HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Angry over shoddy service

Stupid cry babies

What’s up with this place?

Reply to: Are they smarter than a 5th Grader?

Songkran is meant to be gentle

Ban on selling alcohol

No alcohol on Buddhist holiday

Angry over shoddy service

Editor;
If you are thinking about opening a company up here in Thailand I suggest you call it ‘So & So of Thailand’, for instance if you sell liver & onion pies just call it ‘Liver & Onion Pie Company of Thailand’ or if you sell tyres: ‘Pneumatic Tyres of Thailand’ - why you might ask? Well then you can give shoddy service, get away with ignoring customer complaints and change you terms of service as you please, safe in the full knowledge that with so few other providers in this specialized field, you can get away with fleecing customers left right & center and that your name alone will give the air of a professional company that is somehow endorsed by some governing body that maintains strict control ensuring that the customer service is fantastic … wrong!
Now if you haven’t clicked by yet, I am talking about one of the major telecommunications companies here in the land of smiles. Actually I am starting to understand why it’s called that - certain companies and certainly this one - must be laughing at us. I mean what company can get away with charging you 1000 baht a month for a service that is slow, unreliable and to top it all when it does work, they put restrictions on sites such us youtube, without communicating these changes with the customer… Ah, was that a penny I heard dropping or perhaps it was your router?
Maybe you’ve been wondering why all your mates who send you youtube links think you’re an imbecile and can’t operate your PC - no the answer is - you are with the Mickey Mouse of internet providers and before you all utter your usual response of ‘If you don’t like it, leave’ I can assure you I love Thailand. If this was in the UK I would still be choosing a better service, anyway. I’m not going to complain but thought I would share this with you as I now have a new internet service with a proper all-grown up internet provider and as the blue & white envelopes fill up my mailbox trying to tempt me back to a service that is worse than dial-up, all I can say is, ‘Your communication came a little too late’.
Harry

Stupid cry babies

Dear Editor,
In reply to Mr. Ed Hanson (letters May 23) stating that the dislike of the Songkran water festival is because myself and “Brits” are “Stupid Cry babies,” may I say the following:
1. As a qualified registered general nurse of over nine years, I do not consider myself to be “Stupid” which you profess. I also do not believe that myself, or my elderly father is a “cry baby,” and fighting in World War Two for his country, I can respectfully call my father heroic.
2. I am very much a believer in personal choice of an individual, and if myself, or others do not wish too have buckets of ice cold water thrown over our heads twenty four hours a day, or fire hoses set on us, then it is our prerogative, and should not be the decision of yourself, or the Thai population.
3. May I add that on booking the holiday to Pattaya for April 18, 2008, I did not realize that this water festival was actually taking place.
Finally, may I conclude by saying that “young” children of all races happily play with water (I place emphasis on the word “young”!). However, as a forty five year old adult, I have outgrown such practices, unlike your good self Mr. Hanson.
If you do wish to preserve your childish and infantile years, I can only suggest a more viable option and far cheaper one, of instead of travelling from the USA to Pattaya, to attend one of your local child (Creche) centers, which have paddling pool facilities for you to indulge in your gratification. Baby nappies and children’s dummies should you have the inclination to make use of them are optional!
N.B. As for the statement that the Songkran water festival has been going on for xx years, may I say so did slavery, and gladiatorial fights in the Colosseum many years gone by, but that does not make it any more “correct”!
Happy paddling Mr. Hanson, hope that you wear your water ring.
Mr. Stephen Chetwyn RGN

What’s up with this place?

Editor;
I have been visiting Pattaya City for 22 years and thought that I had seen it all before. I was wrong. One night I was watching the news hearing that the police chief is touring Walking Street shutting down venues for being open too late into the morning. The next night a new disco opens on Soi Bongkot. Soi Bongkot is located in a residential area, with lots of working class people and their children, also expats like myself. The club opens at 10 pm. and closes at 6 am. The pounding base style music starts out quiet and slowly gets louder and louder to the point it vibrates the walls of the residential buildings. You can hear this music about a block away, making it hard to sleep. This must be the new style wake up service for these kids and expats off to their early exercise and school routine.
Mr. Itthipol, the new mayor (congratulations) in his thank you speech said he would be increasing the education to grade 12 for residents. How can these kids be ready for learning without proper sleep? I am sure this is not the only establishment in the residential areas of Pattaya that plays loud music into the late hours. If you are going to shut these venues down in the entertainment areas, why are we not first closing them in the residential areas? Is this the message? Open your party spots outside the entertainment zones, it’s ok, we will let it go.
Rick from Canada

Reply to: Are they smarter than a 5th Grader?

