HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Correspondence on baht bus fares is rather pointless

Never surrender

Baht buses again

Poor treatment of Vegetarians

Who cares?

Some thoughts on Pattaya Beach Bus

Correspondence on baht bus fares is rather pointless

Sir,

The inane letter by Hyde Parke (30th Dec) has to be answered; though the entire correspondence on baht bus fares is rather pointless. Does Mr. Parke, one wonders, believe his own words? He must be paying 50 baht for this newspaper! Does he pay 200+baht for a bus ride to Bangkok, or 200 baht for a 100 baht meal in a restaurant? I trust he pays double rate for his accommodation.

Regarding the need for money; one only has to see how much money goes up in smoke every day and the food left on Thai plates to see the absurdity of his argument. It is the disadvantaged, handicapped and orphans who need money: certainly not the baht bus operators or those who milk them.

As for his final supercilious stab: this too is nonsense. Many Thais actually dislike being addressed in Thai by farangs as the insinuation that they don’t understand English is a ‘put down’. But hearken ye residents of Pattaya: it’s quite OK to get drunk every night, strut about looking like you are pregnant with triplets, ride motorbikes like maniacs and abuse Thai women just so long as you speak some Thai!

Yours etc
Green Grass (to go with Hyde Parke)

Never surrender

Editor;

I would like to respond to two letters in Mailbag, 30 Dec. 2005 - “The baht bus debate continues” / Ken Bromley, and “Get over it” / Hyde Parke, Pattaya.

It looks like Ken Bromley has given up and surrendered to the harassments, threats and inconveniences caused by the baht-bus drivers (that is, some of them), and he is blackmailed to pay 10 baht. I guess many just do that to get rid of the trouble - but remember that this behaviour is illegal, nasty, mean and very low. I don’t see any reason to sacrifice one’s dignity and it’s definitely not a question of five or ten baht. Never in my life will I surrender to criminals or scoundrels of any sort and ilk.

And you the “Hyde Parke” once and for all the fare is actually five baht within Pattaya and 10 baht to Jomtien or Naklua independent of skin colour, origin or presumed wealth, etc. Is that too complicated for some to understand? What you wrote is simply wrong. The laws in Thailand regulating public transport do not allow different prices for different categories of passengers, like “foreigners” etc., but of course for children and alike. I have checked this and it has been obvious from articles in daily newspapers in Thailand.

N.A. Anakah-Lindt

Baht buses again

Editor,

I didn’t want to write again about baht buses, but Hyde Parke’s letter (30th Dec.) needs comment. I ‘chickened out’ and pay 10 baht, but those who don’t are within their rights.

But now we have it on the supreme authority and decree of H. Parke. “Once and for all it is 5 baht for Thais and 10 for the rest of us”. It is not! If so he should use his knowledge to have an official printed price to this effect posted in every cab. Everybody would comply - problem solved!

Many Expats live on modest - even - State pensions, others are hurt by not being treated with reciprocal equality. Mr. Parke is arrogant, pompous and rude to write- “your type of cheap Charlie doesn’t belong here” - Presumably leaving here only the cream like him! Maybe he should re-locate to Monte Carlo where more of his equals might live.

Bar prices are a red herring. We choose voluntarily. “The Thais need the money.” Farangs know that! And they give it! I and many others never tip less than 10% to these delightful bar ladies. Stick to the issue - bus drivers, who are not on my tip list unless deservedly so.

Now, by unrelated postcript, H.P. boasts of speaking Thai! 3 x Chai yo! I moderately do, but would never look down on those who don’t or have grappled and failed.

Sadly, it seems that the famous attitudes of ‘mai pen rai’ and ‘up to you’ have not rubbed off onto this gentleman. Such social superiority baggage should be left at Heathrow Airport. There is no room for it’s introduction into Thailand.

Ken Bromley

Poor treatment of Vegetarians

Dear Sir,

The lack of consideration for vegetarians in Pattaya is quite amazing. Hardly a restaurant has a vegetarian section and a vegetable meal is likely to be served with fish sauce, oyster sauce, pig fat, chicken stock or worse. All available curry pastes in supermarkets contain shrimp paste and a ‘vegetarian’ curry is quite likely to be made from one of these.

