Are There Any Regulations Or Safety Checks At All?

[girlx]

had a really terrifying experience yesterday, coming back from nathorn in samui to thongsala on the smallest and crappiest of the songserm death traps. we were stuck out in the middle of open water when the engine died (was told it was swamped with water?) and the steering apparently stopped working as the boat was just spinning around in circles. on top of that, big waves yesterday so we were swaying very dramatically and water was coming aboard. i wasn't too worried until i noticed there were no lifejackets on the boat at all! also, the staff were not professional in the least- they had stripped to their boxers and were running back and forth from one end of the boat to the other, screaming. when anyone tried to ask what was going on they just barked "sit down!". this went on for about 40 hellish minutes. i noticed that the farangs were are pretty calm, but the thais were freaking out, which made me a lot more scared since they know the score better. i actually called my friends and begged them to send a speedboat out to get us! but at the last minute they were able to get the engine running and we more or less crash landed at thongsala pier. ######ing thais man, why do they not take safety precautions? on a crappy boat like that not to have lifejackets? not to have trained the staff to explain an emergency? not to have some sort of radio system to call for help? this place drives me crazy sometimes. i do have a lifejacket i normally take on boat trips in bad weather but did not expect that at all yesterday.

[sbk]

Last i looked songserm does actually have life jackets but I believe they are all in a big container. Probably locked

Do not get me started on Songserm, let me just say I refuse to take their boats. Ever.

[taxexile]

i thought that after the full moon disaster last year regular checks were carried out on all the ferries....... well , they did say that things would improve !

pretty disgraceful really , i mean life jackets locked away is one thing , but no life jackets at all...... there's no excuse for that ! crew in a flap no good for moral aboard either.

sounds a frightening experience , worth publicising it on web boards and a letter to the bangkok post etc.... or a few videos of a lifejacketless craft on one of the video sites.

if these things really get your goat , then an e-letter writing campaign to european and american papers that have travel sections might result in a small article and will do a lot to assuage your anger.

i think if you have your own life jacket then in the event of an emergency you would be torn to shreds as those without tried to get yours from you , cant imagine thais just sinking quietly whilst the foreigner floats away to safety.

[PaulAllen]

they had stripped to their boxers and were running back and forth from one end of the boat to the other, screaming.

Huh?

[sbk]

Like I said, last i looked Songserm does actually have life jackets, just assuming they were not passed out nor did girlx see them as they are, as I stated, put away in a cabinet.

they are there. Old, and not handy.

Songserm is the absolute oldest, worst boat and makes all the other boats running look like brand spanking new boats with the latest in high tech.

[chinthee]

I've been on those Raja car ferries quite a few times both between the mainland and Samui and between Samui and KPN. I've always noticed how there aren't more than a handful of absolutely pathetic-looking life jackets on there. Wonder if they have any in some back room?

I guess I've answered my own question...

[girlx]

i asked the boat guy if he had life jackets aboard and he just shrugged and said "sit down!". considering they were not brought out and i did not see any anywhere, i believe they did not have any. this was not the normal songserm boat either, it was smaller, almost like a fishing boat.

i think if you have your own life jacket then in the event of an emergency you would be torn to shreds as those without tried to get yours from you , cant imagine thais just sinking quietly whilst the foreigner floats away to safety.

argh good point! so you can't win either way! i wish i could just avoid the boats completely. bring on the airport!!!!

Edited August 4, 2007 by girlx

[sbk]

i asked the boat guy if he had life jackets aboard and he just shrugged and said "sit down!". considering they were not brought out and i did not see any anywhere, i believe they did not have any. this was not the normal songserm boat either, it was smaller, almost like a fishing boat.

i think if you have your own life jacket then in the event of an emergency you would be torn to shreds as those without tried to get yours from you , cant imagine thais just sinking quietly whilst the foreigner floats away to safety.

argh good point! so you can't win either way! i wish i could just avoid the boats completely. bring on the airport!!!!

Oh, that horrible little boat. It should be banned. Well, guess you learned the same scary lesson I did years ago. Never take a songserm boat. Any Songserm boat.

[girlx]

yeah so for me that narrows it down to lomprayah, which is the only boat i trust! had a similar horrid experience on the had rin queen before too. scared to death of the huge car ferries. i usuall try to fly when i go to bangkok or elsewhere and just take lomprayah back and forth from samui. but when i have to go to nathorn (immigration) it's hard to get back any way other than songserm!

[tommyj4]

Well....thats we love about this place...if you are so bothered about it why not go back to molly cuddling Europe or wherever & have a life of safety & precautions where you cant do anything without the P.C police on your back....get a grip...enjoy life hey!!!

