Letters AND Kris And Noi's Private Posts

[PattayaOneTeam]

LETTERS

Plenty of Bite in Africa

Sir,

I am writing this from Africa where I work in a remote town in Zambia.

A friend in Pattaya sent me the link to your paper, including the cobra front page story, which was a coincidence because that day I had my own snake drama, African style. Here's how mine went.

One of our workers had gone out without the correct footwear, and been bitten by a snake in the bush and collapsed. He said it was a Common Boomslang, a highly venomous, aggressive snake, which strikes without warning, and which out here, is usually fatal within 3 days, as there are no good medical facilities nearby.

Toxic snake bite venom tends to cause internal bleeding and attacks the vital organs /nervous system (quickly or slowly) like battery acid (it liquidises organs). So once it is in the system there is not a lot that can be done, and we feared the worst as the man slipped in and out of consciousness.

The poor man was in great pain, and we took him to a dusty local hospital which is no more than a room with a bed and a stock of penicillin in it.

The hospital said they couldn't help and recommended he was taken to a local WITCH DOCTOR.

So, as directed, we took him to a nearby village, up a dirt track, where we met an old man who was the witch doctor.

The patient was carried from the truck and put under a tree in a field, as the witch doctor slashed the wound with a razor blade, applied some leaves to the gashed foot and gave him some smelly concoction from local bushes to drink, while mumbling spells of some kind.

Incredibly, the man survived and is recuperating well. We couldn't believe it.

Maybe you need a witch doctor in Pattaya?

Yours sincerely,

Paul Gerrard

By email

It seems our Internet presence is even more expansive than we had imagined. Two letters, by email, in about 10 days from two completely different continents no less. Pattaya One is hoping we also have a few people who live within a 10,000 kilometres of Pattaya who read the paper as well!

Common Boomslang's are quite thick on the ground here as well, usually around the Beach Road promenade area and parts of Walking Street late at night. When filled with alcoholic beverages, or if it's the wrong time of the month, they can become extremely aggressive. When they do strike, the organ that goes first is usually the wallet and its attendant cash, although sometimes victims have claimed they've also lost their hearts. This is probably due to some congenital weakness associated with having left their thinking and reasoning capacity at left luggage when they came off the aircraft from overseas.

We don't have witch doctors as such in Pattaya but there are plenty of persons who dabble in the arcane arts or can supply all kinds of potions; usually they've just been released from a period of detention at the pleasure of the authorities. [more…]

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KRIS & NOI'S PRIVATE POSTS

Anti-Whinger

Thailand is the worst place I've been in for moaning expats. Wherever they congregate you will hear them griping, saying how lazy and stupid the Thais are. Seeing as, for most of them, a round of golf followed by a visit to the bar is the most work they will do, they have no right to point a lethargic finger at Thais who generally work 12-hour days. Expats are better educated for sure, but the way some of them act in Pattaya, you wouldn't think so. Where do farangs get the gall to question the brainpower of a village girl who has been in Pattaya six months and can already converse in several languages, while veteran expats who've been here 5 or 10 years still can't form a sentence in Thai?

Groucho

Expats, particularly-- but not exclusively--those living in Third World or developing countries, do have a tendency to complain about the shortcomings of the locals. It's in the expat genes; rumour has it the first letters home from the Mayflower complained about the quality of the local beer. The most whining seems to come from the laziest examples of Western man. While they are sitting at their restaurant tables, or boozing in the bars, they cannot see the irony in complaining about lazy Thais, when the Thais serving them are probably working six or seven days per week just to maintain a very basic lifestyle. Thais are poorly educated in comparison to most expats, but stupid they certainly are not, being far more self-sufficient than pampered Westerners. Many Thais speak one, sometimes two, regional languages, as well as Thai, but to claim that service girls can converse in several languages is stretching it a bit, or a lot actually. Being able to say “another blow is 500 more” in six languages doesn't make her a linguist [might make her a cunning linguist though, Ed]; however, by increasing her customer appeal she is smart. And better than some expats, who prefer relying on shouted English. [more…]

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