Family Money: Managing Money

By Leslie Wright

One often hears the cliché: "The First Principle of Management is delegation."

In fact, it isn’t; it’s the Second. The First Principle is Planning.

Many people in management positions find it only too easy to delegate tasks, functions - and often responsibility - to others; but that ability does not make them competent managers if they are unable to plan effectively.

Any competent manager knows that the planning comes first; the organisation and delegation of tasks comes afterwards.

Similarly with finances: sound financial management requires sound financial planning.

And this applies not just on a corporate level, but all the way along the financial management spectrum to the two extremes: the individual and the nation.

For some individuals, of course, financial planning consists simply of ensuring they’ve taken their credit and ATM cards out of their wallet before going downtown for a booze-up...

For others it can mean a great deal more.

Managing gently

"Sound fiscal policies" is a phrase often heard on TV and written in newspapers about the men who manage the money supply for great nations.

For example, much of the continued strength and stability of the US stock market in recent years has been attributed to the "sound fiscal policies" of Alan Greenspan, who has dextrously managed (in its strict sense) to keep his feet gently on both the brake and accelerator of the Federal Reserve since he took office there in 1987.

Thus for the first time in nigh on three decades, the US has managed to avoid the boom-&-bust cycle which was so prevalent before.

A prime example of the other kind of "fiscal management" would be the UK Labour Government under Harold Wilson in the 1970s.

Despite - or perhaps because of - his background in economics at Oxford, his government’s monetary policy (which to socialists meant distributing money evenly but not necessarily fairly to everyone), and his successor James Callaghan’s even worse attempts at managing the economy eventually brought the country literally to a standstill.

The end result was rampant inflation (at one point exceeding 27%), massive unemployment, extreme left-wing union leaders dictating who could or could not work and where, and the pound sterling going into steep decline.

As a result, assistance had to be sought from the beneficent IMF, who, like all moneylenders, imposed quite strict conditions on the loans.

It is perhaps worth noting that while some Thais gripe about the impositions of those greedy farangs at the IMF when our hosts’ own severely damaged economy needed their help a couple of years back, the UK had to suffer even more severe impositions (also at the hands of foreigners) a couple of decades ago.

The causes of course were different. In the case of the UK, the planning was flawed, and over-management of the economy along socialist lines led to the massive problems which it took Margaret Thatcher to solve by returning the power to the people, reducing taxes and rekindling the entrepreneurial spirit which had made Britain Great in the first place.

In the more recent case of Thailand, some analysts have concluded that perhaps the government had had too much of a ‘hands-off’ style of fiscal management, letting the entrepreneurial spirit run riot and money managers do their own thing with insufficient controls or restraints...

Of course this is a somewhat simplistic view, and in both cases other factors played a significant part as well.

Nonetheless, in both instances, the tax-paying public ends up footing the bill, one way or another.

No matter whether one’s referring to an individual’s money problems, or corporate financial difficulties, or national economic crisis, the lesson is really quite simple: if you cannot manage your own financial affairs effectively, then other more competent managers have to be brought in to help do it for you.

Clear & simple

For many individuals, financial planning raises spectres they’d rather not think about.

Some have an innate distrust of anyone telling them what to do with their money. They feel they can manage their affairs quite adequately by themselves, and don’t need any help, thank you all the same.

For others it’s all too complicated, and every time they invest in something they end up losing money. "Safer just to keep it under the mattress, don’t you think?"

Fine. Their money is indeed their own affair, and it’s certainly not my function to persuade people to do anything they don’t want to do. But surprisingly few people understand that fundamentally, financial planning is really very simple. It consists simply of ensuring that enough money is there as and when it’s needed.

And this simple formula applies right across the financial spectrum. That is: to the individual, to his family, to the entrepreneur with his budding business, to giant corporations, and to nations large and small.

Of course, the actual application is not so simple. In fact, it’s often very complex indeed.

Identify, quantify, qualify

Before planning how you’re going to have enough money available to meet your needs, you first have to identify those needs.

These have then to be quantified, and prioritised. In other words, what for, how much, when, and how important in relation to your other needs is that particular need (which all too often may be only a ‘want’ rather than a real need!)

An example is planning your children’s education. Most parents want to give their children the best possible start in life, and recognise that a good education plays a vital role.

Some employers pay for the children’s school fees as part of the employment package. Rarely, though, do they pay for university education as well.

Over the years I’ve had a number of clients who were saving diligently to provide the best education for their kids that money could buy, and this was their first priority when it came to their family’s financial planning.

