HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Strange hotel policy

Tainted view

Great restaurants in the area

Stay out of the water for a long time

Another being overcharged

Wonderful tribute to Her Majesty the Queen

Strange hotel policy

Dear Sir/Madam,
Let me tell you a little story about my stay in Pattaya this summer, which might interest your paper.

I am a Swedish journalist. I came to Pattaya June 8 and checked in to a local hotel together with my wife and two children, aged 16 and 11. We have been in Pattaya many times, always staying at the former Royal Garden Resort. But we found the price level a little bit too high after the change of owners.

Before our stay, I had been mailing the manager at the new hotel many times. He was very service minded and we got a two bedroom suite for a decent price. I had also informed the manager that I would most likely return to Pattaya this fall for a ten day conference combined with holiday together with a large group of Swedish journalists.

During our 25 day stay I tried to contact the manager many times. He was never available. I wanted to discuss the conference with him, but apparently he was not interested.

Very strange indeed.

Anyhow, we liked our stay, even if the standard is not as high as at the Marriott.

We checked out around 9 pm on July 3 and a minibus was waiting for us. Then suddenly I was ordered up to one of the rooms. One of the assistant managers was there. She was friendly but told me there was a small spot on the top of the TV set. I had to pay for it! She suggested that the children had burned some plastic on the TV. I got a bit upset, which I know is wrong in Thailand. But the minibus was waiting and I knew that our children are not in the habit of burning anything. My wife, who is Thai, had followed me and told me that the maids who also were in the room supported us and said that the children were well behaved and too big to burn anything on a TV. Actually, you could hardly see the spot and the TV was working without any problems.

After a long discussion the housekeeping manager told me I didn’t have to pay for the TV but they had to charge me 30 baht for a missing hanger.

I laughed a bit and told the lady I would of course pay for the hanger. I didn’t know what happened to the hanger and I still don’t know. I asked the lady, friendly, if she thought it was good PR to charge a customer 30 baht when he just paid a bill very close to 100,000 baht. It is our policy, she answered.

All this gave me the impression that the hotel didn’t want to have me and my family as guests in the future. I can’t understand why. We are very quiet guests. We don’t drink alcohol, we don’t bring any bargirls and we spend a lot of money. Good guests you would think.

I lived in Thailand for four years during the late eighties, working as a journalist, and a thing like this has never happened to me before.

In many ways we liked the hotel, but I don’t think we will stay there again. It would be interesting to listen to the owner’s comments to these incidents. It looks like he doesn’t want around 60 Swedish journalists as guests in his hotel and definitely not me and my family to come again.

I actually visited many other hotels where I was treated well so the conference will be held in another hotel.
Best Regards
Allan Beer

Tainted view

Dear Sirs;
I have a certain amount of sympathy for Michael Bowens (Mailbag Aug. 6) but not too much. Michael, if it took you four years to find out what was happening to you, I would suppose your eyes were so firmly closed to reality, that not even the Spanish Inquisition would have been able to save you.

Firstly, you should ask yourself a few questions. Are these young ladies prepared to go with farangs, sometimes many years older than themselves, a) to discuss the theory of relativity, b) to consider the philosophy of Plato, or c) to get money? a) The theory of relativity - of the 274 family members, how many are in need of help? Answer 274. b) Plato - something from which you eat boiled rice and assorted stir fried weeds. Probably then, you have it by now. They want money, money, money. Plus any old bits of gold jewellery you happen to be able to afford.

If you were so lax with finances that you did not notice the drain on them, I suggest in future that every three months you should make a list of your assets and their value. If the total is not the same as it was three months before, give or take a bit, then you should try to find out why.

I do not wish to tar all bar girls with the same brush, but they have chosen, sometimes unwillingly, a profession which, if they are lucky, will bring them better rewards than working in a factory. Given the mentality that made that decision, one should at least be aware that there is a possibility that one will get rooked. There are none so blind as those who will not see, or as deaf, as those who will not hear. The idea that suckers do not deserve an even break is not confined to the West.
Bill Underwood,
Pattaya

Great restaurants in the area

Editor;
I saw on your entertainment page and the very good write up on the Continental Bakery in Jomtien and would like to endorse your comments.

I, together with a friend of mine have been coming to Pattaya for the last 10 years and have noticed over the last 2 years the number of bargain restaurants that have opened. It was only this year we discovered the Continental and that was it, we went there nearly every morning for breakfast which is fantastic, and their sausages are something to die for, even better than we get in England. How they do it for the price I just don’t know.

Also in Jomtien there is a restaurant on the other side of the road in the complex open in the evening’s called “Za Za”. A 4 course meal will set you back about 200 baht. Get there early because it is only small and gets very busy.

There are a lot of these special menu restaurants popping up and they are well worth every penny. A little more expensive is “Bruno’s” down the road from the Continental towards Pattaya centre, but first class in every way. Can’t wait to get back for another two months in January 2005. Save some sausages for me Continental Bakery!
Brian Eames
Brighton, England

Stay out of the water for a long time

To: [email protected]
This is the official warning from the Mayor and chief of the water treatment plant given this week at Jomtien. Repairs to the inadequate and broken treatment plant will take a long time and raw sewage is again being pumped into the Gulf at Jomtien and other places along the coast. The sad fact is that Pattaya’s human population, tourists and Thais, and the sewage that comes with them, is expanding at a much faster rate than the environmental plans to deal with them. Roads, electricity and yes clean water supplies are all in danger with authorities paying lip service to adequacy in a modern world.

Bangkok is still pumping almost 80% of its raw sewage into the river, which exits in the Gulf, with no real plans to significantly improve that deplorable situation. Pattaya is still pumping only partially treated sewage back into the Gulf north of Naklua, but only when the plant is working, with no real plans to ever start producing clean wastewater to cope with the numbers. Goodness knows how much chemical pollution the Hanging Gardens of Laem Chabang routinely dump. How this translates into future cleaner bathing in the Gulf at Pattaya, which is south of all these sources, is a mystery.

Unfortunately, I suspect that the warnings to stay out of the Gulf waters are only the first in a series of events, if they get publicity that is, most of which will probably go undetected and unannounced by any pubic health agency. Bad water is just as bad for tourism as bird flu. Why else would you find a beach resort that has pretensions of world repute, that does not routinely test and publicize its water conditions for all possible bacteriological and chemical pollutants? There’s got to be a reason for that and it’s not just neglect. There will be no blue flags in the Pattaya area for a long time to come.
BBW resident

Another being overcharged

Editor;
Reading the letter in Pattaya Mail about TOT charging prompted me to write. As I use the phone rarely, I notice when I am overcharged, which is regularly. I want to complain, 1st time I was given some credit, 2nd time I was asked for a copy of my passport, 3rd time was told oh, the maintenance men at your condo must be me making phone calls!

Many of my friends complain but have gotten nowhere. As there is no competition, TOT can do as they please. I wonder how many farangs this frustrates and how many bother to complain.
Sincerely,
E. Rerren

Wonderful tribute to Her Majesty the Queen

Dear Pattaya Mail,
As the publishers of Around Asia I must congratulate you and Peter Cummings for such a wonderful tribute to the Queen. The publication was outstanding.

Also the poem “To Share Is To Love” is one of the best poems I have read from B. Phillips.
Keep up the good work!
Regards,
Myrtle Roberts

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