[TheWalkingMan]

Well....thats we love about this place...if you are so bothered about it why not go back to molly cuddling Europe or wherever & have a life of safety & precautions where you cant do anything without the P.C police on your back....get a grip...enjoy life hey!!!

Ahhhhh another quality post.

TheWalkingMan

[girlx]

Well....thats we love about this place...if you are so bothered about it why not go back to molly cuddling Europe or wherever & have a life of safety & precautions where you cant do anything without the P.C police on your back....get a grip...enjoy life hey!!!

speak for yourself. that is one aspect i do not enjoy about this place is a lax attitude about safety. mai pen rai is great but it doesn't hurt to think ahead sometimes. it's just common sense to have lifejackets on old rickety boats. don't believe me go ahead and ride that songserm one next time.

[ClaudeFeller]

i noticed that the farangs were are pretty calm, but the thais were freaking out, which made me a lot more scared since they know the score better.

Come on, Thais cannot swim, thats why they are freaking out. And maybe they dont know that a normal ferry has life jackets...

But IMHO the car ferries from Songtherm are a lot of better than Raja's - at least they look newer and their exhaust pollution is not as dark!

[Mid]

like it or not ,

those car ferries have had a hard life in China before they came here .......................................

[sbk]

Songserm is not a car ferry. Those boats have been running to the islands for about 30 years and even then they were used. They started life out running the river in bangkok and are not designed for the ocean.

[chinthee]

like it or not ,

those car ferries have had a hard life in China before they came here .......................................

Mid, is that true? Old Yangtse river cruisers eh? Doesn't surprise me. Waiting 3-4 hours at Donsak to drive on board; having to go sit on the black top roof level because there aren't enough seats below; enjoying the black smoke ambiance of the noise of the struggling engines and exhaust in your face from those rooftop ports; and all the while wondering how sea worthy the old hag is...ah, memories of paradise...

[Mid]

Mid, is that true?

too easy to find Chinese script that's embossed onto the superstructure ,

painted over .............................

[ClaudeFeller]

I cannot read Chinese or Korean but I think it is Korean...

[chinthee]

Well, since the majority of shipbuilding in the world today takes place in either Korea, Japan or China, chances are good that those are original marks from the ship builder. Doesn't mean the vessels did time plying the car ferry routes there. But, those are pretty pathetic examples of run down old ferries in any event! I wonder just how tired those old heaps are, and how sea worthy.

edited. I debated whether to add this. Just to make you feel even more ill at ease, last summer I was on the car ferry to Samui with my teenage son and his friend. They disappeared for some time, and when I saw them again asked them where they had been. Turns out much of the crew was in the pilot's cabin smoking pot & invited them in to try. I guess that's not the end of the world if NASA astronauts are drunk going into flight huh?

Edited August 4, 2007 by chinthee

[ClaudeFeller]

Just to remind:

Although we can watch English Premier League Live on TV, although we can buy German sausage, although we can order a good Italian cappuccino: We are in Thailand, the laisser-faire attitude is very comfortable in most cases, the "no-idea-of-nothing" is not bothering too much unless you just want to spent holidays. But these attitutes can lead to irresponsibility and to danger of life. TIT!

[tag420uk]

i had the mispleasure of getting the ferry from surat thani to samui last xmas and the boat was a complete heap.

i dont think that the boat was meant for sea crossings as it was a single decker river thames type boat but really old and had seen better days.when i was inside all the fllorboards were moving about a bit to much but it had plenty of life jackets so thats 1 plus i suppose

[PaulAllen]

Why don't Thai's know how to swim? A lot of poor people know how to swim because it is a free and fun activity.

[BigC]

had a really terrifying experience yesterday, coming back from nathorn in samui to thongsala on the smallest and crappiest of the songserm death traps. we were stuck out in the middle of open water when the engine died (was told it was swamped with water?) and the steering apparently stopped working as the boat was just spinning around in circles. on top of that, big waves yesterday so we were swaying very dramatically and water was coming aboard. i wasn't too worried until i noticed there were no lifejackets on the boat at all! also, the staff were not professional in the least- they had stripped to their boxers and were running back and forth from one end of the boat to the other, screaming. when anyone tried to ask what was going on they just barked "sit down!". this went on for about 40 hellish minutes. i noticed that the farangs were are pretty calm, but the thais were freaking out, which made me a lot more scared since they know the score better. i actually called my friends and begged them to send a speedboat out to get us! but at the last minute they were able to get the engine running and we more or less crash landed at thongsala pier. ######ing thais man, why do they not take safety precautions? on a crappy boat like that not to have lifejackets? not to have trained the staff to explain an emergency? not to have some sort of radio system to call for help? this place drives me crazy sometimes. i do have a lifejacket i normally take on boat trips in bad weather but did not expect that at all yesterday.