In some cases this is to send them to private rather than state schools (whether the employer pays or not); in other cases it was to ensure the money was there in case little Johnny or Jane wanted to go on to university.

Very laudable, and their children should be very grateful for the sacrifices their parents have made for them.

In many cases, however, the biggest sacrifice - which the parents let alone the children had given little thought to - was their own retirement planning.

By saving all their disposable income into their children’s education fund, they very often neglected making provision for their own personal pensions. And would suffer the consequences of that oversight for far longer than their kiddies were going to good schools.

In Western society in this century, and increasingly in Eastern society too, children are no longer raised in the expectation of taking care of and providing for their parents in their old age. Hence the rise of the ‘welfare state’ so prevalent in many countries of Europe, and which has become such a burden on the taxpayers of those nations.

Now, with an increasingly ageing population, governments are having to consider taking steps to curb some welfare benefits, including taxing pensions (as indeed already applies in some countries - New Zealand is an example) and/or raising the age at which retirees will qualify for State Pension benefits.

This means that most Europeans under the age of 45 now will quite probably not receive State Pension benefits when they retire, despite having contributed to them throughout their working lives.

Thus without sound and adequate independent financial planning in this important area, your retirement may be considerably less comfortable than you had envisaged.

Step by step

So the first step in sound financial planning is to clearly identify your financial objectives. Then, to consider how much will realistically be required to achieve those goals, and over what time frame.

The next step is to prioritise these goals: which are the most important, and which are less. These steps apply whether you’re thinking as an individual, or an entrepreneur setting up or restructuring your business, or preparing the budget for a major corporation, or even for a whole country.

Then, to quantify what resources you have available (capital and/or savings capacity) to help you get there. If your resources are insufficient to meet all your requirements, cuts will have to be made.

But by having prioritised your requirements, those cuts will be less painful. And, more importantly, your most significant goals will get the largest slice of the available pie.

Significant variables

Two variables which are fundamental to your success or failure in achieving your objectives are the growth of your invested money (either capital or savings from income), and the erosionary effect of inflation.

For short term planning, inflation may not be a very significant issue while we continue to enjoy what is, historically, a period of very low inflation world-wide.

But for longer term planning, it would be dangerously naïve to assume that inflation will continue at present levels for, say, the next 20-30 years (which is the period you may well have to plan for if you’re considering retiring.)

And it is simply sound planning to consider where you will be spending that money.

Interest rates and inflation are both low in Thailand at the moment; but less than four years ago the government of the day was congratulating itself for having finally brought inflation under double digits for the first time in two decades.

Who can say it won’t be up in double digits again two decades hence? I wouldn’t be prepared to bet on it (if betting were legal that is) - would you?

Similarly in the UK, as noted earlier, inflation was well into double digits through most of the 70s, and only in recent years has it been "brought under control" and currently hovering in low single figures.

Again, who knows what it will be in 20 or 30 years time? In Thailand, the UK, Australia, Germany, or even the US.

Sound long-range financial planning has to take this factor into account, otherwise the planning may turn out to have been not very sound at all.

Managing risk

The growth you will enjoy will very much depend on the placement of your investments. The decision on what type of investment, and where, will itself depend very much on your own risk-aversion profile.

For example, an aggressive portfolio is likely to be much more volatile than a conservative one, even though in the longer term it may well outperform more cautious investments.

A cautiously conservative investor with an aggressive portfolio would be constantly fretting about its inherent volatility and panic every time there’s a dip in the markets.

Similarly, an adventurously aggressive investor holding low-risk investments would be consistently disappointed by the relatively low growth such a portfolio would achieve.

Most of us fall somewhere between these two extremes. But when it comes to planning a personal portfolio, the first consideration should always be your risk-aversion profile.

The next aspect is the time frame. The shorter the period until you will require the money, the lower should be the inherent investment risk.

Similarly, with some financial goals (such as your children’s education fund or the endowment for your mortgage) a fairly low-risk balanced portfolio would generally be more appropriate than an aggressive one.

After all, you shouldn’t take risks with your kiddies’ education or your house!

Prudent pension planning

As regards pension planning, that again depends on the time frame.

If you’re 20 years away from retirement, you can afford to take on a much higher element of risk in your personal pension plan than if you’re 2 years away from retiring.

And of course if you’re already retired, you probably don’t want to take on much risk at all!

However, if you’re totally risk-averse but have only a relatively modest amount of capital, you need to consider that, if your capital is to last you the rest of your days, the growth on it has to beat long-term inflation.

