HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

No entry

Another lost ‘farang’

To leave or not to leave

Pattaya has a strange accounting system

Brilliant idea to extract a million baht from the rich

Crime crackdowns not working

It’s a small world after all

No entry

Dear Sir,
Today I went with my family and the children of friends to ‘Haad Toi Ngam’ Sattahip Chonburi. Unfortunately I was refused entry as I was classed as a ‘Farang’. As I reside and pay full tax in this country, I was a little bit perplexed! I could either cancel the picnic or leave, so I chose the latter.

What secrets could I possibly to discover at this Thai Navy controlled beach? A special ‘som tam’ recipe? A new way to paddle canoes?

Furthermore, which half of my children would be allowed to visit? As they are ‘Luk krung’ maybe they can only enjoy half of the delights?

This type of discrimination only damages Thailand’s ‘friendly’ reputation! It is pointless and unfounded. Please stop this nonsense now!
Sir Lance
Rayong

Another lost ‘farang’

Dear Editor
I just had to write after reading Boonlua Chatree’s report in last weeks edition of your paper, page 4, ‘’Two Thai men charged with murder of a Dutch national’’. I do not have the skills of a Thai policeman when it comes to interrogation, and then deducing what happened. Could I please just put another slant on what ‘could’ have happened?

Okay - the brother and his ‘friend’ who has been the lover of the farang’s wife for some years, and sired a child, plotted to kill the husband! Why? Could it be that the wife told both about the ‘rewards’ on offer if he were dead, but no reward if she is found part of a plan to kill him from the insurers. Okay - so they come up with an idea. She tells the police, “He’ (the friend) threatened to kill me if I didn’t get money and a car for him.”

Okay, she got him those things, and no doubt much more, but with no threats, gets her off the hook, the police ‘take care’ of her, she gets the big payday, the police get ‘tea money’ for their cooperation and the lovable brother and his friend? With a financial consideration, who knows? Maybe early release! The farang? Who’s to care? How did anyone know ‘how much’ was involved so quickly? Of course, she told them, and why? If they want help with their investigations, please don’t call me. Guess I should have been a policeman, or a writer of novels!
Tee Bee Holmes

To leave or not to leave

Dear Sir,
In response to Richard Walton’s letter “No logic in leaving” (Vol.XI No.48)

For several years I myself have fumed at the illogical regulation which sends farangs out of the country to obtain re-entry visas. I can assure you based on my experience that their Cambodian and Lao cousins greatly appreciate the tourist dollars that are sent to them with no effort on their part.

I must however take issue with Mr.Walton’s notion that “the more they can squeeze out of us rich bastards the better.” If as he writes “I’m all for more money for the Thais” and he does indeed consider himself “rich” and his family circumstances put his legitimacy in question, he can feel free to pay any and all of my immigration fees as although, I am a farang, I am definitely not rich, but I do know that my parents were legally married at the time of my conception as well as on the day I was born.
Max
Bangkok

Pattaya has a strange accounting system

Dear Sir,
In your most recent internet edition, you say that the city council are unable or unwilling to meet its debt to the construction company who built the new water treatment plant, and that any payment might have to be deferred for unto 15 years.

The next article talks about the building of a new sports complex, coincidentally next door to the treatment plant, and that the city has over 60 million baht available for this project, due to be done for 2005.

Although not an expert in local government finance, I wonder about all this, particularly from the standpoint of the construction companies who will be vying for the contract. A very strange state of affairs.
Perplexed Farang

Brilliant idea to extract a million baht from the rich

Dear Pattaya Mail Editor:
Re: Pattaya Mail, Nov. 28 issue, page 9, entitled: “Thailand hopes to attract well-healed travelers with lifetime elite card.”

Regarding the sale of “Thailand Elite” Membership Cards offered to “big spenders from around Asia” and “well heeled travelers from the US and Britain”.

It’s a great idea to patronize the vanity of the rich and to extract one million baht from each of them for a little wallet size plastic black and gold “Thailand Elite” card. Cost to the government for promised perks is nil. That’s 80 million baht in the government coffers already and more coming - for free. Brilliant! Hotels and resorts are bound to be tickled pink to give discounts and incentives in exchange for big spending.

The distasteful aspect of the whole exercise is the notion that wealth equates to respectability and “eminence.” I suggest that “CEO’s and chairmen of very good companies” are just as apt to be socially undesirable as any other slice of the population. Scum exists at all levels.

