchara smiles at me as if to say, "Well, there was a time when this enormous jaws like fin popped out of the water, circling us, ready for a feed..." But replies instead, "Occasionally we will see a few fins or what appears to be the back of a whale, but it is usually a wreck from something or piece of driftwood."

As local attractions and the high rise condos of Pattaya become smaller and smaller, the sun starts to descend and tranquility sets in until we reach our destination approximately ten kilometers from shore. In the midst of unloading the 700-800 meter net, rigging of the center bamboo booms also takes place so that they’re positioned 90 degrees to the boat. Whilst the two lightweights Hom and Lor walk out onto the boom like tightrope artists, the two heavyweights Larn and Witchara ensure the boat’s stability.

Upon dusk settling, Lung once again fires up the engine, whereby the radiating bulbs situated on the bamboo booms light up the area like a firecracker on New Year’s Eve. With two types of operating systems, one for drifting and the other for scooping, the crew (between intermittent scoops) throw their hand lines overboard where some teasing occurs as the bait is brought to the surface with junior fish following.

With squid suddenly becoming the main target, they, too, return the complements to their captors by firing bursts of black goo as a defense to try and avoid capture, changing only the color of the crew’s clothes rather than changing their ultimate destiny of ending up on restaurant and kitchen tables. Floating by, also looking for food, is the occasional crab, for which Witchara will quickly scurry around for the elongated pool pooper scooper to try and snatch victory. But he is often out-witted by the smaller crustacean.

As the night wears on and more scoops are made, Lung eases off the speed to allow everyone a freshly cooked feed, a light drink and a light snooze before hauling the drift net.

Anxious to see what’s been caught in the net, I also finish my feed and rush to the bow. Trying to avoid stray hooks and falling overboard, I grab hold of the railing with one hand and take a firm grip of my camera with the other, waiting to snap the big haul. Whilst Witchara, Lor and Hom are a quarter of the way through pulling the net in with more squid and a variety of smaller fish caught, I glance back at captain Lung for a brief moment to seek an excuse as to where the big haul is, but only find a smile. Turning back around, I see that the net has been entirely hauled in with no big thrush of water, nor any vast amounts of fish to follow. With smiles on all their faces, I feel I’ve been had. Not so, as Lung puts it to me, "sometimes we have great hauls, like three days ago. Every day is different."

Departing from the calm night waters, I suddenly find myself drifting into a deep sleep until I’m awakened by a truck at Naklua pier off-loading ice for one of the boats. Forcing myself to get up, I help the others unload the day’s catch. Hom, whom I’ve hardly heard a word out of all day, suddenly perks up and says, "We take what we can get. Out there we don’t have a lot but we have everything we need."

With this simple yet thoughtful set of words, I thank the crew and Lung for their hospitality and head back into the concrete jungle and neon lights of Pattaya City where farangs, girls, speeding bikes, cars, trucks and buses reign.

Thailand hosts first ever Asian Cockfighting Championship

The Thai Society for the Preservation of Thai Chickens staged the first Asian Cockfighting Championship, which took place at the cock-fighting arena on England Road, Jan Island in Chonburi on February 7.

Chickens from Vietnam, Mainland China, Japan, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand were brought to the arena to participate in the closely supervised bouts.

Fighting cocks were paired according to weight, in 5 weight categories: Strawweight, Flyweight, Bantamweight, Middleweight and Heavyweight.

In the finals of each weight division, Thailand chickens won two categories, while poultry pugilists from China, Vietnam and Indonesia each won 1 category.

It was estimated that over 10,000 cockfight enthusiasts attended the event.

The animal fights opened with a parade on Koh Pho Road, with all participating member nations taking part. Mr. Anuwat Watanaphonsiri presided over the opening ceremony.

Mr. Thanin Jiarawanon, the sponsor of the event, said that the cockfights were to preserve to preserve local chickens and was a great success. "There are more people becoming interested in cock fighting all the time," he told reporters.

Mr. Roger Lohanan, the Head of the Thai Chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, also attended to the fights. He told reporters that while chickens are killed for their meat and raised for eggs and feathers, cockfighting was not a viable or proper way to treat the animals. He said cockfighting did not ‘preserve’ the animals in any way but merely gave people an excuse to engage in cruelty to them.

The AP news agency followed the cockfights closely and the bouts were broadcast all over the world. The agency said that this fight was more ‘humane’ than most. This was due to the lower number of rounds, the suturing of injuries to the birds and the absolute forbidding of any betting.

The AP report continued, however, saying that no matter what changes were made, it was cruel, as the animals risked injury and blindness.

Big changes on the small screen

by Barrie Kenyon

Satisfying the TV viewing demands of disparate groups of Pattaya farangs is a daunting task. Mind you, their choice is better than ever before. Local cable companies do a stalwart job for around 300 baht a month. Popular options such as BBC World News and Discovery Channel appear and then disappear not because of company idiosyncrasy as is widely believed. Rather, the multinational owners of TV satellites, such as Rupert Murdoch’s group, are forever searching for new ways of scrambling the signals against free use. If local cable viewers paid the true costs of such programs, the subscriptions would be very much higher.

