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Water shortage problem

Shocked and ashamed

Thailand has become a soft target for the relentless British press

Harassment on Beach Road

Water shortage problem

Dear Editor:

Although I was pleased that you brought the water shortage problem up in your article in Pattaya Mail, “Hotels and Entertainment Complexes in Pattaya City Complain About Shortage of Tap Water During High Season”, it would have been better if you had included the fact that it’s not just the fancy hotels and entertainment complexes that are having to deal with the lack of water. I am living at the southern end of Jomtien Beach, and our entire soi hasn’t had running water in over 3 weeks!

In your article you state: “Sawang said a report on tap water supply service from an official at the Pattaya tap water bureau showed that each day 12,000 cubic meters are transferred from Huay Chark Nok reservoir and Sattahip tap water bureau to supply Pratamnak Hill, Jomtien Beach, Thepprasit Road, Ban Amphur, and Sattahip District areas. Sawang said this should be an adequate supply.”

Well, I would like to invite Khun Sawang to come to my place to stay for a few days and see how “adequate” the water supply is. After trying in vain to turn on the water to take a shower or to flush the toilet, he would soon realize that not a single cubic millimeter of those supposed 12,000 cubic meters of water are reaching our soi in Jomtien Beach. It’s a disgrace that a city that likes to advertise itself as a top-notch international tourist spot can’t even satisfy such basic needs such as an efficient water supply for the city.

I personally went to the water department office to complain, and all they could do was smile and say “naam mai paw” ... there isn’t enough water. And sure, enough, I took a drive by Mabprachan Reservoir, and it is nearly completely dry ... and this is only February! What will it be like in April during the hottest days of the year?

At first I thought it was just going to be a short-term inconvenience that we would have to endure, but I now see that this is going to probably last well into the rainy season. Sure, the expensive hotels may be able to afford to buy water from private companies, but for most of us regular people that simply isn’t feasible. I cannot subject my wife and small baby to more weeks and months of living in a house in which one cannot take a shower, go to the bathroom, clean the dishes, wash the clothes, etc. So, reluctantly, after living here for over 4 years, we are moving out of Pattaya for good.

I highly suggest to Mayor Pairat and Pattaya City Council that instead of worrying about building casinos and bringing in more tourists to Pattaya, perhaps they should work on improving the city’s completely inadequate infrastructure first. Sure, you may get a lot of new tourists to come here, but how many are going to want to return if they can’t even take a shower or use the toilet in their room?

Sincerely,

Parched in Pattaya

Shocked and ashamed

Dear Sir,

As applicants for an adoption from the Pattaya Orphanage, we visited the orphanage half a year ago. We were intrigued by the work of Father Ray Brennan and all the people in the orphanage. When we learned of the report in the English tabloid, we were shocked about this kind of journalism in UK, which makes it possible, that such a defamation can be printed without any proof and giving the name of the responsible journalist. We are ashamed that this is possible in the (so-called civilized) European community. We hope that this may not cause any damage on the brilliant work of Father Ray Brennan and his co-workers for the children of your country.

Yours sincerely,

M. Zenner-Blaes

F. Blaes

Giessen, Germany

Thailand has become a soft target for the relentless British press

Editor;

Whilst on line in the UK I was saddened to read the article about Pattaya orphanage and Father Brennan. I have been a visitor to Thailand for over six years and now feel compelled to write a letter to Pattaya Mail, albeit via e-mail.

All too often Thailand has become a soft target for the relentless British press in their desperate attempt to find new stories where expletives like ‘shocking’, ‘pervert’ and the now all too common misspelled ‘sicko’ can be used.

Here in the UK we are currently experiencing what virtually amounts to a witch-hunt for suspected paedophiles. Already more than a few leading figures have been very publicly arrested in press and police coordinated scenarios. These shameful liaisons are designed to gain maximum coverage in both the newspapers and TV news reports. The guitarist Pete Townsend and presenter Mathew Kelly being just two of them.

Obviously the abhorrent nature of paedophilia requires action. It is a practice that needs to be dealt with. No one in their right mind would support such a misuse of children. Now highlighted, no one would deny it’s become serious problem. However, the clumsy way that the British police have gone about this is almost inexcusable. Messer’s Townsend and Kelly are as yet uncharged and unlikely to be so, primarily because they are not as yet guilty of any offence. If you sling mud hard enough it sticks. Pete Townsend and Mathew Kelly may well be innocent but they’ll have to carry this episode on their shoulders for the rest of their lives.

Now we see a character like Father Brennan, who over the years has done countless good for the children of Pattaya, being played off to gain a cheap and nasty press report. For what reason, certainly not a sense of exposing truth. No, it’s mainly to sell newspapers, to get a story that your competitor hasn’t got. When hard pressed for fresh news the British press has for years taken to sneaking in to Thailand and exploiting stories for their sensational value. The open Thais always get caught out, where here in the UK these hack reporters would, in most cases, be out on their ear.