I have not found a supermarket that has a vegetarian section, or one that makes any attempt to indicate which products are suitable for vegetarians. Manufacturers insinuate chicken stock into cans of vegetable or vegetable soup and in the rare event that they don’t do this they add the dreaded monosodium glutamate - an additive that should have been banned worldwide years ago.

In your own paper this week (23rd Dec) a recipe for Welsh Rarebit (usually regarded as a vegetarian snack) included the hazardous Worcester sauce which many people don’t even realise contains anchovy. Why not the safe, much cheaper and completely acceptable soy sauce?

I could go on ad nauseum, but one thing is certain when a religion is involved dietary requirements are taken much more seriously, e.g.; halal food for Muslims.

Michael Nightingale

Who cares?

Editor;

During my last trip downtown Pattaya I could see that all the complaints about the 10 baht fare and bath-buses really had worked out. A lot of people were actually walking and at least 50% of the buses were empty.

“Wrong conclusion”, you say? Correct, because the number of Thai people at any level in Pattaya worrying about the 10 baht and angry farangs is very simple “zip zero”.

Drivers just do like most of us did when we were working. He tries to make some money. The baht-bus company could not care less, the only thing they think about is how many more buses they can put out on the streets on top of the already 50% we do not need. Does the company get a part of the 10 baht? No, they rent the buses out to the driver.

Then you get so mad that you pack up your things and return back home. Yes, do that and “who cares?”

So what do we do about the bus fare? We do nothing because all our efforts are in vain. You either walk or pay the 10 baht and then try to convince yourself that you are living in a country very different from the country you stayed in before.

Look at the traffic here in Pattaya. One hour drive around in your car, if you have any, and you will see 100 situations that all are forbidden in the regulations. Why do they do all those crazy things, overloading, running red lights, wrong side of the road, passing on shoulders, 5 persons on motorbikes and so on? Because nobody cares!

I have been here 5 years and I have never seen a car with child safety seats, never seen a bicycle in the night with lights on, but I see everyday cars with kids standing in front of the driver with both hands on the wheel. Why do you think? Because they do not care!

By the way, have you noticed that 95% of the people in this country walk on the left side of the road? It is actually very smart, because then they never see the car who kills them coming from behind.

So what do we do about all this? Nothing! Or maybe we should think more about the reasons for coming here in the first place.

KS

Some thoughts on Pattaya Beach Bus

Editor;

On arrival for my annual year end holiday I was glad to hear the good news: Pattaya eventually got its public bus service running. There is even a great brochure available showing all the lines and stops. But then the obstacles begin: no way to find out what timetable there is for each line if any, no way to find out what fares there are. The useful brochure of Pattaya Beach Bus does not pay any attention to the detail that ‘would be passengers’ most likely need to know when busses are running. The ‘would be passenger’ then pins his hopes on the email address on that great brochure, but no matter how many emails are sent, there is never an answer!

So the ‘would be passenger’ asks himself a few questions:

- What use is a bus service which does not let the public know on what schedule it is operating?

- Why doesn’t the brochure inform the one’s lucky enough to get hold of one, that the yellow line is not operating yet?

- What’s the sense in making bus lines (schedule) which will not be able to keep their schedule due to the daily heavy traffic congestions on its routes?

As a ‘would be passenger’ may I ask city hall and the operating company how they expect passengers to use Pattaya Beach Bus Service if a ‘would be passenger’:

- At any given time has to wait an infinite period of time at bus stop 109 in bright sunlight without any shelter from the sun to catch a bus taking him to bus stop 155 (Mini Siam)

- Then is not able to get any information from the staff on the bus when their busses will leave from Mini Siam to take him back to South Pattaya,

- Forcing him to wait another infinite period of time in bright sunlight at bus stop 155 after his visit at Mini Siam, of course again without any shelter from the burning sun?

Maybe you guessed it already: the ‘would be passenger’ of Pattaya Beach Bus meanwhile turned to a real customer of one of the plenty available baht busses! A long story’s short meaning: that way, you never gonna make it! Are there possibly any vested interests which intend to exactly achieve this?

Signed:
Mister Flaggy
Switzerland

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