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- HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:
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Tourists - or lack of them
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More on credit card charges
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Good morning from Belfast in Northern Ireland
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Ranting about TV in Thailand
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The wrong kind of international visitors
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Clean the streets
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You should have seen this place before
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Apply for your UK pension in UK
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Tourists - or lack of them
Editor;
I see once again the Thai authorities are throwing money
about, trying to entice tourists back to Pattaya and Thailand in general.
This once again is a complete waste of time and money while the main problem
of coming to Thailand stays in place. It has nothing to do with the riots in
Bangkok. It is quite simple: 45 to 50 baht to one English pound. That is the
reason I have no immediate intention of fetching myself, Thai wife and
children back to Thailand. Not just us, many other people with Thai wives
and people in general here in UK believe that Thailand is just to expensive
a place to visit at this time.
Thank you,
Philip
More on credit card charges
Editor;
Much as I would like to agree with a fellow farang I am
afraid that ‘Concerned Farang’ has got his facts wrong on credit card
charges.
There are many retailers in the UK that levy extra
charges when paying by credit card as opposed to debit cards. During the
month of August with my kids home from school I have booked ice skating and
paintballing tickets online with a credit card surcharge of 3% and 5%
respectively. Cinema tickets paid for by credit card attracted a surcharge
of £1.50 per person, a flight to Paris with a low-cost airline and a
surcharge of £7.50 per person was made, whilst some online UK retailers levy
surcharges of between 5 and 10% for credit card sales. In Paris a visit to
an art gallery cost 7.5% extra by paying the admission by credit card.
All of the charges are perfectly legal and in line with
the merchant agreements of the major credit card companies, I can verify
that as fact from my own merchant agreement with a credit card company. Also
in the town I live, a major tourist area, shops will often offer a 2.5-5%
discount for cash sales a practice that is also quite common in London.
So whilst it appears to be a favourite pastime to accuse
Thailand of being full of scams I am sorry but this time ‘Concerned Farang’
is way off the mark in thinking that the practice does not occur in the UK
and Europe.
Chris Kennedy,
Brighton, UK
Good morning from Belfast in Northern Ireland
Editor;
I have just read the article written by Eva Johnson on
Kate’s Project. My name is Roisin Hall and along with my husband Andrew we
created the project 4 years ago.
Eva has shown a real insight into the problems we
encounter and has written about it well. Thank you.
Khun Noi, our co-ordinator has been a blessing to us in
our bid to do even a little to help the poor in the slums.
One thing she mentions is the dirt and squalor that is
found in the poorest of slums anywhere in the world. Mostly this is a sign
that the people feel de-humanised and have no feeling of love or dignity. We
try first and foremost in Kate’s Project to show love and help them develop
a sense of self worth. The love and help is given unconditionally and
sometimes you can see the inner person growing in confidence and little
things like cleaning their surroundings and growing a few flowers give a
lift to themselves and their homes. They are our family and we show this in
every way we can and like all families we do our best. Sometimes it works
and sometimes it doesn’t but we will always be there for them and always
believe in their ability to lift their life a little either themselves or
through their children. That’s all we can do but at least we try.
Eva has written her story well and her feeling of
frustration is felt by us all in the project. On 13th October we will be
holding our annual sports day and she is welcome to attend. Everyone
deserves a day of fun and a little escape from the harshness of daily life.
The laughter and smiles give everyone a lift not least ourselves.
God bless you all.
Roisin Hall
Ranting about TV in Thailand
Editor;
I have been holding back for a long time to comment on
True Vision and Thai TV in general, and now with Mr. Heck’s comments
(Bangkok Post), it has stirred me to finally rant a bit.
I have lived in Thailand for almost 11 years and I still
do not understand why the public who subscribes to UBC/True Vision has not
gone ballistic over several facts. They show movies that are 15 to 20 years
old over and over, with just a few good ‘oldies’ and good new ones once in
awhile to keep face.
The TV guide is quite often incorrect with description
and times: for example a movie called Donkey Ciote or something like that...
was that a put on or don’t they know how to spell the correct title from the
famous book? I am not sure, but it looks like some movies are poor quality
copies. And, why do they have those logos in the corners. We know what
channel it is and we know it is True Vision, and no one would ever bother to
make a copy to sell; no one would buy it. Why do they interrupt us viewers
to tell us what we are watching; we aren’t 2 years old! Why do they
interrupt us viewers to tell us what is coming next; we know, we have their
poorly written TV guide.
I also wonder about Thai TV soaps. Everything is so
opulent, often very young folks with no apparent means of income, and the
very sterile surroundings would make anyone fearful of sitting on any
furniture, and the constant screaming at each other and facial expressions
that remind me of the silent movies. It surely sets a poor example of Thai
life to the young folks. So inane, I want to throw a brick at the TV.