Fees paid for the “Elite” cards obviously go into some agency’s coffers and is of some small benefit to the government. Of subsequent “Elite” tourist money generated, however, very little will be seen by either the Thai economy or the working folks. Most of the money spent will end up in the pockets of the international conglomerate owners of the five star resorts, golf clubs and seaside villa developments. Compared with the infusion of monies from non-elite tourists and Expat residents, the economic effect of the cards on the Thai economy itself is darned small.

Despite all the Mercs one sees on the streets, Thailand is the only S.E. Asian country where the gap between rich and poor is widening. In all other surrounding countries the gap is narrowing. Opportunities for the working class to improve their standard of living are much better served by the annual ~150 billion baht from tourists and Expats directly spent for goods and services from the mainstream Thai population than from the “Elite” crowd. I contend Expats and ordinary tourists are the areas where, “...we have to concentrate on people who spend more money,” as Khun Paisit Kaenchan, director of the Thailand Privilege Card Co., stated.

The Thai government has chosen to raise financial requirements and fees for Expat workers and retirees - income, bank accounts, visas, reentry and work permits. This not only discourages, but, in some cases, precludes contributing Expats from residence and their contribution of valuable skills. How ‘bout some sort of incentive to attract more Expats and tourists rather than driving them off?

I still think it’s brilliant to extract a million baht from rich, vain foreigners for a little plastic wallet card. But I think it is complete idiocy to misevaluate the huge contributions to the quality and economy of the Thai community by ordinary folks like me.
R. Peterson, Pattaya Expat

Crime crackdowns not working

Dear Sir,
No doubt about it; Pattaya has become a very, very dangerous place to be. Strangely enough it started to be this when the crackdown on drugs started. A coincidence? Somehow I cannot believe it is. We’ve had quite a few ‘Crackdowns’. One on skimpy clothing of bargirls. One on the closing time of bars and one on the opening times of same. One on massage houses and the so called cleanups in Walking street. Plus raids on the beach. The more ‘Crackdowns’ we’ve had the worse the criminal situation got.

About one year ago one could safely walk the whole length of Soi Buakhao with a 5 Baht gold chain around one’s neck. Today you’d be in danger if somebody knew you had a 20 Baht note in your pocket. Your girlfriend riding on the backseat of your motorbike with a handbag clutched in her hands down Soi Nern-Plup-Wan is a risk you should never ever take. To sit alone outside any major shopping plaza is inviting big trouble. And so on...

Quickly within one year Pattaya has become one of the most dangerous places in Asia. And the TAT is wanting to bring ‘Quality Tourists’ to this place! Whole families rather than the bunch of ogling den inhabitants we used to have.

I suggest: No more useless ‘crackdowns’ that will only turn Pattaya upside down. Let the dames prance around inside the bars at night in their birthday suits if they wish to. Do away with the crazy opening times. Check the age of the hustlers on the beach but leave the seemingly ‘old enough’ alone. Let things go back to what used to be ‘normal’ for Pattaya and I think life will also get back to ‘normal’ again. Pattaya is not Vatican City and never will be. But we were all happy with the way it was. That’s why we came back year after year. For the good of Pattaya, its people and business-life. Last not least for the good of all of us tourists.
Nostalgic visitor

It’s a small world after all

D

Dear Sir,

What’s the deal on the Back Road (Second Road)? Are you aware of any plan to return it to the 2-way set-up of 6 months ago? I think in one of my past complaint letters, I covered the fact that the city has effectively turned Beach Road into the East Coast Highway. The traffic jams are reminiscent of Bangkok, on the weekends, while the Back Road is turned into a racetrack. You might think that the city fathers would want to preserve the environment and ambience of the Beach Road for those tourists that visit Pattaya with intentions of hangin’ out on the beach. Instead, they’ve provided a double lane of cars bumper to bumper as a hurdle for any tourist that might care to return to his lodging from the beach.

The busses are still a problem when making their pickup of passengers returning from the islands. They double park directly in front of open air restaurants and leave their engines running. Whatever happened to the planned use of the master pier? I thought they were set to use it to send folks to the islands and access the pier via the 3rd Road and over-pass in South Pattaya to save congestion on the Beach Road.

It seems the city has become a construction zone over the past year since the last tourist season. It’s hard to believe that the guys in charge wouldn’t, at least, put a few projects on hold till after this tourist season is over.

I suppose all of these ideas are just way too logical for the locals. Yesterday, there was an AIDS project on the beach, so the Beach Road was closed. In other words, if someone had come into Pattaya for the first time, he would’ve been at a loss as to which way to go when he arrived at the Dolphin roundabout, he wasn’t allowed to go to the beach, or turn left down the Back Road. What are the guys in charge thinking?

Your man on the front,
BJ

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