Otherwise it will either provide you with less income than you really need, or in real-growth terms it will be eroded faster than perhaps you had envisaged, and thus may not last you throughout your expected lifetime. And then what do you do?

Nevertheless, when considering drawing down a pension from capital investments, it would be sound and prudent planning to assume a more modest rate of growth and a higher rate of inflation than the ‘norm’.

It is also sound planning to ensure that overall portfolio is flexible enough that it can be adjusted swiftly and inexpensively, in order to protect it against negative market movements, and take advantage of positive ones.

So financial planning is a simple yet at the same time quite complex business.

Another aspect which is worth noting is that most of us are emotionally too close to the woods to see the trees: we tend to be caught up in the here-and-now, and are unable to stand back and look at the situation with analytical objectivity, let alone have access to the wealth of specialised information needed to make judicious decisions with regard to which investment vehicles we should use for this or that particular requirement.

That’s why people need people like me to help them.

If you have any comments or queries on this article, or about other topics concerning investment matters, write to Leslie Wright, c/o Family Money, Pattaya Mail, or fax him directly on (038) 232522 or e-mail him at [email protected]. Further details and back articles can be accessed on his firm’s website on www.westminsterthailand.com.

Leslie Wright is Managing Director of Westminster Portfolio Services (Thailand) Ltd., a firm of independent financial advisors providing advice to expatriate residents of the Eastern Seaboard on personal financial planning and international investments.

The Computer Doctor

by Richard Bunch

From Simon White: I want to buy a PC that will hopefully last me a long time and be good for what I need both now and in the foreseeable future. I am semi-retired but like to keep in touch with the business back in Australia, this I do primarily by e-mail. I have been reading computer magazines and literature and have to admit I am more baffled than ever. I do not have a particular budget in mind and am prepared to pay what it takes. I definitely don’t want another notebook and need a good monitor. The magazines now talk about Xeon processors. Should I buy a system with one of these? They appear to be top notch. Any advice you are able to give me would be welcome.

Computer Doctor replies: Since you haven’t said what the primary function of your new PC will be, i.e. what programs you will be running, it is difficult to say what the specifications should be. However, as a rule I would recommend anyone purchasing a new PC buy one for as much as they can afford now. This is because to do this at the outset is cheaper than upgrading at a later date. If you consider that the processor makes up a reasonable proportion of the system price and the cost of moving up a level at the outset is only a couple of thousand baht but to do so later is ten thousand baht, which is the more cost effective?

You asked about Xeon processors. These are the latest family of processors from Intel. They come in two Pentium III Xeon speeds at 500 and 550 MHz and also Pentium II Xeon at 450 Mhz. They are primarily designed for mid-range and higher servers and workstations. Even though you say you are prepared to pay what it takes, I think this would be very much overkill for you bearing in mind that the cost is of the Xeon processor is anything between 2 and 4 times that of its non-Xeon counterpart. In addition you will need a Xeon mainboard which also attracts a premium price.

If you want to be more specific I will be happy to give a firmer option but given the information I have I suggest you go for the Pentium III family with a good mainboard, possibly from Intel. To gain some extra performance, you could also consider using SCSI hard disks instead of IDE, this will cost about 3/4times more plus a controller card, as regards size, 8-10Gb should be more than adequate. Put in as much RAM as you can, say 256Mb and go for a quality monitor of not less than 17". I recommend you use an external V90 modem. And don’t forget to include a good UPS, maybe APC.

From Jackson Small, Pattaya: I live in a condo in Pattaya and they will not allow me to have a direct telephone line installed. I need and want to connect to the Internet from the condo but have to go through their switchboard. I need to dial 9 for an outside line and I have put this in the Location but often I get a busy signal before anything happens, when I know this is not true. What, if anything can I do to stop this?

Computer Doctor replies: It sounds like you are not getting a long enough delay to obtain a line before the modem is trying to dial out. Instead of putting the 9 in the Location, try, within your Dial Up Networking properties to put one or even two commas between the 9 and before the number, i.e. 9,,770393. Hopefully that should solve your problem.

Send your questions or comments to the Pattaya Mail at 370/7-8 Pattaya Second Road, Pattaya City, 20260 or Fax to 038 427 596 or E-mail to [email protected].

Successfully Yours: Saranjit Singh Sachdev

by Mirin MacCarthy

With his elegantly folded turban and an impressive girth, Saranjit Singh Sachdev comes across as an imposing man, a Sikh, a tough businessman and a family-minded traditionalist with the smile of a mischievous rogue.