Lastly, they censor guns, knives, and smoking, when
everyone knows full well what the person is doing. If any money moguls with
a penchant to give us good TV started a cable company, True Vision would be
out of business in a week. Grow up True Vision.
Now I feel better.
Hyde Parke
Pattaya
The wrong kind
of international visitors
Dear Editor,
All of the money that the Tourist Authority is spending
to attract new visitors to Thailand is working! Every time I read the
Pattaya Mail I see where international gangs of criminals have come to
Thailand to commit crimes. It used to be only English, German and American
criminals getting nabbed for petty infractions. Now we have Colombians and
others who have decided they have found an easy mark. Perhaps the screeners
at the airport and the border crossings need to check a bit more closely who
they are letting come to visit.
Regards,
Bill Turner
California
Clean the streets
Sir/Madam,
While Pattaya’s authorities are to be commended for the
development of Motorway 7, perhaps they would now like to turn their
attention to what tourists experience when they arrive in city.
With only the odd exception, Pattaya can hardly be
described as a picturesque place. Tourists arriving in Pattaya need a thick
skin to endure the traffic, the pollution, the stench from the drains, the
broken pavements and the insistent cat-calls of “wair-oo-kahrm” from the
every bar, bar none. While Thailand is a developing country, it has to make
sure it doesn’t fester; one way to do prevent that is to make Pattaya’s
streets pleasing places to be, rather than just filling them with eye-candy
of the bar-girl variety.
One immediate solution for removing the muck on the
streets is to employ council workers to use pressure washers. These are very
cheap to buy, very quick and effective to use and require practically no
training whatsoever. They make a massive difference to the appearance of
pavements, walls, etc.
To improve Pattaya more generally, the redundant
telephone kiosks and mass of advertising hoardings should be removed. Two
other problems are longer term projects, namely submerging utility cables
and developing a light rail/tram/subway system.
How often do you see someone using a telephone kiosk on
one of Pattaya’s streets? Hardly ever. Mobile phones have made them
redundant. How much profit are they making for their companies? Practically
none. So exactly who is benefitting from them? The only purposes they serve
are to obstruct pedestrians and attract fly-posters. Most of these kiosks
were set in concrete blocks at the depot and then placed on the pavement
later, so disconnecting them, picking them up and removing them should be a
breeze.
Advertising hoardings don’t just blight Pattaya’s
pavements, they blight the buildings too, preventing Pattayans and visitors
alike from admiring Pattaya’s streets. Advertising has become a disease so
out of control it’s destroyed the look of the streets. On many of Pattaya’s
streets competition to advertise is so fierce it’s often counter-productive.
Wouldn’t it be a better idea to replace the current free-for-all by
confining advertising to large approved boards, perhaps flat screen LCD or
Jumbotron style boards every 20 metres or so?
How many of the boards currently in Pattaya advertise
redundant businesses, products and services? When was the last time an audit
was conducted to find this out? How about the local council impose a tax on
advertising hoardings, making advertisers think twice about their actions?
How about ridding Pattaya of its plague of advertising hoardings and
replacing them with trees, bushes and grass? How about a tax on civic
ugliness (dirty, poorly maintained buildings blighted with
disproportionately large advertising-hoardings and no greenery) with tax
breaks for the civic minded (clean, well maintained buildings free of
advertising with plenty of foliage)?
While natives of Pattaya may be proud of their city’s
development, it’s difficult for the even the most vaguely refined traveller
to share that joy with quite the same enthusiasm.
Pierre Picaud
You should have seen this place before
Editor;
It used to be easy to photograph the sunset through the
swaying palms on Jomtien Beach. All I had to do was set up my tripod, rake
the garbage out of the way, tear down a few antismoking posters and take the
shot. Now with the advent of the gaudy buoys, that’s no longer possible. No
complaints, but you should have seen this place before I had to do anything
at all.
Brent Noe
Apply for your UK pension in UK
Editor;
For future reference, when you apply for your UK pension
do it within the United Kingdom using a UK residential address. Get the
money paid into a UK account or cheque sent to a UK address. That’s what a
lot of people do already quite successfully.
MB
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Letters published in the Mailbag of Pattaya Mail
are also published here.
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It is noticed that the letters herein in no way reflect the opinions of the editor or writers for Pattaya Mail, but are unsolicited letters from our readers, expressing their own opinions. No anonymous letters or those without genuine addresses are printed, and, whilst we do not object to the use of a nom de plume, preference will be
given to those signed.
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