HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Never assume anything...

Continuing water problems

Troubles with addition?

Double edged discrimination against Thais by Thais?

Stray dogs

Where are all the tourists?

Bar Girl

Never assume anything...

Editor;
An amusing little bit for the Pattaya Mail: This was told to me by the guy himself in a pub last night. I was joking with him that a “pa yen” was all the water he would get in Pattaya!

A businessman moved to his new office in Pattaya. He had no water in the building. He had heard of the drastic water shortage in Pattaya, so thought it was normal. After a week, he asked his neighbours when they are likely to get water. He was surprised to hear they had water all the time. It turned out his water pump was broken! Now he has water.
Graham Hunt-Crowley

Continuing water problems

Dear Editor:
What is Amazing about Thailand is that Pattaya is not only continuing to have water problems, but they are getting worse. The problems of Pattaya are simply a lack of leadership at all levels. When the over investment and bad planning didn’t pan out in the 1990’s, there was a loss in confidence in Thai business which led to the crash of the baht. From what I see, no one has learned anything from recent history.

Why can’t Thais elect leaders who will do what’s good for all Thais and not just the few close friends of the elected leaders? We have this problem in the U.S., but at least we jail the really bad offenders of the public trust. This never seems to happen in Thailand. Most of the Thais I know complain about it, but no one seems to do anything about it.

Pattaya’s leaders can boast of increasing the size of Pattaya, but they have decreased the economic capacity of the average Thai in Pattaya, and decreased the overall quality of life in Pattaya for everyone. Only in Thailand is this seen as progress. Only the Thais can change things, while us foreigners can only pack up and leave with the millions of baht we bring in each year from overseas.
Regards,
Chang Noi

Troubles with addition?

Dear Sirs,
I’m writing regarding today’s letter written by C. Williams of Pattaya titled: “re: pipeline to address the provincial water shortage”. He quotes the government plan to build a pipeline to pump 12,000 litres a day. I’ve read that before and have a hard time believing it. Doesn’t anyone realize how much water that is? It shouldn’t take ten years to build a pipeline the size of a garden hose. Because that’s about what size you would need to move 12,000 litres in 24 hours. Someone is going to make a fat profit on that contract, then again this is Thailand.
Art Savacool
Chonburi
Ed’s note: C. Williams evidently misread the story; the amount is measured in cubic metres, not litres.

Double edged discrimination against Thais by Thais?

Dear Sir,

Having spent a great night in a pool hall on 2nd Road with my Thai wife (spending the best part of 3,000 baht) we moved to the outside drinking area once the bars had closed.

My Chiang Mai University educated wife was then verbally abused by a member of staff of the business that had welcomed us and accepted our generous business.

Can Thais be prejudiced against Thais? Read on…

Whilst sat outside the bar drinking, a member of staff approached me breathing his whiskey breath all over me. I asked him to go away as he was bothering my wife. He touched my wife’s arm and said; “How can she be your wife, she’s got brown skin!”

When we approached the manager and explained our grievance we were told to “Get on with it … my daughter has married a farang”. The manager walked away from us whilst my wife was still in conversation with her!

Discrimination? How would she have dealt with this matter if her daughter had been treated this way … differently no doubt.

Double edged? How can someone who made their money from the “service industry” look down on, and not sympathize with, a lady with a professional commercial career not connected to the “service industry”?

Please tell me!

Obviously grandparents bringing up parents and sending them to university, helping them bring up their children and sending them to university means nothing in this city.

Is it only my wife that has to face this rubbish on a regular basis?

Yours faithfully,
Robert

Stray dogs

Dear Editor;
For the last two years my wife and I have adopted, or been adopted by, a selection of stray dogs, all of which have been cared for, inoculated, and neutered. At one point we had to move house to somewhere with a bigger garden, to accommodate the numbers and at the moment, the number of dogs has risen to eleven.

We would ask, therefore, if anyone is considering having a dog, whether they would first care to consider adopting one of ours. They are free of charge of course, although we would not stop anyone making a donation to cover the vet costs, if they wished. What is more important is that the dogs are given the care and attention to which they are accustomed, and that we have enough space to cater for animals in the same sorry condition as the last two arrivals.
Yours sincerely,
Derek Doyle
E mail: delboy43210@ hotmail.com
Tel. 038 423 585 or 07 1408600 or 09 505 7021

Where are all the tourists?

Editor;
Where are all the tourists? How long can we all go on ignoring the basic fact that our tourist industry is in deep crisis? Let’s forget Phuket for the moment (which as we all know has its own peculiar problems) and consider the Kingdom’s other major destinations: Pattaya, Chiang Mai and Bangkok, and ask ourselves: are our recent policies towards in-coming visitors conducive to success? Is the 1 a.m. closing of the town/city really what tourists want? Do they really want to be harassed and intimidated during a night out? Why do they now feel unsafe on the streets and in their houses and flats - what has gone so badly wrong?

I realise that some factors are difficult to control: tsunamis, Southern unrest, lack of water, bird flu/SARS, but are our basic current laws and understanding addressing the problem of so few tourists? And how will this effect the nation’s economy?
Katherine Anne Nevill-Gliddon

Bar Girl

An old bloom’s shining resilience
does not shudder in life’s chill wind
but sees all, in collected gaze - from a distance
estimating the order of her customer errant
She is the solemn teaming up
of cool observation
with despairing hardness

She presents her loosely black-gowned body
Taking up my offer, she matches my drink
We talk, as if facing our own mirrors
exploring, enriching each other
at first oblivious of the chatter and yelps
beginning to encroach upon us

Turning in their various poses of high legs
and fresh-combed hair
I catch a glance from one, gasping for
smoothness and sophistication
And concentrating on my glass, I notice
my bloom faded away.
Jomtien Hotpapa

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