It comes as no surprise to see both he and his family in a tailor shop (Raja’s of Pattaya), as customarily many Indians become tailors, as a race possibly being born with pins, needles and thread in their hands! However, it is unusual to find that he is also a partner in one of the biggest disco’s in town (the Palladium), a staggeringly capital intensive venture which still today has Saranjit counting the costs - but back to the beginning.

His father was in the wholesale textile business. This son, Saranjit, was born in Korat, part of a family of nine. Primary schooling was in Thailand, but he was sent to India for his High School education at the Yingberg Allen School, a Protestant school in Mussorrie near the Himalayan Ranges. When he got there he found that his English was so poor he had to go back to the beginning, a position he did not relish as he was so much older than the other boys. Hard work had him ‘leap-frog’ his way through school grades, but he was never a happy student.

With so many children to educate (and all went overseas) it was a financial struggle for his father, and many times Saranjit and his brothers could not return to Thailand for their holidays, as it was just too expensive.

By the time he was fifteen he was called home to help in his father’s business. That meant the end of his schooling, but he did not mind in the slightest. His parents had decided to expand the tailoring side of their enterprise and so they opened a tailor shop in Korat in 1968, where Saranjit went to work with his elder brother until 1972. As the Americans began to reduce their numbers in Korat, the tailor shop also started going down, so his brother moved to Sattahip to start another business there.

How Saranjit came to open his own tailor shop was pure chance. Visiting his brother in Sattahip they decided to go to Pattaya for a Pizza at a restaurant on what is now called "Walking Street". They found out that the owner was looking for more tenants so Saranjit took the plunge, as he thought the premises would make a fine tailor shop, and took it on a five year lease. After three years, and some financial manoeuvring, he was able to buy it with some financial help from what is now his partner in the Palladium. Raja’s tailoring then became in a position to consolidate in Pattaya.

Saranjit is a traditional Sikh and a proud family man. He married his wife in 1974 who works hard with him in the tailor shop and they now have three children. He sat comfortably opposite me, surrounded by framed photographs of his children that were then passed across the desk with much pride for me to see.

Family values are most important to him, "Family and relatives have a strong connection in the Indian community. We are all very close, we help each other in business. We have a strong community and traditionally we don’t marry outside it." This, of course, certainly keeps them together. Saranjit thinks of himself as an "Indian Thai" (possibly more Indian than Thai), and does not find it at all difficult in being a Sikh in a predominately Buddhist country.

His plans for the future are also family oriented. "(I want) to see my three children all married and settled. It is a goal of all Indian people. My daughter is studying Business Administration at university and my eldest son is working in the business now."

When I asked him what success meant to him, he replied, "Great!" Then laughingly he went on to explain, "I was a success once, but I am still a happy man even though I had to start again from zero. We lost a lot buying and selling property."

So how does he manage to be so happy? "I don’t want to be serious. If you are serious, you feel like you are losing something. I try to be calm." However, his current advice to would-be businessmen here is, "Think very hard before you invest in anything at the moment. It is not easy. Even I had to shut one shop." Advice you would have to call ‘tailor-made’ for today’s difficult times.

Snap Shots: Camera Test - Olympus u[mju:]-II

by Harry Flashman

Olympus has given this compact camera the strangest title imaginable. Undoubtedly there was some very good reason for the hieroglyphics after the name, but it escaped Harry Flashman, I’m afraid.

It weighs only 135 gms which is about half the weight of most other compacts (like the Canon Sure Shot at 260 gms for example). Physical dimensions are 11cm x 6cms high x 4cms deep. This is definitely a camera Madame can put in her handbag and still leave room for the 397 essential items that women need to carry.

What attracted me to this camera in the first place was the specifications of the lens. This Olympus lens is a 4 element unit of focal length 35 mm with an aperture of f2.8. What this means in real terms is that the lens will let in more light so it can be used everywhere in lower light levels than other compacts.

The autofocus will focus down as close as 0.35 m. The others are generally around 0.5 m. The focussing is done in 414 steps, so it is very precise. There is also a focus "lock" facility built in.

This is a fully automatic camera. The Shutter is programmed electronically with a range between 4 seconds and 1/1000th second. Again this is much better performance than the majority of compacts that tend to have a top shutter speed of around 1/350th second.

