Thaksin Talks With Businessmen Re Opening

[Jai Dee]

PRIME MINISTER IN TALKS WITH ENTREPRENEURS REGARDING CHIANG MAI NIGHT SAFARI

Chiang Mai Night Safari prepares to showcase its potential to businesspersons who will visit the safari before its official opening on January 1st.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has scheduled a special round of talks with Thailand's leading businesspersons concerning the opening of the "Chiang Mai Night Safari" and "Chiang Mai World". More than 200 entrepreneurs will exchange their ideas on the new attraction in the northern city. Prime Minister Thaksin has stated that Chiang Mai World would have no less potential than Hong Kong Disneyland.

Tourists who will visit the Chiang Mai Night Safari next year will have 3 choices in tourism routes at the venue. These comprise the "Jaguar Trail" nature watch foot route around a lake, the "Savanna Safari" zone where visitors can enjoy a simulated African savanna, and the "Predator Prowl" where adventurous visitors can closely observe predators.

Source: Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 15 November 2005

[TokyoT]

PRIME MINISTER IN TALKS WITH ENTREPRENEURS REGARDING CHIANG MAI NIGHT SAFARI

Prime Minister Thaksin has stated that Chiang Mai World would have no less potential than Hong Kong Disneyland.

Source: Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 15 November 2005

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[p1p]

Oh God - Wish I dared to write more than this ........

[lamphun]

Chiang Mai World ?

Is this a new scheme to concrete over more of Doi Suthep? I've never heard of it.

[jomama]

There have been some items in the press about a cable car system or something that will go from Doi Suthep to the new Night Safari (the opening of which is being shown on Thai TV as I write).

There has even been a proposal to move the statue of Kubra Srivichai to make room for infrastructure.

All sounds amorphous as usual. Could be the start of a new hub.

[up-country_sinclair]

january 1st?

i've been out there riding around on my bike, and i don't see that as being even remotely realistic.

[jomama]

From BKK Post:

CHEEWIN SATTH

About 20 local organisations plan to welcome Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to his home province today with protests against government projects.

The prime minister will open the Chiang Mai Night Safari park.

The Phakhi Rak Chiang Mai (Love Chiang Mai Group) plans activities to oppose the government's plans for a Disneyland-like theme park and a business complex to make the northern province a tourism hub.

They also oppose the dismantling of a flood-prevention dyke on the Ping river.

The group says these projects are not transparent and lack public participation.

They will also criticise the government's failure to buy local farm products to feed animals and provide jobs for local people at the Chiang Mai Night Safari park.

Local teachers will join also the protest, opposing the government's plan to transfer local schools and staff to local administrative bodies.

Mr Thaksin will open the Night Safari park to over 200 VIPs and prominent businessmen. The 1.15-billion-baht complex will welcome only selected visitors until the year's end. It opens to the public on Jan 1.

[jomama]

More on "Chiang Mai World"

Residents demand Chiang Mai plans

Published on October 18, 2005

Civil groups in Chiang Mai called on the governor yesterday to release blueprints for the city’s biggest mega-project - Chiang Mai World - for public debate amid increasing fears that it might have wide-ranging cultural, social and environmental repercussions for city residents. The development package comprises 14 tourism-related projects stretching over 23,000 rai of the Suthep-Pui National Park. The park covers woodland on and around Doi Suthep, home to a revered Buddhist shrine, Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep.

The planned constructions encompass a wide range of projects in a bid to boost tourism to the province: a night safari, a 15 km-long cable car service, a luxury resort, a marine aquarium, a theme park, a spa complex, an exhibition centre, a decorative plant centre, a garden plant centre, an elephant park, as well as a monorail.

Some 30 representatives of civic groupings belonging to the “Love Chiang Mai” network - including monks, academics, activists, artists, businessmen and students - gathered at Chiang Mai’s provincial hall yesterday to submit their demands to Governor Sawat Tantipat.

“Although some projects have already started and many are in the pipeline, we the residents of this town remain uninformed about the long-term effects [on our homes],” their memorandum said. “First of all, we want the governor to release plans for all projects to the public in order that [proper debate can be held on the impact].”

One of their main concerns, the petitioners insisted, was the construction of a cable-car station at a respected religious site, the Khruba Sriwichai Statue, which many feared would violate the sanctity of the shrine dedicated to a revered monk, Phra Khruba Sriwichai.

They also expressed concerns that some projects would have extensive negative effects on local water and natural resources.

Meanwhile, Chiang Mai Cultural Council president Chao Duangduan na Chiang Mai has rejected plans by zoo officials to hold a traditional Lanna-style wedding ceremony for the city’s famous panda couple, Chuang Chuang and Lin Hui. The ceremony was to have taken place on November 7 and 8.

“Such a ceremony would distort the meaning of Lanna wedding traditions,” she said.

Kamol Sukin,

Suphitcha Chantapa

The Nation

[meadish_sweetball]

Why not just pour concrete over the entire river valley, paint it pink and replace all temples by 60-foot garish statues of Mickey Mouse with loudspeakers playing Bee Gees' 'I started a joke'?

If you need to create a theme park, place it somewhere else than on Doi Suthep. There's plenty of farmland out near the outer ring road that could be used for that purpose.

[jomama]

Why not just pour concrete over the entire river valley, paint it pink and replace all temples by 60-foot garish statues of Mickey Mouse with loudspeakers playing Bee Gees' 'I started a joke'?

If you need to create a theme park, place it somewhere else than on Doi Suthep. There's plenty of farmland out near the outer ring road that could be used for that purpose.

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We also need Greek statues as pillars on both sides of the valley leading to Doi Suthep (you know these Ministers once visited the Louvre in Paris?).

Ah, so many ideas there...so many potential hubs.

[sabaijai]

Anyone know how to contact the “Love Chiang Mai” group?