HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Things that annoy me

Thank you!

Double pricing is just plain tourist rip off

Visa run cliffhanger

Think before you spend millions

Expensive Thailand

Disrespectful kids on Loy Krathong

Help the chickens

Things that annoy me

Editor;
Three things that annoy me more then anything else at present.

In the last 6 months or so the rate of crime has gone up sharply (really ever since the campaign on drugs costing the lives of several thousand people started. Coincidence?) This is really frightening!

As within the city work on several streets was started on 4-5 places at the same time. Chances of finishing within a reasonable time are very slim indeed. There just are not enough machines and trained workers around Pattaya available!

Work on the footpaths on the other hand seems to have come to a stop. Problems of planning or is it a case of: ‘Every man for himself’?

One more thing that troubles the minds of people here. Things in general have become very unpredictable. Some new idea every day. Opening hours of drinking dens, visa regulations, clothing rules in bars, traffic rules, various campaigns against this or that. And this, without warning given. What’s “normal” today is quite “abnormal” tomorrow and may be good for a several thousand baht fine. There is no continuity. This scares people!

While I’m at it. Soi Nern Plub Wan has become a very bad names as of lately. Could it be that the dirt market at the railroad line not only provides the poor there with flies but also with certain “medicines” in tablet form?
Henrik Martin

Thank you!

Editor;
We wish to acknowledge the donations of cash and kind made to this incorporation by the following individuals, companies and organizations prior to the opening of the Yaweh Jireh Girls Home Pattaya: John Richards, Premier Real Estate; John Cameron, Jane Business Car Rentals; George Sortras, Ken Webb, Reg Winthrop, Pattaya Mail, Don Macalister’s Bar & Restaurant (DCP), Yenjitch Money Exchange Pattaya (DCP). DCP= Donation Collection Points.

We thank all for their kindness, compassion and concern for our project and we look forward to your continuing support and invite others to come on board to help in our work among the unwanted children of our city.

A heart warm THANKS from the principal, board members and staff.
Yaweh Jireh Home for Girls

Double pricing is just plain tourist rip off

Dear Editor,
You may think that the subject of baht bus drivers’ so called “dual pricing” or “double standard” is starting to become hackneyed; thus I shall make my point briefly. For me, there is no such thing as double pricing, there is just plain tourist rip off.

To speak of a double pricing system, one would have to deal with something like a general rule, a rule accepted as such and followed by the great majority of baht bus drivers. Yet, if there was such a rule, drivers would systematically and strongly react when a farang gives them 5 baht (the correct amount) for a ride within the city, just as anybody reacts when a rule is not respected. Yet such is not the case. What this means is that baht bus drivers do not stick to a double pricing system, they just try to take advantage of tourists when it is easy for them to do so. Such is a scrounging behavior, nothing less, nothing more, and farangs are the first victims.

To call this behavior “double pricing” or “double standard” is already giving it some legitimacy. It is important to call things by their name, especially if you want to try to fix them. The double pricing of some museums, ladyboys shows, or crocodile farms is a different matter altogether (although not a nicer one).
Pierre M.

Visa run cliffhanger

Dear Editor;
Recently 18 brave souls had booked to travel with (a visa run company) for a visa run. We departed 45 minutes late without explanation; if only that was our only problem that day we would have been lucky. We reached our lunch stop and left there 2 hours and 20 minutes later (1 hour stop normally). One man was left behind even though we had stopped for so long; he was transported to Aranyapathet by other transport.

We therefore arrived at the border over 2 hours later than we should have done. We left Thailand okay, but had to wait on the Cambodian side for our visas; usually the visas are put in our passports at the lunch stop. We were held as a group by the visa helper before being given our entry cards for Thailand.

The border closed at 5 p.m. and we were 18 very lucky people to get out of Poi Pet/Aranyapathet before the borders closed. Some of us wondered what would have happened to us if the border had closed with us in Cambodia with a visa stamped used and unable to leave Cambodia.

We hoped that was the end of our problems until we discovered that the coach driver wanted 500 baht from everybody because he said his company was owed money for the trip and hadn’t been paid. This problem was sorted out after a company employee on the coach got money from an ATM and paid the driver. We left Aranyapathet at 5.15 p.m., which happens to be 15 minutes later than we were meant to be back in Pattaya, according to the advert in your publication. We finally arrived back in Pattaya at 9.20 p.m., slightly annoyed at the service.