Probably one of the most annoying features of many compacts is the hopelessly inaccurate viewfinder. The Olympus viewfinder is simple and well marked, complete with the autofocus spot marked on it. It is also a very bright image which again makes it easy to use. In the viewfinder are two indicator lights - one green for correctly focussed and the other orange to indicate a fully charged flash.

On the back of the camera is the LCD panel which shows Date/Time, exposure counter, battery check, spot metering, self timer/remote control and flash option indicators. Many of these optional functions are controlled by pushing in two small "thumbnail" buttons just below the LCD panel. A little "fiddly" I found for my large Flashman hands.

Naturally it has auto film wind-on and auto rewind at the end of the roll. Mid-roll rewind is also possible.

The flash unit is interesting with the usual auto turn on in low light levels plus activation under fluorescent lights (to stop the green cast) or in the back-lit situation. In addition you can access Red Eye reduction mode, night scene (flash plus slow shutter speed) and night scene plus Red Eye reduction or even turn it off altogether.

Using the camera is a breeze. For the majority of situations just slide the lens cover back to turn it on, point and shoot. It really is that simple and that highly automatic. Of course, it does not have a ‘mini-zoom’ so if the subject appears too far away, then walk closer till it fills the frame. The 35 mm lens is enough of a wide angle to lift the photos away from the "standard" view, yet not so wide as to make portraits distorted.

Probably the only difficult operation with this camera was actually depressing the shutter release button. This is on top of the camera and is an elongated oval button, that feels very similar to the top of the lens cover. More than once I found myself trying to push the lens cover down and wondering why the camera did not work.

All in all, this Olympus is a very clever camera with an excellent lens that gives sharp results. The Flashman household was impressed enough to buy one. Enough said? Expect to pay around 6000 Baht for one.

Modern Medicine: Stressed Out!

by Dr Iain Corness

How many times do you hear people say they are stressed out? So what exactly are the results of stress?

These are actually just your body’s response to some very prehistoric instincts. They date back to when we roamed the earth dressed in bear skins and would meet up with hungry sabre toothed tigers. We had two choices - Fight or Flight!

To be able to carry out either of these required a huge surge of energy which the body supplied by liberating adrenaline into the blood stream. This in turn fired up receptors in the muscles and we were ready. Fight to the death or run like Ben Johnson, complete with as many performance enhancing substances possible.

Now in today’s stressful circumstances we do not meet sabre toothed tigers. Instead we have stressors that do not just bob up and disappear. We invented stressors that last all day, all night, all year and sometimes for the rest of your life. Ask anyone about the IRS (or whatever euphemism they use for the Tax Man in your country) and see whether or not the stress lasted day and night. No, there are plenty of long term stressors, be they failing businesses to mothers-in-law to bank overdrafts to failure to meet other people’s concepts of what you should be doing or achieving.

Unfortunately, our body responds in the way it always did - Fight or Flight with loads of circulating stimulants. The problem is that today we are unable to fight or flee. We are forced to sit at our desks and just take it, while our very inner being is wanting to react physically. It is this "impossible" scenario that produces the long term stress problems for us.

These problems can come out as an increase in Blood Pressure (with the added risks of stroke and heart attack), increases in gastric acid (which leads to ulcers), skin outbreaks, asthma, diarrhoea and "odd" thinking through to frank psychiatric disturbances.

Now there are a couple of distinctions that people like to make about stress. They talk about "real" stress (for example, your bank manager just foreclosed) and "imagined" stress (that’s where you worry about what would happen if the bank foreclosed). The problem here is that your physical body does not make any differentiation between these two types of stress. The end results are the same.

So what can you do about this stress situation? Well, first you have to see if it is real or imagined. If it is the latter, then talking out the fears can make it such that you stop dwelling on a "What if ..." imagined problem. If it is the former, and the IRS are really standing in your office, then it becomes a need for acceptance (one of the more successful principles behind Buddhism for example) before moving on to the next step.

As you can see, stress management is truly a mental exercise, which in turn settles the physical symptoms. Only treating the physical side achieves very little as the cause (poor stress management) is still there.

Unfortunately, stress has been around since the bear-skin ages, but is even more important today, as it lasts even longer. Perhaps it is time you reviewed your stress coping mechanisms?

Dear Hillary,

Can you help me? My girlfriend is cheating on me, this I am sure of - but she will not admit it. She has definitely cooled off recently and does not care if she makes my meals on time or gets my clothes clean and ironed properly. She is also not keeping the condo as clean as she used to. We have been together for only a few months, and I know I do not have "sole rights" to her, but she’s a great looker. What should I do? Keep hanging on in there, or get out now?

