HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Applaud Kel Gallagher for making a stand

Don’t leave anything valuable in your cheap hotel room

Re: repeated complaints never solved

Predictions for 2005

Holiday Fun

Applaud Kel Gallagher for making a stand

Dear Editor,
Unlike Mr. Trevor Hopkins (“Scrooge is alive and well and living in Pattaya”, Letters, Pattaya Mail, Nov. 19), I felt proud of Mr. Kel Gallagher for not allowing himself to be cheated by a baht bus driver at Carrefour. I understand quite well what Mr. Gallagher experienced. If all other farangs would follow his example - which of course, being mainly clueless tourists, they won’t - then it would be somewhat more likely that progress could at last be made toward solving one of the biggest and oldest problems in Pattaya.

Of the three well-worn arguments that baht bus driver/dual pricing apologists use to condone baht bus cheating, Mr. Hopkins trots out the most common: the Robin Hood. Simply put, it holds that we should all passively accept as legitimate the right of the poor to cheat and steal from the supposed rich. For the Robin Hoods, the baht bus driver is ever a Buddha-fearing, non-smoking, non-drinking, non-gambling, non-womanizing, thrifty, considerate, helpful, hard-working man just trying to put rice on the table for his wife and kids. There are no mafia godfathers getting most of the money extorted from farangs. If there is any organization responsible for visiting this horrendous traffic mess and moral and physical hazard upon Pattaya, then it is some sort of beneficent charity, the Baht Bus Driver Guaranteed Lifetime Employment Association (BBDGLEA) perhaps, dedicated to serving the welfare of the deserving poor. Money extorted and cheated from farangs is merely a noble contribution to that charity. It is a mystery as to why rich Thais do not wish to contribute similarly or why farangs who don’t wish to contribute their spot “fair share” are threatened and assaulted.

The questions of whether Mr. Gallagher could afford to be cheated out of 110 baht as a corruption fee and farang tax, and of how much of his income should be, according to those who do not even know him, allocated to charity, are beside the point. In our farang case it is actually not the particular amount of money that we are being cheated out of by baht bus drivers that we continue to protest, though, if you use the buses daily, the amount could be significant over time. No, our issue is not really that. Rather, it is the physical intimidation, insult, degradation, racial discrimination, and ill will that we victims suffer as a result of being cheated out of any amount at all that is legally and rightfully ours.

In contrast to Mr. Hopkins, it was unusually admirable of the Pattaya police to recognize Mr. Gallagher’s right to pay a reasonable and legitimate baht bus fare and to defend him against being extorted by the monopoly. Bravo, Pattaya police.

Now, before Mr. Hopkins or other apologists counter with the other two arguments commonly advanced by baht bus apologists, let’s (sigh) preemptively refute them again now.

The Olympian Axiom, often repeated among well-traveled golfers, maintains that “cheating and extortion happen everywhere: therefore ignore them here.” Answer: they don’t happen everywhere, certainly not to the extent here. Tokyo, Georgetown, even Bangkok (excluding tuk-tuks and recognizing that the taxis can on occasion be doubtful), to name a few other Asian cities, have fair, honest, and efficient non-monopolistic transportation systems. The Olympian Corollary holds that “tourist traps like the Crocodile Farm overcharge farangs a lot more.” Unfortunately true, but the Crocodile Farm is hardly an essential public service, even for its crocodiles, nor is it the only tourist attraction in town.

Then we have the hip, open-wallet Star Trek Prime Directive argument (aka “Do As The Romans Do” or “No Wiles, No Smiles”) favored by backpackers and aged New Agers. The Trekkies divine that the farang, as a “guest,” has been graciously awarded an honored position as an agent of prosperity in a custom integral to Thai culture from ancient Siam - a custom known among Thais as “Kee Gong.” To disturb the traditional cultural rituals, in particular those of the baht bus driver (as unenlightened tourists sometimes will do), by protesting or by bargaining or even by gasping and laughing incredulously would be to demonstrate ingratitude and disrespect towards our gracious “hosts.” Indeed, it would be to commit yet another crime of Western cultural imperialism in Southeast Asia. Hence what would otherwise seem to be foolish cooperation in one’s own victimization, like, say, jumping gladly into the boiling pot for a tribe of cannibals, is actually, wonderful to tell, embracing cultural diversity and protecting Thai heritage from possible tragic extinction from Mother Earth. (Fortunately, in part owing to the unceasing efforts of the Robin Hoods, the Olympians, and the Trekkies, the custom seems still very much alive and flourishing at present.)

The truth is, however, that average Thais in Pattaya also hate the baht bus mafia. Local Thais would also welcome an end to baht bus cheating. They would very much like it if a baht bus driver would always return their change; would always take the route to their destination that he promised at the beginning; and would not kick them off the bus for the sake of better-paying passengers. The locals are also disgusted by the erratic driving habits of baht bus drivers and the clogging of the streets with empty buses constantly beeping at pedestrians. Taking half those empty buses off the streets would mean a very substantial rise in the incomes of the remaining drivers in addition to greatly improved traffic conditions in Pattaya.

