Beer Bar's Beer Bar

[PattayaOneTeam]

Pete’s Peregrinations

Manila Murder Musings

I’m writing this in Manila where I have come for some meetings, arriving late last night after my PAL flight from Bangkok was heavily delayed.

That set the tone for my first night.

The airport taxi driver then lied to me and said there was heavy traffic downtown because of a church meeting (at 11pm?!) and could he go the longer but faster way to the hotel? Foolishly, befuddled by having just arrived, I agreed, and ended up with a bill three times the amount of the usual fare. I’m still kicking myself.

I come to the Philippines twice a year, and much as I love the country, the people, the islands and the scuba diving, I really hate traffic-congested Manila and find it depressing being here, especially for the first couple of days.

I am staying on Mabini Street; the hotel and location are great, but last night even just a block away from the hotel, the dark, dirty, dangerous-feeling streets immediately put me on my guard in a way that never happens in Thailand.

I am always shocked by the many babies, small children and families sleeping rough on the pavements whenever I come here. It’s very sad.

Now may not the best time to be in Manila. Today’s headline screamed: “US and four other countries put out travel alerts on Manila”, warning of indiscriminate terrorist attacks in the capital and elsewhere.

Even though the Philippines economy is booming, the stock market is hitting record highs and the currency remains strong, tourism-wise, the Philippines always seems to outdo Thailand on bad news stories splashed across the world’s press.

In the past few months there have been (just off the top of my head): a murder of a British businessman by an armed gang, the disappearance of a British woman in Manila, an assassination of a Brit in Angeles City, and the murder by stabbing of another Brit, who had gone to meet his Filipina girlfriend who he was going to marry. Unfortunately he confided this sensitive information to her secret Filipino boyfriend, who promptly stabbed him to death.

There have been other shootings of Americans here and of course, the shockingly bungled “rescue” attempt of the Chinese tourists in the bus siege which played out on TV screens the world over, which resulted in 8 deaths, global condemnation of Manilan police incompetence, and international outrage, all of which have decimated the tourism industry here.

Most of the blame can be laid at the door of gross corruption and political mismanagement, but I feel sorry for the country and its people, and hope things one day will change.

Beer Bar’s Beers Bar

A friend and I recently travelled up to Udon Thani, where we stayed overnight.

Playing pool in a beer bar in a very quiet complex, we got talking to the owner who was selling up, fed up with low tourist numbers, financial concerns, hassles and shakedowns, including the ubiquitous “real or not” copyright agent’s visit and haggled massive fine.

The last straw was a 50,000 baht fine for advertising beer on their beer coolies. He showed me what they now had to do with them (pictured), and said it was part of a new clampdown, although in other bars we were in they hadn’t had to cover up these containers.

I recalled a recent club raid in Pattaya where a similar regulation was enforced but I haven’t as yet seen anything like this in Pattaya.

If this barmy law was being strictly enforced, logic would dictate that labels on beer bottles should also be taken off or covered up. And taken to its logical conclusion the breweries would have to be raided every day, as they churn the offending bottles out, labels and all, as well as retail stores everywhere.

Imagine the backhanders.

Isaan Relief

Often accused of having a lavatorial sense of humour, I was intrigued to see these toilets in a service station in Isaan recently.

Incredibly privet, these natural screens provide a fig leaf for nervous users. The owners were clearly not beating around the bush when they put them in, presumably to hedge against the risk of prying eyes of other pee peepers stemming one’s flow.

Of course I had to skulk around the bogs, looking highly suspicious, sporting my camera, until they were empty, when I was able to take this photo, which has probably put me on some kind of toilet-lurking perverts blacklist somewhere.

Traffic Madness

A little indistinct as I was photographing it from a moving car (no, I was the passenger), recently I saw this bizarre sight at the scene of a crash on the busy Ayutthaya – Saraburi road, at a notorious traffic black spot.

Behind the group is the truck they were travelling in, which had overturned, scattering fruit all over the road.

As the traffic was still driving past at a dangerous speed, on the obstacle-littered road, the traffic policeman, conveniently indicated by the arrow sign on the right of the photo, decided to add to the road dangers by taking a group photo for the lucky crash passengers in front of their still-overturned truck.

Only in Thailand.

Contact me at [email protected]

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-- Pattaya One 2010-11-20