UBC, an amalgam of the former Thai Sky, which went bankrupt, and IBC charges around 1000 baht a month for most of the channels shown in the Bangkok Post. As the company has not laid cables on any scale outside of Bangkok, access on the Eastern Seaboard is only through a dedicated dish, decoder box and personal smart card. UBC’s problem across the country is that it has not yet broken even. This explains why some programs were lost in 1998 although the remaining choice of international movie channels, news, light entertainment and sport is still extensive. The number of subscribers to UBC in Pattaya alone is said to have tripled in the last year, especially since local companies can now install the special dishes on a franchise basis. This saves the householder the trouble of having to journey to Ban Saen, the nearest UBC office, which none the less still oddly displays its defunct IBC sign.

Yes, it’s all about making money and that’s the problem. Thailand is still at the stage of adjusting to the scenario that international TV, as opposed to domestic programming, is no longer free to air. This accounts for the fact that some individuals invested up to 50,000 baht on a satellite system in the early 1990s and were told the programming was then free for life. In reality, these pioneer technologies were simply temporary trial offers and, one by one, the programs have disappeared so that the dishes are now virtually useless. Pattaya Mail readers frequently complain that their hotel or condo receives virtually no watchable offerings in spite of being told they have "satellite" or "cable" TV. A dime to a dollar, these residencies are not paying a monthly or yearly subscription to a recognized local or national company for an alternative system. The redundant dishes still cover the Pattaya skyline, vainly searching the heavens for something of interest apart from the news from Malaysia and that most intangible of subjects, Hindi humor from the sub continent.

There is no publicly published research in Thailand on viewing habits of farangs, most of whom are transients anyway. It is admittedly a small market except maybe at breaking news crisis time such as who will win Superbowl or the progress of a mass bombing of Iraq, known in the trade as Glue Moments. Murdoch’s Star TV has recently introduced its own satellite TV system into Thailand requiring yet another discrete satellite and decoder, although the company currently sells some programs to UBC including BBC world, Star Sports and Star Movies. But Star as an independent entity, including Granada and Star World, is not generally available to individual subscribers and is reserved for hotels, condos or corporate users with their own electricians who can handle problems. This is because Star plans no backup system of repair engineers or help line numbers if you - as a clueless householder - lose the picture for some reason. Star’s attempt to introduce satellite TV by targeting a market niche, dwellers of multi storey buildings, is an interesting experiment as it cuts down heavily on running and mass advertising costs.

Murdoch’s move to identify a cost effective, largely farang viewing public in Thailand may prompt others to research in different directions. Local cable operators could discover a profitable niche in local news in English prime time spots and area advertising, especially in Pattaya which has a rapidly expanding retiree population. UBC could consider sending out subscriber questionnaires to discover more about the viewer base and how it breaks down according to interests, lifestyles, age, income and temperament. This could produce some surprising features, for all we know, such as that some minor channels haven’t even a measurable following or that most weekend day viewers are under sixteen swallowing cartoons. Or maybe the biggest growth area over the next ten years for international TV is in fact bilingual Thais with farangs a tiny sidelined minority. Sometimes it is possible to boost revenue and increase customer base at one and the same time. So far, nobody has achieved that in Thailand.

Customs appeal to travel industry: join war against contraband

by Imtiaz Muqbil,
Executive Editor, Travel Impact Newswire

When the Travel Australia Business Show (TABS) was held in Brisbane in September 1998, a surprise exhibitor was the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS). Two months later, at the World Travel Mart in London, an entire booth was taken up by the UK’s HM Customs and Excise Department.

What are customs and quarantine people doing at international trade shows? Simple - trying to get the Travel & Tourism industry to join in the fight against the multibillion dollar smuggling rackets which cost global taxpayers a fortune and are responsible for everything from spreading plant and animal disease to money laundering and the destruction of wildlife.

"Travel agents, airline personnel and hotel staff are at the front-line of Travel & Tourism," said an AQIS representative. "It is important for them to be fully educated on how much damage illicit movement of goods and people across borders can do to societies, cultures and the environment."

Says World Customs Organisation Secretary General James Shaver, "Governments are also looking toward their Customs administrations to provide a high level of social protection against the emerging evils of trans-national crime, such as international drug trafficking, money laundering, the trafficking of nuclear materials and the illegal trade in endangered species."

However, he notes that Customs authorities have to perform their role even while balancing the need to let people move through nothing-to-declare green channels as well the interests of revenue collection, trade facilitation, enforcement of trade instruments and increasing demands for social and environmental protection.

In seeking closer links with the travel industry, the Customs authorities have to first perform a major education job that involves explaining in meticulous, yet simple detail what the problem is, how much damage it can cause and how the travel industry can help prevent it.

At the Travel Australia Business Show, which was aimed mainly at travel agents and tour operators from Asia, the AQIS had brochures in six Asian languages, including Thai, listing all the various foods, flora and fauna that Asians cannot bring into Australia.

It’s a delicate task. AQIS officials admit knowing that bringing food is very much an Asian ‘cultural thing.’ However, recent episodes like the mad-cow disease in the UK and the chicken flu epidemic in Hong Kong have only strengthened the effort to ensure that the island Down Under, where agriculture is a major export-generator, remains free of pests and disease.