More expletives - vile, shameful, rotten, just a few words to describe the conduct of The People newspaper, if one dare call it that! For the benefit of Pattaya residents both expat and Thai, The People newspaper is perhaps the lowest grade press publication in the UK. Only sub normal, just above comic status would bother to read it let alone pay good money for it. The reporters can hardly string two sentences together most of the time and the content is on the whole a greatly exaggerated pack of mistruths. Again, all to gain sales over their competitors. I understand that the so-called reporter didn’t even sign off the story. Well those gallant boys in Thailand fishing out these stories and enjoying the sun and other amusements at their hosts expense, hang your heads low, yes you know who you are.

We have a number of these tabloid papers here which unfortunately speaks volumes for our supposedly educated society. They are all in competition to get their sales up and will stoop very low indeed to achieve this. Britain’s relish in the proposition that all the world should follow the UK by example and tirelessly tries to deflect and hide the truth that things here are, in many cases, a lot worse than other less well off countries. Juvenile crime, burglaries, rape, drug use, gang warfare and now gun use, to name but a few, are all well out of control, leaving many folks in the capital afraid to go out of there homes after dark!

Before the authorities jump to conclusions in order to satisfy the sanctimonious west please just take a breath and see if there really is a case to answer. Forty years of blemish free service for the sake of a trash ridden story is a lot to throw away. Pattaya needs its orphanage. Pattaya needs Father Brennan and others like him who have dedicated their lives to bring some hope to hundreds upon hundreds of children in need.

One might ask what was this intrepid reporter doing conning his way into a cash strapped orphanage with offers of great wealth. In the paper’s terminology just how sick can you get!

If there is a case to answer it will have to be dealt with but for the sake of Father Brennan and the kids of Pattaya that really are in need of the orphanage and it’s splendid facilities let’s just take it a step at a time. Let common sense prevail, a commodity at this time sadly lacking with the UK.

The People newspaper will move on. This is now last week’s news, time to send out the ferrets elsewhere to cook up yet another tale at someone else’s expense. Lastly my friend, who’ll be rather terse I feel when he reads this letter, often uses the press reporter’s favourite adage, ‘never let the truth spoil a good story’. Says it all really doesn’t it.

Robert Lyman

Camberwell, London. England

Harassment on Beach Road

Editor;

Pattaya’s beach promenade is infamous for the many ‘sex workers’, women, ladymen, ‘women of the second category’ (transvestites) who approach tourists, more or less discreet.

Pattaya first garnered a reputation as being an adult playground during the Vietnam War when American troops would be flown there for some R&R between stints in Indochina. After the war the boom continued and Pattaya continued to expand, attracting sex hungry men from all over the world.

Pattaya has been trying hard to remodel itself as a family resort, especially recently by arresting service girls for solicitation along Pattaya Beach Road.

Over 50 tourist police and 20 foreign crime prevention volunteers recently converged on Beach Road and detained 40 women selling their “wares” along the beach promenade.

The 20 foreign volunteers had been dispatched to the areas where it was reported that the women were soliciting male tourists. As the volunteers were approached by the women, police officers stepped in and were able to take the women into custody, after which police recorded their details for official records.

While many women discontinued their services along Beach Road, gays, ladyboys and ‘women of the second category’ (transvestites) did not.

Tourists walking on the beach are now primarily approached by gays, ladyboys, but especially by ‘women of the second category’ (transvestites), who sometimes very aggressively solicit their ‘services’ to single male tourists.

The author was more than once approached by such ‘women of the second category’, who would not let go, even after he told them two or three times that he did not want their ‘services’.

On one of the occasions, on Wednesday night, February 5, about 1.30 a.m., near the police station across the road, he was approached again by three of the transvestites, who tried repeatedly to grab and touch him.

Acting out of the dark, hidden under trees before approaching him, they did not answer to his polite requests not to touch him, as he was not interested in their ‘services’.

Instead all three of them threatened him with the word “boxing”, so that he could not peacefully continue his walk, but had to flee the scene.

It was not his first such experience, as the transvestites are often very aggressive in soliciting their “services”, especially the ones waiting hidden in the dark on the beach promenade near Beach Road Sois 6, 7 and , and corner of Central Pattaya Road and beach promenade.

The same can be said about the gays soliciting their “wares” on the beach promenade, opposite the Soi Pattayaland 1 and 2, to single western man, no matter whether these tourists are interested or not in such ‘services’.

The question is, why only women soliciting their “wares” are discouraged to do so, while gays and transvestites, the latter often threatening single tourists who want to be left alone, are not.

The author is not in any way hostile to gays or transvestites, but would like to walk on the beach promenade without being grabbed or even threatened by these transvestites, especially out of the dark.

The positive example of discouraging women to solicit their “wares” on the beach promenade should also, and to the same extent, be applied to ‘women of the second category’, ladyboys and gays.

Fred Upman

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