Anguished

Dear Anguished,

Seems to me you are confusing "sole rights" with "soul rights". What do you expect of this girl? A girlfriend or a good looking maid? I am afraid that until you grow up a little you can expect this kind of situation to continue to recur. With a bit of luck she will have left you by the time this letter is printed. Chose your girlfriends for who they are - not by how well they keep your condo clean. Time you picked up a mop yourself instead of a mopper!

Dear Hillary,

My girlfriend Dow and I set up house over a year ago. She is a sweet girl from Esarn and we get along really well. The only problem that I have with the relationship is her family. They seem nice enough people, and I have met them all, but they appear to have a very strong hold over her. At least once a month she goes up to stay with them for a couple of days and helps her mother. Sometimes this can stretch out to over a week, as it did over Songkran. Am I being unreasonable to expect her to stay home more?

Homebody

Dear Homebody,

You are being unreasonable. You should learn more about Thai customs and Thai family life. Songkran in particular is an important time for daughters to go home and pay their respects to the older members of her family. You will not change this way of Thai society life. You should appreciate her for her own values. Caring and faithfulness to family principles will extend to you as well, if you allow Dow to follow her traditions.

Dear Hillary,

Whenever we have a party at home it always ends up with my friends (the boys) in one room and all the girls outside, sitting on a mat. My Thai wife is educated and lived with me overseas for some years, but yet she continues to do this splitting up of the people at parties. Her English is good, so there is no need for her to sit on the ground outside with her Thai friends. Should I insist she join in with my farang friends indoors?

Party Pete

Dear Party Pete,

You are married to a Thai and don’t know what happens at parties here? Even in the western world, parties tend to end up with the guys around the BBQ and the girls in the kitchen. If splitting the party upsets you, then join the others outside on the mat.

Dear Hillary,

In this hot weather I notice that I perspire a lot, despite using a roll-on deodorant. What can I do? Is there some super sweat stop that I can use?

Sweaty

Dear Sweaty,

Unfortunately, my dear, sweating is a natural response of your body to the heat. Evaporation lowers the skin temperature, so if you did not sweat you would overheat and eventually burst into flames. (Spontaneous combustion is well documented and to be avoided at all costs!) If the hot weather bothers you too much, stay in air-conditioned buildings and swimming pools and only go out at night. In other words, lead the life of a tourist. Finally, there are some super strong antiperspirant deodorants you can buy at the chemist, only for the foolhardy though. They are definitely not to be recommended as they cause blocked sweat glands and the worst prickly heat rash in your armpits.

GRAPEVINE

Dining Out: Fried Goldfish?

by Miss Terry Diner

The Dining Out Team was fortunate to be taken to a typically Thai seafood restaurant a couple of months back. This place was, like so many, right on the water and the food was brilliant. With our Thai hostess, we also experienced some dishes that otherwise we might not have been game enough to try! So this time we returned, notebook in hand to bring you this week’s report.

The Pla Tong (Goldfish) restaurant is truly local, being around 100 metres outbound past the Numchai traffic lights on the Pattaya-Naklua road. It is easy to miss, so look for the big archway on your left. There is a large car park and the restaurant stretches right out to the jetty, with both covered sections (air-con and non non-air) and an open area right to the water.

The décor is fairly basic, granite topped tables and white plastic chairs, but the staff are young and enthusiastic and seem to give the atmosphere to the place. It is certainly popular with the local Thai population and you will find large tables full of munchers every evening.

The menu is also fairly basic and is 90% in Thai, so there are some traps to watch for. For example, when you see a category like crab (Grill/Steam) with the price indicated as 30-70 Baht, that is not per plate but is per 100 grams. Similarly priced are the Fish (Snapper) and Shrimp sections. The rest of the menu has an English translation and the price indicated is the plate price. It is not one of those 136 item menus, but the choices are quite varied. Some examples are Scrambled Eggs and Oysters (B80), Fried Mixed Seafood (B100), Tom Yum Goong (B250 for a huge steamboat), Fried Baby Corn with Shrimp (B100) and Steamed Fish with Soy or Lemon (B70). Beverages include most local beers (no Singha Gold, though) B50-60, soft drinks and whiskeys - again what you expect at the non-tourist Thai restaurants.

Our personal selection covered Fried Salty Fish, Rock Lobster in Garlic, Fried Pork in Soy (one of the few meat dishes), a Mixed Seafood Soup and steamed rice. Along with the food comes small side dishes with Nam Prik and a seafood sauce, a very aromatic garlic, pepper and lime juice mixture.

