HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

The “Noise epidemic” in Thailand

Miffed over retirement visa procedures

Traffic laws are meaningless

Enforce the law equally on everyone

Comments on the traffic situation

Comments to “Pattaya Bum”

The “Noise epidemic” in Thailand

Editor;

Unfortunately, as a Swiss national, I do not speak English. However, I hope you will have someone who will be able to translate this letter, as it is an important issue for many people.

A wild market, by now well established, has been started 3 years ago in my neighborhood [by people in tight shirts]. Besides the sanitation and health problems arising from these illegal market vendors, there is also the problem of noise pollution. Naturally all booths try to grab the attention of customers. The cheapest method of doing so is to make more noise than anybody else. Megaphone, radios, 2000 Watt amplifiers with 1.5 meter high loudspeakers pounding techno music, others using drums or other methods to get attention.

In addition to that, a mosque was built here 3 years ago, trying to make it’s “message” heard above all the noise from the market. Several times new pairs of loudspeakers have been acquired to spread the “good word”.

Due to the darkness around 10 p.m. the activities slow down. Then the time for Karaoke bars starts. They keep open until the last customer has left and no other one is in sight. This is around 4 a.m.

At 6 a.m. the market gets ready for the day ahead. And as it is easier with music, everything starts all over again!

We tried to sell our house, as it is impossible to live here. Nobody wants to buy it - for obvious reasons mentioned above.

The owner of the land on which the market is held is a rich proprietor of a restaurant in Pattaya. He thinks it is his right to make as much noise as he thinks necessary. (After all, he can do anything he wants on his plot of land.) As he is relatively rich, he also has the law on his side. This means the men with the tight shirts.

What to do? To leave everything behind and just go? This is what will happen in the end.

Martin Som
Soi Nern Plap Wan

Miffed over retirement visa procedures

Dear Editor,

Who is responsible for all this nonsense that one now has to contend with when going to Immigration for a one year visa? The Pattaya office does not seem to be the friendly place it used to be. Every time I go to Immigration I feel that I will be dumped on. I feel anxious when faced with the paperwork and the procrastination.

When one trip was all that was necessary a few years back, numerous trips must now be paid to immigration to get anything done. Approximately three trips to make an application and three more monthly trips after the application is approved before the visa is delivered to you. This amounts to six trips. Now if this is not enough one must report in every three months or face a hefty fine of 200 baht a day.

There is now a new regulation making the process more galling and expensive and time consuming. Even though a person might have a history of being granted yearly visas that person must make a yearly trip to Bangkok to get pension papers validated by their embassy. For this signature service the embassy collects the exorbitant fee of fifty-five dollars. (Do people in Phuket or Chiang Mai have to make this trip to Bangkok?)

Somebody is making it difficult to retire in Pattaya, just when the government is screaming for more retirees and more money. The present system is not the way to make the retiree happy. Who is it that has decided that 2 copies of every page of one’s passport, 2 copies of every page in one’s bank book, 2 copies of a letter from one’s bank, and an interview that establishes the amount of money received and spent is not sufficient for a visa? This is approximately 80 pages in all.

It would probably be less worrisome to desert the country. It would be less exhausting to make a trip to the border every three months and forget about the year-visa process. What next? What else to the authorities have in store for us?

Senior Citizen

Traffic laws are meaningless

Sir,

I have not been following the correspondence originated by Pattaya Bum, but I wish to take up points raised in his recent reply (Pattaya Mail 28th December).

He suggests that farangs should teach Thais western standards and implies that the Thais are unaware that they are breaking the law when they run red stoplights, have up to 5 people on a motorcycle, allow children to ride motorbikes, double park, etc.

Nonsense! The Thai people are well aware that they are breaking the law, but they refuse to be told what to do. They do what they want - just as it has always been. Even when caught and fined, they immediately return to their old ways.

The introduction of a points system nationally and meaningful fines (forget the 100bt fines) may slowly encourage them to begin to obey laws, but it is also necessary for the rural police to start enforcing the law. Here in my Isaan town it is normal to see 12, 13 and 14 year old children driving their motorcycles to school, with the police stopping main road traffic to allow them to cross! Why are they not all stopped and fined (their parents also) and their machines confiscated?

The Thai people know they can get away with murder, and until the police carry out their jobs responsibly and efficiently, nothing will ever change.

Isaan Nick

Enforce the law equally on everyone

Editor:

Well, here we go again! A New Year and the provincial government is going to “eradicate crime” in Pattaya. In other words a new “squeeze”, i.e. “attention”, on foreign businesses. Week after week the “special units” peruse the foreign clubs, but are unable to even find the really offensive and sleazy back street Thai Clubs and Karaoke Bars that stay open ‘til dawn.