Since October 1997, Australian customs authorities have been levying on the spot fines ranging from A$55 to A$110 on those whom they believe knowingly did not declare or mis-declared items of quarantine concern. "Travellers who have made a genuine mistake or who are confused because of language difficulties will not be fined," says an AQIS spokesperson.

In addition to the Asian languages, AQIS also has the same brochures in seven European languages and Arabic. Travel agents at TABS were given order forms asking them to list their language requirement along with an approximate number of brochures required.

Agents were told that making this information available would help their clients avoid not only the fines, but also "potentially embarrassing inspections of their luggage and delays on arrival."

A similar approach to educating the travel industry is being taken by British Customs and Excise whose publication on "Controlled Drugs" has won numerous awards for its ‘plain English’ approach to a very complex problem.

While the publication is basically about controlling drugs, it also includes an extensive chapter on money laundering, which thrives on using cash-rich industries like Travel & Tourism as a conduit. The publication explains in rich detail, with a good dose of old-fashioned cartoon-illustrated British humour, exactly how money laundering works and some of the common channels it uses.

The chapter on drugs, too, is graphically embellished with pictures both of the drugs themselves and the various instruments used to administer them. Also included is data on how the smuggling takes place and some of the popular routes, of which the Golden Triangle is naturally one part.

Considerable information is also available on the Internet. The World Customs Organisation has put its joint brochure with Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which highlights the problem of the illicit trade in wild fauna and flora, and seeks to make nature conservation officers more aware of the need to cooperate with Customs.

Most of the illicit flora and fauna originates in Asia, Central and South America, Eastern Europe and Africa, and heads for consumers in North America, Western Europe, the Middle East and the Far East (Japan, Hong Kong (China), Singapore, Republic of Korea). Some countries (Canada, Australia, South Africa) are known to be both consumers and producers.

The profits may be considerable. A gray parrot from Gabon can be sold for US$16-20 by a Senegalese wholesaler and then for US$300-360 by a European wholesaler, and eventually bought by a customer for US$ 600-800 or even US$1,200. Shipments often consist of between 50 and 200 birds.

A macaw can be bought for about US$100 on South American markets and be resold for US$5,000 to 6,000 in Europe or North America. A shipment of almost 200 macaws from Colombia was seized recently at a European airport; the commercial value was US$1.2 million.

The illicit trade in animals and plants generally requires little investment and yields high profits; the risks in terms of penalties are low. However, it is playing a major role in the extinction of many species of wildlife around the world.

If one adds to this the further problems of cracking down on smuggled liquor and tobacco, weaponry, pirated material, the task faced by Customs departments worldwide is gargantuan. The World Tourism Organisation reports that about 900 million people travelled last year, with major airports like London Heathrow reporting annual passenger movements of 85 million.

Just as simple information conveyed to travellers by travel agents on prohibited foods in Australia, UK Criminal Intelligence authorities note that having good quality information is absolutely essential to cracking down on smuggling and organised transnational crime.

It is an issue the Travel & Tourism industry will hear a lot more about in the future.

“Amazing Thailand” has room for improvement

Editorial comment by Kittisak Khamthong

In this age of the broken economy, tourism is one of the few things Thailand has to sell. The government, owing the IMF huge sums of money, declared 1998-9 Amazing Thailand years. The campaign is a success, as the number of tourists was significantly higher in 1998.

More cynical elements ask the question, "Is it skill or merely a ‘windfall’?"

They say this because most of Thailand’s neighbours are experiencing political problems which may be the cause of tourists choosing Thailand over beautiful Bali or orderly yet exotic Malaysia.

Mainland Chinese represented the highest number of Asian tourists and German nationals the majority of Europeans. Americans are lucky, as they have their own paradises, such as Florida and Hawaii, very popular with Thai people.

Yet statistical studies show that many tourists were not impressed with many facets of Thailand.

Operators of various tourist venues need to be more diligent about providing the best and most honest service possible. They should think of return visits and long term benefits. The "get it while you can" method has proven to be extremely deleterious to tourism in many countries.

Tourists complained of being cheated, the heart-stopping traffic and the cleanliness and quality of service at restaurants.

Some tourists found that they couldn’t get into their hotels. Some found that they couldn’t get out, as their tour company had not paid the bills.

Tourists were seen sitting stultified in the lobbies of hotels, as they waited for hours or even days to leave.

If tourists have this problem, they should contact their tour company and have the problem cleared up immediately.

Tourists wish to get to their hotels as soon as possible after a flight of hundreds or possibly tens of thousands of miles. Arriving at a hotel and finding they have no room is a guaranteed way to assure they don’t return.

Copyright 1998 Pattaya Mail Publishing Co.Ltd.
370/7-8 Pattaya Second Road, Pattaya City, Chonburi 20260, Thailand
Tel.66-38 411 240, 411 241, Fax:66-38 427 596; e-mail: [email protected]
Created by Andy Gombaz, assisted by Chinnaporn Sangwanlek.