As it stands, however, the whole baht bus mess is made possible because it is subsidized by the cheating of farangs.

If you have lived in Pattaya for a long while, been dependent daily on the buses, continually have fought the unnecessary and hazardous traffic and pollution (air, noise, eye) that the baht buses generate, then you know what a plague on the city that the baht buses are. You know of the long history of assaults and physical threats and cheating committed (on a racially discriminatory basis) by the drivers against farangs who have attempted to pay legitimate fares. You know of all the failed attempts by city administrations over the years to rid the city of the baht bus stranglehold. (Now there is evidently to be yet another traffic study by “a team of private consultants.”) And you applaud and support Mr. Kel Gallagher for making the stand that he did.
Ptyrider

Don’t leave anything valuable in your cheap hotel room

Ladies and Gentlemen,
For many years now I have been coming to Thailand and Pattaya, always staying in the same hotel. Last Saturday the hotel staff presented to me my cracked briefcase, stolen from my locked room and found on a staircase. My digicam, mobile phone and some other items were missing, altogether worth 35000 baht.

Nothing really exciting, I hear you now saying, but the fact that the hotel staff admitted that guests have a copy of the room key made, checking out and in again in, but into another room, lets us see things different. Also, the owner of the place, an old always shouting Chinese guy, refused to pay for the briefcase. He said I possibly organized the crime by myself to cheat him.

Maybe it’s another warning for your readers, not to leave anything valuable in their hotel rooms.

The case was reported to the Beach Road police station on Sunday, December 20.

With best regards,
W. Leimbach

Re: repeated complaints never solved

Editor;
I think it’s important to bring the discussion further that was brought up by J. Thomas W. Eihle in his letter headlined “Repeated complaints never solved” (Mailbag 17 Dec).

The writer is probably both right and wrong but essentially this reminder is an important letter. It is certainly true that some kind of letters appear here again and again like prices (remarkably higher) according to race and origin, the peculiarities of public transport, e.g. the baht-bus-scandals, etc., and like this writer says and to say it more clearly, at least I have never seen anyone responsible in these areas acknowledge responsibility or discuss or speak openly with honesty about the “problems” and I have never seen the local media, like journalists etc., take any troubles or responsibilities to function like mass media should function and do any kind of investigative journalism or ask relevant or tough question etc.

All these “problems” that practically only foreigners living or visiting Pattaya write to the local media about are real, real, weird, weird mysteries aren’t they? “Is there possibly a reason why it is so?” asked this writer - could it be a lack of money? I am sure that a possible lack of money is very much part of the problems because if these problems were solved - a lot of criminal and corrupt people would lack money for BMWs, Mercedes Benz, Volvo, Johnny Walker Golden Label, Hennessey V.S.O.P. Paradise Cognac, visits to top Chinese-French-Italian restaurants, boarding schools in Switzerland for their children, luxurious villas for their families, visits to first-class brothels and all other basic necessities that corrupt people need to carry on a decent life! Let us have compassion for them.
NAA the Mag

Predictions for 2005

Editor;
My top 10 predictions for 2005:

1) Water shortages will increase, as will water pollution.

2) Traffic problems in Pattaya will increase; as will air pollution.

3) Western tourism losses will result in more busloads of junket tourist.

4) Water shortages at hydroelectric plants will cause electric power shortages.

5) Unrest in the South will continue to increase and spread North.

6) Westerners will continue unloading their condos before the baht crashes.

7) Business will look elsewhere because of energy, stability, and workforce issues.

8) If Thais don’t learn English, they will be “forced” to learn Chinese.

9) Crime/corruption in Pattaya will increase to point of Bangkok getting involved.

10) Beach Road will still be under construction at this time next year, and the year after, and the year after, and the year after...
Pattaya “Beach” Bum

Holiday Fun

Dear Sir,
I have jotted down a few impressions, in rhyme, of public holiday periods in Pattaya. I am sure that many of your readers can relate to them. I have also attached a matching cartoon.

Holiday Fun
On public holidays do come the hordes,
To Jomtien Beach as if to Lourdes;
They come by car, by truck, by bus,
Such thrills and excitement, what a fuss;
But roads once clear soon are not,
And close to Pattaya the jams are caught;
Bad tempers then may cloud the day,
And traffic incidents mar the way.
Parking places too are hard to find,
And scarce indeed are words kind.
This beach town screams and shouts today,
It says “You guys have lost your way;
The things you thought you left behind,
You brought them all here you will find;
The smell, the smoke, the trash, the crowd,
Yes, all are here plus noises loud!”

Ian Frame
Jomtien

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