Sure, the foreign run Go-Go Bars here in Pattaya are flashy, but at least they employ older women who made a career choice, not children bought and paid for from up country. Since the Thai Authorities can’t seem to find the morally bankrupt establishments around town, maybe they should employ the services of a western tour guide since western tourist have no problem finding these places.

Thai officials aren’t fooling anyone. I have a novel idea, how about enforcing the law equally on everyone? Officials might consider starting with the easy stuff like enforcing traffic laws, removing the street vendors that make sidewalks impassable for tourist thus forcing them to walk in the streets and adding to the traffic problem, round up young children alone on the streets after dark, and break up the mini-mafias that prey on foreigners and Thais alike. Consider this before taking actions that could trash the local economy further.

Blaming Thai social problems on foreigners is a dangerous road to travel. It’s no secret that the wave of nationalism that was prevalent here in the early 90s, in part, led to a lack of confidence in the Thai economy that eventually forced the devaluation of the baht. Do Thai leaders really wish to subject the Thai people to that again?

Pattaya Bum

Comments on the traffic situation

Editor;

I almost never write in concerning news stories but I couldn’t resist this time.

First: The chamber of commerce or some similar organisation are planning a traffic safety campaign.

Comment: The first priority of any such programme should be directed at the motorbike crowd. Last year the stats for one of the holidays showed that almost 90% of accidents during the period involved motorbikes. I drive quite a few km every week and almost all of the accidents I see or hazardous behaviour involves motorbikes. They ignore all traffic regulations, and act like everything on the road should come to a stop to accommodate them. They are a major cause of accidents. If the groups wanting to cut down accidents are really serious then motorbikes are the place to begin.

Second: City traffic plans are a farce. Everyone, especially the bikers ignore them. All of the sois are marked one way and I meet more traffic on those going the wrong way than the correct way. The city blocks off u-turn openings on the various roads and streets, the motorbikers continually break them down and continue their irresponsible behaviour with practically no pause.

As an aside: I see many cars travelling at high speeds on the various highways and notice that very few are involved in accidents. The vehicles I see involved in accidents are slow moving and behaving in an erratic manner, stopping in traffic lanes. These are NOT the speeders. First take on the vehicles that are doing things that are dangerous and stupid.

W. D. Tuttle

Comments to “Pattaya Bum”

Editor,

As a regular visitor to Pattaya, twice a year playing golf, I’d like to give Pattaya Bum some advice. He is advising KS to spend more time helping Pattaya children instead of playing golf and counting baht buses.

If Pattaya Bum took some time reading the sport columns in this newspaper he will discover that golfers, most of them “farangs”, often are playing charity golf just to help Pattaya children to get better education and a better life. For instance, Vol. IX no. 47 Nov. 23 “Diana Gold 2001”. I think baht 155,000 shows that we golfers also do our part to help Pattaya children. And that was only one of the charity contests in the year 2001.

Then we have the traffic problems in Pattaya and the rest of the province. Dr. Narong Sahamethapat, from the Chonburi public health office, revealed statistics recorded in the past year show 6449 traffic accidents involving injuries in the province, 287 of witch were fatal. I quote “Many of the traffic accidents involved alcohol, and certified protective headgear could have prevented a good many of the deaths involving motorbikes”.

When you see a Thai family, up to five persons, without helmets on a small motorbike, is this what Pattaya Bum calls “add a local flavor”? On top of that you have all kinds of “farangs” on big motorbikes with 100 hp or more using all streets and sois of Pattaya as a kind of “take off from carrier deck” version, more or less drunk driving in the evening.

I usually stay at The Haven Hotel in Soi 13 and I have personal experience about what KS is talking about. If you stop all kind of car traffic in the sois, what about all the hotels who have their main entrance in this sois? Would you like to carry your bags from Beach Road or Second Road when arriving Pattaya as a visitor?

You say that “ban the big buses” and let the baht buses take over. Then - what about the “big spender tourists”? I would like to see the first group of these tourists arriving in Pattaya from Bangkok Int. Airport in a baht bus. I think we both can agree that no tourists would be the end of Pattaya.

Problems are to be solved and I really hope that the Thai officials are doing that in the future. Don’t worry Pattaya Bum, something has to be good as you still raise your Thai daughter in this wonderful and hospital city! I’m looking forward to staying for four weeks in the near future, playing charity golf and spending a lot of money.

LS from Norway

Letters published in the Mailbag of Pattaya Mail
are also on our website.