HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Cheap helmets don’t protect anyone

Inconvenienced by Thai Wisdom Fair

Drought! What drought?

Enjoyed the Opera Night

Ubekhanon is much more perceptive

Why is the children that must suffer the most?

OutReach helping street children

Cheap helmets don’t protect anyone

Sir;

Mr T Crossley makes a wonderful point about all the letters about motorcycle helmets. What a waste of time this is. I totally agree Mr Crossley. Yes, it is the law of this land, but then who cares about that? Yes, Thailand has a road death statistic that makes many think they are still engaged in a major war. But then, mai pen rai, this is Thailand, no one needs to obey laws, if people have a death wish then hey, that’s OK. Lets face it, the 100-200 baht helmets sold all around here won’t protect anyone anyway.

One thought sir, (and I paraphrase here) an old quote: “if the maintenance of basic law and order is beyond the abilities of a nation, then it can no longer be called a nation”.

Regards,

Freddie Clark

Inconvenienced by Thai Wisdom Fair

Sir;

Can someone tell me how I get from Tops, with shopping bags, to Royal Garden, on a Saturday afternoon, without my own vehicle?

Also, I have noticed that the use of motorbike helmets is reverting to the pre March 1st state. What happened? Did the hospitals and plastic surgeons complain of lost business?

Gwyn Parfitt

Drought! What drought?

Sir;

No drought here! This picture was taken today. Once again the Naklua Soi 18 or Wongamart Beach Road is flooded with stinking sewer water where pedestrians from the Garden Beach Hotel and others have to use sand bags to get along the road and risk the dirty spray of vehicles. Why can’t it be pumped away by tanker? This is not new and has been there off and on for over a year to my knowledge despite millions being spent on new sewers in the area.

BB

Enjoyed the Opera Night

Dear Sir,

Recently I attended an evening at the Royal Cliff Resort Hotel promoted as ‘A Night At The Opera’. I am not an opera buff, but this was a highly entertaining and enjoyable evening complimented by a magnificent five course banquet dinner at a very reasonable cost.

I would like to recognize and congratulate the sponsors who made this event a reality, namely Rotary International, the Pattaya Mail and especially D&M Music Studio who I understand were instrumental in negotiations with the Korean Opera Company. Interestingly, the singers and the pianist were noticeably moved by the standing ovation they received.

In recent months the Royal Cliff has held several other special dinner events of the highest standard, including the Royal Cliff Wine Club functions.

In terms of elevating Pattaya’s overall image these functions are immeasurable and there is no doubt the Royal Cliff is one of Pattaya’s most outstanding ambassadors. It is therefore appropriate to acknowledge Khun Panga Vathanakul and her senior executives Andrew Wood and Ranjith Chandrasiri. It would be remiss of me not to mention the Royal Cliff staff who were all highly professional and contributed greatly to making these special evenings absolutely world class.

Yours sincerely

Rob Astbury

Ubekhanon is much more perceptive

Editor;

According to an article in your current issue, Mr. Ubekhanon, the Pattaya chief of police, states that implementing Mr. Purachai’s social reform directives has caused many tourists to become disillusioned with Pattaya and that enforcement of those directives may be a cause of falling numbers of tourists visiting Pattaya. I think that Mr. Ubekhanon is much more perceptive than is Mr. Purachai.

I just returned to the United States from a three-week visit to Pattaya. I regularly read the news in the Pattaya Mail online and many other informational sites about Thailand before I made my visit. I suspected that things would have changed dramatically in Pattaya, and in some ways they have.

This was my third visit to Pattaya. I made my first visit in August-September about three years ago. My second visit was in September-October a year and a half ago. This time I came to Pattaya at the end of high season. One might think that there would be many more tourists in high season than there were during either of my other two visits, but that was not the case.

Although the chairs and umbrellas were neatly organized on Jomtien Beach this time, there were very few farang occupying them. There were fewer vendors and fewer young Thai men working at the beach. I rarely saw a child there.

It was the same on Beach Road, Walking Street and Second Road. Very few farang. It was the same in Boyztown. Very few farang. When I visited some of the bars there - and I did visit them - any bar which had more than four farang customers was a rarity. In some of the bars, I was the only farang. And this was high season. I shudder to think what low season will be like in Pattaya this year.

I may have gone against the idea of social reform by visiting some of the bars in Pattaya, but that is not the only thing I did and that is not the only way I spent my money. I ate in restaurants, some very fine ones I must say. I shopped for souvenirs. I visited religious sites. I purchased presents for the friends I have already in Pattaya and for new friends I made on this visit. I was a farang tourist in Pattaya, and I did the things a tourist might do and spent money the way a tourist might. Mr. Purachai made me feel very unwelcome in Pattaya, but the Thai residents of Pattaya seemed very glad to see me and my money.