The next day, I went to the company’s office in Soi Post office and talked to the manager and was told that the problem was down to their employee on the coach and had nothing to do with them. He wouldn’t tell me what would have happened to the 18 of us if we had been left in Cambodia if the border had closed - I dread to think. Grudgingly the manager said he was sorry, but I’m not sure that I will use any of their services again.

Yours sincerely,
James Flanagan

Think before you spend millions

Dear Editor,
The efforts of the city administration to clean up Pattaya, in many senses of the term, are indeed laudable. Some roads and areas that were formerly the worst start looking good. Doing the whole city will take time and will be slow, not in the least because of the numerous squatters without house registrations that are now flocking to the real estate boom. Crime is only one result of the unregulated influx of people. Would not any person who is legitimately at work in Pattaya have a chance to get himself registered properly?

Perhaps now our attention can be turned to the so-called prime real estate in Wong Amat and elsewhere. In Wong Amat a disturbing number of squatters are starting to appear. It is quite natural and even desirable to have Thai fast food stalls around such new hotels as the Long Beach Hotel because they provide affordable and delicious food. Unfortunately, the mess that invariably goes with this arrival detracts quickly from the desirability of the location. Also, these people move just up the road to squat.

Wong Amat is being sold at very high land prices. But think first before you buy. One only has to go to the larger condominiums in Soi 16 Naklua, Siam Penthouse, Wong Amat Garden Beach, Park Beach and Silver Beach to see that you need not wait for a new hotel to get squatters and their nuisance.

Silver Beach is a case in point as very high priced units are being redecorated to try to relieve the debt of our banks. However, right across in one of the few plots of woodlands - what is left of it anyhow - squatters are expanding with new shacks. What they do for a living is not clear. But they cause the usual problems - garbage strewn around on the road, blearing disco music in the evening, and drinking stints and open wood fires at night thrown in for good, happy measure. The occasional glue-sniffing addict is already wandering the roads at night.

Perhaps a look by the city administration at the more “high class” places would be appropriate NOW. The problems are still manageable NOW. And perhaps the owners of vacant development land could be asked to contribute by fencing or policing at an infinitely smaller cost than what they stand to earn in the near future.

Meanwhile, think before you spend those millions.

Yours sincerely,
A potential investor

Expensive Thailand

To whoever will listen,
I am an ex pat living here in the land of smiles. I have a modest two bedroom bungalow with one air con, and the only time I use the said air con is at night, yet my electric bill is always around 2300 baht. I know I should not think in sterling, but this equals 35 pounds a month, or 105 pounds a quarter (which is how we pay in England).

My 2 bedroom flat in England cost nowhere near that amount, so how do the poor locals manage? Plus I am charged different amounts for units I use; for example my first month here, I was only in the bungalow for two weeks, so I used 354 units, with a charge of 878 baht equaling 2 ‘ 48 baht per unit. This month, however, I used 743 units at a charge of 2027 baht equaling 2 ‘ 72 per unit. How does this work out?
Yours a baffled ex pat

Disrespectful kids on Loy Krathong

Dear Sirs,
Once again we have just celebrated Loy Krathong festival and I, like other foreigners, joined the Thai people in floating our krathong into the sea from Pattaya Beach. It was nice to see so many beautiful girls dressed in traditional Thai costumes and the beach had been made so nice by the hard working people from city hall.

Only one thing spoiled the occasion for me and many other people this year. As my Thai wife and I watched our krathong float out into the ocean, we were horrified to see it get ripped to pieces by Thai youths wading out in the water looking for money on the krathongs. This shocked many of the tourists and Thai people alike and I heard one Thai lady comment to her husband that there is no hope for Thai culture when the youth of today are so disrespectful.

How do the authorities expect foreigners to respect Thai culture when the Thais do not? For one day would it not be better for the police to forget about fining motorcycle riders with no helmets and instead help this wonderful Buddhist celebration go without a problem. I am saddened to see the wonderful Thai culture lose its importance with some of the young Thais in Pattaya.
John, a long term resident of this great city