The seafood soup was not at all spicy and was loaded with crab, fish, prawn and squid plus fish balls and green vegetable. It was particularly nice, especially for the non-chili palate.

The pork came in thick ‘mini-steak’ pieces, juicy and tender - this was needed as you do not get a knife to eat it, and it fell apart easily enough with fork and spoon!

Pla Tong is apparently famous for its Fried Salty Fish. This is thin slices of fish soaked in Nam Pla (Fish Sauce) then dried. It was not really ‘salty’ as the name would imply and is served with a lime to squeeze over it. Something different and well worth trying.

The Rock Lobster plate was also excellent, the garlic coming through the white meat. The helping was also generous with around 8-10 half crustaceans on the plate.

So we really didn’t eat fried goldfish, but had an excellent varied dinner looking out over the water. If you have a good command of Thai, or are prepared to point and mime and sometimes be surprised at the end result, then Pla Tong will be a very good addition to your round of local eateries.

Animal Crackers: Dolphins

by Mirin MacCarthy

Dolphins have a universal appeal, symbolizing grace, harmony, freedom and play while presenting intelligent communication and even inspiration and healing to some.

Intelligent?

Dolphin species have a brain to body ratio that is among the largest in the world.

One theory is that the dolphin’s sophisticated echolocation capabilities required the evolution of a larger brain. Some have suggested that the driving force behind dolphin intelligence is the complexity of their social relationships coupled with the threats from predators, especially sharks. Whatever the reason, dolphins have awesome intelligence and communicative abilities.

Not fish

It’s a fact! Dolphins are mammals not fish! They are warm-blooded and give birth to one calf at a time. They can grow up to 4 metres and can live up to forty years in the wild but do not do so well in captivity. If penned, they frequently die early from distress and disease.

The dolphin’s skin is completely smooth allowing it to swim fast and effortlessly through the water. Generally social and cooperative they may, however, be aggressive, brutal, devious and clever in dealings with their own, and as a group downright lethal to sharks.

Jumping for joy

Dolphins enjoy playing and have a whale of a time (sorry) leaping, diving, surfing and bow riding. They can dive down more than 300m and jump up to 6m out of the water.

Frequently you can see them hitching rides in the bow waves in front of ships, a trick which allows them to do their aquabatics while conserving energy. It is an inspiring sight to see a pod of dolphins in unison performing their streamlined precision bow riding. Stroke Me.

Dolphins love to touch and be touched. One dolphin may swim alongside another pressing the length of its body against the other’s pectoral fin. This may happen briefly for a few seconds or reciprocally for five minutes or more. This is much like cats licking each other. They will even initiate touching with us humans.

At several places in the world where wild dolphins congregate voluntarily, such as off the coast of Florida in America, Shark Bay at Monkey Mia in Western Australia and Tangalooma Island off the East Coast of Australia, dolphins will swim alongside you and nudge you, apparently sensing who needs a loving touch.

Echolocation

Although they reside underwater, dolphins have incredible hearing. They can hear at ultrasonic frequencies far beyond the human range. A healthy teenager can hear at frequencies at 20 kHz whereas a dolphin can detect sounds at well over 100 kHz. By sending out (ultrasonic) click sounds and timing the length of time for their return dolphins are able to echo-navigate or produce a map of their surroundings. They use this skill for finding a meal and avoiding predators. They can readily tell the difference between species of fish by the sound that bounces off them. In captivity dolphins have demonstrated they can distinguish between balls made of copper and nickel, and even between closed boxes containing metals of different densities. Truly an awesome animal.

Auto Mania: Who Owns R-R?

by Dr. Iain Corness

That was the question a couple of weeks ago and it was amazing that so many got it wrong! However, Martyn Callow, one of our regular readers and emailers from Canada was first in with the correct answer, closely followed by Sean Jehan from the Channel Islands in the UK.

After some very strange board-room deals, with all sorts of opposition from the stiff upper lip brigade in the UK, control of good old R-R (rah, rah, pip, pip!) crossed the channel and went to VW. Yes, der Elves in der Black Forest took control after buying R-R and Bentley from the Vickers company which retains R-R Aviation. However, VeeDub are relinquishing the R-R trade-name in a couple of years which then goes to BeeEmm, while they themselves retain Bentley and the production facility at Crewe in the UK. All very intricate and well beyond my comprehension. Well done, Martyn and Sean, you got it 100% correct!