I wrote the editors of the Pattaya Mail some time ago, and my letter was published. I thank you for that. I said in that letter that Mr. Purachai has made it very obvious that foreigners are not welcome in Thailand, and that his policies were going to do immense damage to tourism there. I am very sorry that my prediction has come true.

I will not suffer because of Mr. Purachai’s policies. I live in the United States, and what he does cannot harm me. But, his policies have caused a lot of harm to the people who live and work in Pattaya. I will visit Pattaya again. I hope that by the time I make my next visit, the social reform campaign has ended and the government of Thailand welcomes me as enthusiastically as did the residents of Pattaya.

Shirley Evans

Why is the children that must suffer the most?

Dear Editor;

Perhaps your newspaper’s fine reporters should devote a little more time to following up on the stories they report as well as verifying all of the information given to them (perhaps by the Pattaya police?).

Your February 15 article detailing the long-overdue police raid on the Sports Corner Bar in Sunee Plaza stated that the owner, Naris Watanayaem, was arrested to face very serious charges, that the 12 children “rescued” from the bar were being cared for by the “welfare office,” and that the bar - which has helped give Sunee Plaza and Pattaya a reputation as the “child prostitution capital of the world” - would be “permanently closed.”

Now, more than a month has passed since the Pattaya Mail told that story - happy ending and all - and your newspaper’s account of the event turns out to be wishful thinking at best.

In fact, the owner never experienced the inside of a cell. A substantial amount of money is said to have found its way into the hands of certain Pattaya “law enforcement” personnel following the raid, and the owner was back at his luxurious home within hours.

Allegedly, as was also mentioned in a recent Mailbag letter, a great deal more money has since crossed the palms of those in the local government and legal system, and all of the charges against the owner seem to have been forgotten. It is very important to note that every bit of the money used to bribe local officials came from the sexual exploitation of young children.

As for the “rescued” boys found at the bar, they were the ones who suffered the fate the bar owner managed to avoid. They were not “placed in the care of” welfare workers as your newspaper reported. These young victims were, in fact, arrested by the Pattaya police and spent several days in Pattaya’s filthy and over-crowded jail on Soi 9, locked up in common cells with all sorts of adult criminals. After several days imprisonment in wretched conditions they were transferred to a youth detention facility where they face the possibility of having to stay several years.

As for the hopeful bit about the bar being closed, guess again! It’s back to business as usual for the Sports Corner Bar, especially in the early afternoon and on weekends. A lot of new faces among the young boys hanging out there, but the same old game of pedophile farangs frequently taking young children upstairs to exploit and misuse them.

Besides needing to make up for his recent “legal costs,” you can bet that a fair share of the bar owner’s current profits are now finding their way into the pockets of the very same local political and law enforcement officials who have been promising everyone a new and improved Pattaya.

The real question, however, is why do these poor children have to pay the heaviest price?

Reuben Smith

Ban Chang

OutReach helping street children

Dear Editor,

In the March 15 Mailbag section, “Concerned” asked “who will pay or help the 12 boys that were arrested in the Sports Bar?” Following their arrest on Feb. 7, a Project Outreach volunteer visited and brought food for all of these boys twice a day during their stay at the Pattaya police station, and paid their processing fee so they would be transferred more quickly to the Eastern Child Protection Institute in Huey Pong, Rayong.

Since their transfer, Project OutReach has been visiting them and bringing them snack food twice weekly at Huey Pong. Project OutReach has also assisted with contacting the boys’ families, obtaining placement for some of the boys in drug rehabilitation centers, and consulting the Huey Pong social workers regarding viable plans for the boys’ futures.

Project OutReach is currently seeking caring and dependable individuals or couples with some Thai language ability to visit Huey Pong on a regular (preferably weekly) basis and provide encouragement and emotional support for several of the boys who have no family and are facing a long-term stay at the center. Anyone willing to devote a few hours a week and some extra food to any of these boys could do a great deal to lift their spirits. If you are interested in learning more you can email [email protected]

But Project OutReach has already been working with these and other area street children since last year, teaching English and self-defense, buying food and clothes, and paying for hospital visits and medicine when needed. And, in coordination with other local charitable organizations, helped several of these street kids (both before and since the Feb. 7 police raid) get off of the streets and into suitable and healthy placements, including one child only 10 years old.

If any individual or organization would like to learn more about the work of Project OutReach and how to help, please email for information or to request a speaker to meet with your group.

At the current time, there are several homeless children seeking help who are still on the streets due to a lack of resources to cover drug rehabilitation therapy, which is a prerequisite for admission into local charity youth housing. The cost of this treatment is relatively small (by Western standards). Sponsoring one of these children not only would change their lives, but in some cases save their lives.

Project OutReach

[email protected]

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