HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Parking on the beach

RE: Rotary Handicamp 2002 in Norway

A bit of railway trivia

Fundraiser hair-raiser

Bar signs in Pattaya

Walking dangerously

Theory on easing traffic flow

Parking on the beach

Dear Sirs;

I attach photographs taken 7th April at 18.30 hrs. This once pristine beach, located at Pratamnak Road and next door to the residence of the Late HRH Prince Phanuband, has become Pattaya’s latest parking lot and vendors’ venue.

I counted 10 cars and 18 motorcycles on the beach within feet of the shoreline. At night after 10 p.m. this beach becomes a short time hotel!

I urge the authorities to come and view the rubbish left behind by visitors and vendors.

A simple line of concrete bollards would deny access to the beach by vehicles. Is this too much to ask!

Liam Ayudhkij

Local Resident

RE: Rotary Handicamp 2002 in Norway

Dear Sirs,

I have seen in your newspaper a picture and text about two girls going to Norway in July. One is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Taksin-Pattaya. I am mentioned in the text as coordinator of Rotary Handicamp 2002. That is not correct. That very important position is taken care of in Norway by PDG Gunnar Eigeland.

My wife and I just work privately to get the Handicamp known to Rotary Clubs in Thailand to make sure we will get disabled from this country to visit us. We are very glad we have succeeded and again we have invited the two to stay with us for one and half weeks after the camp. We will take them along and show them some of our country and how we live before they go back to Thailand. This will be done by my wife and I and our Rotary Club in Gjovik, Norway.

Hope You will be able to correct this in the next edition.

Regards,

Helge Holst

A bit of railway trivia

Dear Sirs,

Your readers who read Mr. Blyth’s railway articles may find the following bit of trivia of interest.

As is well known the earliest railways built in Britain used what is now universally referred to as the Standard Gauge of 4 feet 81/2 inches. This gauge proliferated world wide with the spread of British based railway technology. There are variations from this such as Wide Gauge and Narrow Gauge. In Britain Isambard Brunell used Wide Gauge on the Great Western Line from London to Bristol and a few private mining companies used Narrow Gauge.

The Standard Gauge was used as pre-railroad tramways used this gauge and the people who built the conveyances for the railways used the same basic designs as were used for building horse drawn wagons and coaches which used this spacing.

They used this spacing because when they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old long distance roads in England because of the spacing of the wheel ruts in the surface of the roads. These roads were the long distance roads built by the Romans such as Watling Street, Ermine Street to name but two. They were surfaced with stone flags and were used for several centuries after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the First Millennium.

The original ruts in the roads were caused by the steel tyred wheels of the Roman military chariots, which later users could not avoid using for fear of destroying their own wheels. Roman chariots were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing and this spacing was derived from the width of the rumps of the two horse used to draw the chariot.

The gauge of the railways also is a deciding factor in the size of the tunnels they use and thus through this a connection can be made to space travel. When one sees the Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad one notes the two big booster rockets attached to its sides. These Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) are made by ‘Thiokol’ at their plant in Utah and are shipped by train from their factory to the launching site.

The route takes the train through several tunnels, thus a major design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of two horses’ backsides.

Sincerely,

Roger Womersley,

Ko Sichang

Fundraiser hair-raiser

Dear Pattaya Mail,

As an expat and lover of Thailand I am writing to express a view that is shared buy many. On Saturday my wife and I went to a fund raising event in Pattaya for a poor Thai boy that needed a kidney transplant. We were truly pleased to join in and compliments to the Wooden Brew who organised the whole event. It was a wonderful entertaining evening that left one feeling that someone was doing a good job, i.e., a life would be saved. Our compliments to all involved, the fundraiser was a great idea.

On our way to the show we wandered through Sunee Plaza and were shocked to see farang with boys as young as 8. Bar doors opened and we could see sad looking kids as young as 13 dancing in their underwear with numbers on selling their fragile little bodies to sick old men. We had just witnessed one life being saved but in our opinion there are a lot of lives to be saved in that area.

Where are the police? Where is the mayor of Pattaya? Why can nothing be done to stop this outrage? Where are the save the children and international aid teams? Is this the Amazing Thailand that the governor has created? Do these foreign owners have permits? Why are they allowed to make money from these poor kids? What kind of future do the children have?

To make things worse on our way home we stopped at an email cafe and were disgusted to see a farang sitting flicking through children’s porn sights like it was the most normal thing on earth. This is not the Thailand I have loved for years and something should be done. We went home sad and bewildered and deeply shocked.

Mr and Mrs R. Anderson U.K.

Bar signs in Pattaya

Dear Editor;

After reading the Pattaya Mail on the internet, as a regular visitor to Pattaya I was amazed to read about bars having to change their names. When I come to Pattaya, I visit Soi Yamato regularly and I am always made to feel welcome (and safe, note I am not English but American) and I have never ever been offended by the names of these English bars, or what happens inside ,in fact it is good clean fun.

I have stayed at the so called respectable places and what I see when I’m in the hotel lobby having a nightcap offends me more, i.e. 50 yrs old men coming in with young boys. So leave these people alone who offer adult entertainment (behind closed doors) and concentrate on the real perverts.

Respectably yours,

T Francis

Citizen of USA ex Vietnam vet

Walking dangerously

Editor;

More and more bicycles and other wheeled contraptions such as skateboards, roller blades and the like are being operated both by Farang and Thais on the sidewalk along the water side of Beach Road. This is an extremely dangerous practice for all pedestrians, but especially for older people and children.

These bicycles cannot be heard or seen when they approach from the rear, and many are driven very fast and can cause serious injury. I have witnessed people being struck from behind, and I was personally hit by an on-coming bicycle that refused to slow or yield. In this instance the Thai cyclist lost control and veered into a tree. When he recovered he confronted me in a threatening manner, before leaving in a barrage of shouted obscenities.

We even have vendors operating bicycles on the walking path, not to mention the drug dealers that ply their trade at night along this same pathway. They zip in and out quickly on their bicycles to make their deals amongst scores of prostitutes, and then speed off.

It seems to me that the current drive to clean up the so-called entertainment industry may have succeeded in driving many of these unsavory and nasty characters out of the bars and onto the street where they are in plain view of tourists and residents alike.

One final comment regarding bicycles and other wheeled contraptions is that they have also now invaded the Saturday Night Wisdom Fair with many parents turning their children loose on the street to terrify the pedestrians, while the security people look on and do nothing.

I would be very pleased if someone would translate this letter into Thai language and send a copy both to the mayor and the chief of police and perhaps the governor as well as the interior minister. At a very minimum, signs should be posted prohibiting these vehicles that are a menace to all people who walk in these areas.

Gord

Theory on easing traffic flow

Dear Khai Khem,

I suspect you will receive several e-mails about your column this week. I vaguely recall reading an article in Scientific American magazine about twenty years ago on the topic of sinusoidal patterns in traffic flow. I used to wonder where the people were going in such a hurry who pass me on the freeway. Then I realized that they are passing me in order to create a traffic jam further ahead. I have tried the steady moving trick once or twice and no doubt it can work. There was one time... there was construction on a highway and only one lane was open. Cars were starting and stopping at one-car-length intervals. I slowed to 5 mph and soon we were all rolling at a steady speed. Even managed to stay rolling at 30 kph. After twenty minutes I looked in the mirror and the nearest car behind me was a mile back. I never will figure that out.

Kent Betts

Fort Worth,
Texas

Khai Khem replies:

I can’t figure out why it works either. And it doesn’t always work. The individual driver needs time and patience and to experiment with the consistency of the theory. We need a good mathematician to help us out here.

Khai Khem

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