"health and saftey " in thai that translates to " Budda ". oh my god!! love it

living close to the EDGE signal

[BigC]

Why don't Thai's know how to swim? A lot of poor people know how to swim because it is a free and fun activity.

becuase they donot want tier skin to go dark.

[southbot]

Well....thats we love about this place...if you are so bothered about it why not go back to molly cuddling Europe or wherever & have a life of safety & precautions where you cant do anything without the P.C police on your back....get a grip...enjoy life hey!!!

Yeah, join all the other lusers who don't complain and just accept htis bullsith from the "locals"

Bottom line, the "locals" have no idea whatsoever. But if we complain enough then maybe, just maybe one day they get some part of the message.

Oh, and the boxer shorts for whoever queried that one - when a Thai crew in a Thai boat strips to his boxers it simply means he is quite sure the boat is going down very, very soon. Panic. No thinking first, just panic after the fact. TIT.

Tommyj4, maybe you go back under whatever rock you came out from under, eh?

"molly cuddling Europe", I suggest you learn some more English too, the word is MOLLYCODDLING, one word, not molly cuddling.

You must be thinking of my cousin, Molly, who used to cuddle me a lot ;-)

[girlx]

Yeah, join all the other lusers who don't complain and just accept htis bullsith from the "locals"

Bottom line, the "locals" have no idea whatsoever. But if we complain enough then maybe, just maybe one day they get some part of the message

yes, because though it is their country and their culture to not take death too seriously, when they are catering to foreigners (who for the most part do not accept 'buddha' as adequate protection) they should make efforts towards more realistic health and safety... or should we adapt and accept that we take the increased risk of dying in some horrible way by coming here?

Edited August 6, 2007 by girlx

[BigC]

i personally like the lack of health and safety. i am from England which is a nanny state. over the top on health and safety. to the point it cripples business with real petty stuff.

i beleive if the health and safety only effects the indivual then it should be up to the indiviual to make a discion as to there own health and safety unless they are kids.

example. people should be aware that wearing a helmet can safe your life. if you chose to not wear 1 then up to you but u might end up dead but it is not as if you didn;t know.

we have to adapt some what to there country we have to behave the same way we wish foreginers behaved in our country. unfortualty that is one of the reason i left due to lack of respect from foriegners and lack of a strong govement to protect extremly long term british citierzerns.

i do not like some of the thai laws where prohibit forang to get too settled but at the same time i respect them. i wish some of these laws were in place back home. fat chance. england is so mixed up it would go from left wing to Hitler thenback to Left wing

with out realising it is betterto be n the middle

Edited August 6, 2007 by BigC

[logpoacher]

For what it's worth, I have never seen a life jacket on any Thai boat. Some do have the sort of buoyancy aids that kayakers or jet skiers wear, but these only work if you are awake, they do not raise the face of an unconscious wearer out of the water like a proper life jacket, so if you get a bang on the head (quite likely during a boat sinking) yuo will probably still drown while unconscious.

A proper life jacket is the sort you see on a cross channel ferry or an aircraft - these will keep your face out of the water even if you are unconscious.

By the way, I'm not complaining - I too come from the crazed nanny state that is England and one of the things I love about Thailand is that you are expected to take responsibilty for yourself and there isn't anyone to sue because there was no warning on the petrol pump that drinking it was dangerous...

[Lite Beer]

i personally like the lack of health and safety. i am from England which is a nanny state. over the top on health and safety. to the point it cripples business with real petty stuff.

i beleive if the health and safety only effects the indivual then it should be up to the indiviual to make a discion as to there own health and safety unless they are kids.

example. people should be aware that wearing a helmet can safe your life. if you chose to not wear 1 then up to you but u might end up dead but it is not as if you didn;t know.

we have to adapt some what to there country we have to behave the same way we wish foreginers behaved in our country. unfortualty that is one of the reason i left due to lack of respect from foriegners and lack of a strong govement to protect extremly long term british citierzerns.

i do not like some of the thai laws where prohibit forang to get too settled but at the same time i respect them. i wish some of these laws were in place back home. fat chance. england is so mixed up it would go from left wing to Hitler thenback to Left wing

with out realising it is betterto be n the middle

I actually understood all of this post. Love the Hitler link.

Big C if you keep this up you will lose your Fan Club.

Edited August 6, 2007 by Lite Beer