It is always a shame to see a great marque go down the tube, but I am left wondering why anyone would want to buy something like R-R? A failing car company is just that - a business failure, no-matter what the radiator grille has on it. Perhaps it’s Adolf’s revenge?

Mind you, the latest R-R, the Seraph, looks like a good thing on paper, with its BMW sourced V12 engine and of course it is still made in jolly old England and has lumps of tree all over the dashboard area.

However, what is going to happen in a couple of years when BMW take full control? The UK factory at Crewe will stay with VW to build Bentleys we presume, so where will BMW build the new R-R’s? Reckon they’ll be hacking down a few more trees in the Black Forest, that’s what!

Before we get off the luxury end of the market, I must pass on this little gem. Stavros Niarchos and Aristotle Onassis (remember them?) had lunch in New York and afterwards, when walking past the R-R showroom, they were attracted by the cars and went inside. They both decided to buy one and Stavros went for his wallet. Onassis immediately stopped him saying, "I’ll get these. You got lunch."

Autotrivia Quiz

"The Spirit of Ecstasy" is the correct name for the famous mascot mounted on the radiator of most R-R’s. By the way, in those countries where it was illegal to have a radiator mascot, R-R delivered the cars with the mascot in the glove box. The statuette is also known as Emily, the Winged Lady or Silver Lady in some countries, even though you could get her in gold. Up till the early 50’s every one made had the date it was cast engraved into the plinth on the base of the mascot.

It was designed and produced originally by the sculptor Charles Sykes who had created a mascot, called "The Whisper" for a certain Lord Montagu’s R-R. This mascot was the forerunner of "The Spirit of Ecstasy" and the same female model was used for both mascots. Her name was Eleanor Velasco Thornton and she drowned in 1915 when the ship she was on was torpedoed by the German forces in WWI. (It’s REAL trivia this week, isn’t it)! (Funny - Rolls-Royce looks like it’s been torpedoed by the German forces too! What a coincidence.)

The quiz question for this week is then - why was Eleanor’s finger to her lips in that original statuette "The Whisper"? First correct answer to fax 427 596 or email to [email protected] wins the FREE beer this week. Hint - it is a tale of intrigue in the best soap opera tradition.

SUV’s

This is the new growth market according to the vehicle manufacturing pundits, both here and overseas. Where the sales of everything is static or going down, SUV’s are on the way up. In America they are going bananas over them. With this staggering news, we are now all supposed to rush out and get one of these off-road monsters for our garages, trading in our bitumen only outdated transport. This is even if your garage is in down-town Paris, up-town St. Petersburg or Central Road Pattaya.

Quite frankly, I cannot see for the life of me what the attraction is in these behemoths. What is the point of having something in the driveway that has a ground clearance of half a metre when the biggest things you have to hurdle are the discarded left foot thongs strewn all over Pattaya’s streets?

Why have a car that you need a step ladder to get in to? Why drive a top heavy beast that guzzles fuel and runs on very expensive tyres? Why?

Or are we simply unsuspecting victims of good advertising campaigns. Perhaps we want to look big and powerful on the roads? Those big bumpers look the part I suppose. However, I imagine you’d look pretty silly with a big alloy bumper bar on the family Corolla with a winch mounted in the middle of it. Roof mounted spotlights would also look a little out of place.

Mind you, that same family Corolla will go just as far up a slippery slope as a 2WD, non-LSD version of a "pseudo" jeep. Yes, gentle reader, they sell more SUV’s in 2WD form than in 4WD. And LSD is a delete option. As I said, you’d be better off with a Corolla or a Nissan Sunny. The majority of SUV owners don’t even get off the bitumen, or if they do it’s for a couple of weekends a year. They put up with the big muvva’s so they can go bush bashing less than 3% of the time they drive it. Me? I’d rather buy a car for the 97% of the time, not the 3%. However, if everyone were like me we’d all be driving Benz SLK’s.

SLK

Now there’s three initials starting with "S" that are exciting. The Mercedes Benz SLK is turning into one of the great classics of the end of the century. The styling is simply sensational. The specifications aren’t all that bad either. 2.3 litres and supercharged to boot. The way the alloy roof folds into the boot is ingenious and I want one! Just look at this week’s picture. Don’t you want one too?

Copyright 1998 Pattaya Mail Publishing Co.Ltd.
370/7-8 Pattaya Second Road, Pattaya City, Chonburi 20260, Thailand 
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Updated by Chinnaporn Sangwanlek.