Hi,
In reply to “Are they smarter than a 5th Grader?” in the Editor’s Letters column in the 16/May/2008 issue of Pattaya Mail, I think, I myself would ask, “Are they smarter than a First Grader?” as I have come across in the past many intelligent 11 year olds. (Has anyone tried ever to sit the UK’s 11+ School Exam?)
I would respectfully suggest that this international beach resort has and is being very badly managed, so much so that it brings tears to ones eyes.
Paradise lost. Pay a decent salary and engage probably a foreigner to run the town. I’m sure his first task would be to remove the name “City” from the nomenclature and call it what it is, “Pattaya Beach Resort”.
His second task might be to promote the entertainment industry, after all, what would Las Vegas be without gambling?
His third and final task could well be the welcoming of foreign tourists in an open and even handed manner which after all is why Pattaya exists at all.
Thereafter everything else would very soon fall into place as market forces prevailed and then the resort would be free to spend its money in the way that they have always enjoyed to advertise, well worth causes. It needs to be remembered that these very same good causes are financed by the tourists, by the entertainment businesses and one should not continuously put the cart before the horse with half baked and quite insane policies.
Is there anyone out there up to the job?
Ryan Dovy
Belfast
Northern Ireland

Songkran is meant to be gentle

Editor;
My wife is Thai and she can’t stand Songkran as it is now after being hijacked by falangs. She will always say it’s about the touching of water & scent on a person, not drenching them and covering them with powder. So instead of pointing the finger at whingers & yobboes or, as Mr Hansen believes, people having fun, why not earmark an area just for the frivolities and leave the rest of the area for people to go to work or to go out for a meal without getting their clothes ruined? That’s what’s called a compromise.
I’ve heard many a Thai person moan about Songkran so Ed are you going to tell them to go home? Oh! I used to stay in on Songkran but to read your letter Mr Hansen and the many other letters I had to reply and I have gone back home.
Wayne Hobson
England

Ban on selling alcohol

Dear Sir;
Again much has been made about the ban on selling alcohol during the period of elections, and its effect on tourism. The reasons for the ban are not made clear but opinion suggests one of the following:
1. Staff working in bars need to travel home to vote so shutting the bars stops pressure from their bosses to make them work and not vote. This is clearly nonsense as other businesses stay open.
2. No alcohol insures a clear head for the important responsibility of voting. Also nonsense because as far as I know no major democracies do this.
3. For historical reasons as there have been instances in the past where candidates have bought votes by promising lots of beer for voters willing to support them.
Perhaps the Pattaya Mail can tell us which of the above are the reasons for the ban.
Regards
Mike from Pattaya
Ed’s reply: None of the above (or perhaps all of the above) - the point being that is doesn’t matter what the reasons are, what matters is that it is a law written into the constitution. The lawmakers who wrote this into the constitution didn’t come out and say, “We’re doing this because…”, so any other “reason” being put forth by anyone other than those who made the law is pure speculation.

No alcohol on Buddhist holiday

Dear Editor;
Once again we have an interesting situation in Pattaya (as if we do not already have enough interesting situations, I am of course referring to last Friday’s mass attack on some 50 bars by heavily armed, assault rifle totting Special Police, I wonder what they were afraid of?).
Anyway tonight the entertainment centres will be closed / curtailed in respect of the Buddhist holiday; however, the locals themselves will once again be partying at the various beach venues (including a large beach party in North Pattaya) organized in advance for this occasion where the alcohol, and much else will flow freely. Expect to find many of Pattaya’s best there, indulging in what would be illegal for a tourist.
And they wonder why this once international beach resort is now so economically challenged. Me and my friends shall not be returning anytime soon until those in charge learn to manage an international resort.
P.S. I suggest that the malaise stretches far beyond just Pattaya to other central and northern tourist destinations.
Yours truly,
Bill Hendrix
Ottawa, Canada

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