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What is going on in Chiang Mai?

Cross-cultural experience

It does not fit

Update on the Cosgroves

Thank you CMU

What is going on in Chiang Mai?

Editor;

What is going on in Chiang Mai? For the last couple of weeks the policemen are running around in the city like chickens without heads. They close the roads every night, mostly around the CMU area; they set-up roadblocks and tell people to get out of the cars for checking. What are they looking for? Drugs maybe? Do they know themselves what they are looking for?

Since I am farang, they leave me alone and just wave me through, but I am very curious. Wouldn’t it make more sense to stop some of these suicidal speeding motorbike drivers without helmets? Charge them or make a stall at every police booth and sell a helmet to very single person who drives through without one. If the prime minister wants to clean up this country he might have a problem in the future. Putting everyone in Thailand who uses drugs or drives in a drunken state behind bars would get rid of 30% of all crazy drivers. Now enforcing the law about the existing helmet law would clean the streets of at least another 30%. Now sending the remaining people to an American style driving school would make Chiang Mai a ghost town.

But I still don’t know what these police raids are for...

Nick M.

Cross-cultural experience

Editor;

I came to Thailand for the last 10 years at least twice a year for holidays and loved it very much. So now since I am retired, I decided to stay for the winter.

I live in a condo and believe it or not, I am so grateful for your newspaper! It gives me something to do and something to read.

I found something out very quickly. There is a difference in staying for two weeks, and staying for 7 months. I never believed people and laughed at them when they complained about Thailand, but I guess now it is time for me to go back home. I just cannot stand it anymore, the nodding of the head while saying ‘yes’, but not understanding a word; the assertiveness when disagreeing, and never asking a question, and the looking in a different direction while talking to me.

There is no communication, neither in speaking nor in writing, Thais just beat around the bush and confuse everyone. And I will probably yell at the next person who tells me ‘no have Farang size’, ‘Farang pompui’...

As you can see, it really is time for me to appreciate my own country and keep Thailand in my heart for holidays only.

I only wanted to let you know how I appreciated the last 4 months since your newspaper is in the newsstands, and I finally know what is going on in Chiang Mai. I was really isolated in the beginning, and thanks to Chiang Mai Mail I found not only nice restaurants, I also got to know some ‘normal’ people. I will keep on reading your newspaper on the Internet and will be back in Chiang Mai for vacation only!

Yours truly,

Francis Peter

It does not fit

Editor;

This should not be a letter of complaint, just a letter of facts. I come to Thailand for work about twice a year, and I am aware through the media that Thailand is doing a crackdown on drugs. What I was not aware of was the way they treat you when they search you.

Let me start from the beginning. I went off a bus at Ekamai bus station in Bangkok and tried to find a taxi, which could bring me to the airport to fly to Chiang Mai, when a policeman approached me. Knowing Thais and Thailand I thought he wanted to help me, but no, he told me: “Sir, I search you now”. Fine with me, I have nothing to hide, and on top of it I am 52 years of age and definitely not into drugs if you do not count ‘Marlboro light’ as such.

Everybody who came off that bus was searched, mainly farangs, no matter what age or gender they were. What I did not like was the way.

I understand that they want to get rid of drugs, but they also search you on airports, and most of the time they are polite but when this policeman found a cigarette box with one cigarette in my beach bag and a half-one in my jacket, he just went berserk. He even opened my towels to search for tobacco crumbs in case I might have smoked marihuana. That was what he told me after almost 45 minutes. By that time it was too late to catch the plane for Chiang Mai, the next plane was full and I had to get back to Bangkok to find a hotel for the night.

It was not only me, it happened to many fellow travellers, I found out in the evening. And probably since I was not in my twenties I did not have to undergo drug testing on the spot, but just the way he dug his hands in my pockets and went through my personal stuff was disgraceful.

It seems to be normal behavior of the police with tourists who wear a rucksack but what they seem to forget is that in five years time the backpacker tourist of today will be the family tourist of tomorrow. But who wants to bring his family to a place where the words “politeness” and “respect” seem to be unknown.

I am laying at a poolside resort now here in Chiang Mai and the more I think about what happened to me, the more unreal it seems. I just does not fit!

James Miller, sen.

Update on the Cosgroves

Editor;

I thought you might be interested in what is going on at the moment and it would be a nice follow up in the Mail.

On 5 April over 200 restaurants in the UK are participating in a Help A Thai Child Day. The customers will be asked to donate ฃ1 per dish to the Melissa Cosgrove Children’s Foundation, set up by myself and named after my daughter.

Restaurants from Aberdeen to Plymouth are going to be involved, the Hard Rock Hotel (Pattaya) and Singha Beer UK are the sponsors. I am really excited about this and if any of your readers would like to participate that would be wonderful.

There are a few weeks of continual fundraising going on with a sponsored swim at Gleneagles Hotel, and lots of schools are going to be involved in the smarties for children programme where smartie tubes are being distributed and the children will send them back into school with the money they have saved.

I also have the following items open to the highest bidder: A Glasgow Rangers signed football, a Glasgow Rangers signed shirt, and golf for 4 people at Gleneagles Hotel.

The money is going to go towards having the foundations dug for a school for children with HIV & Aids in Chiang Mai for Agape - at the moments there are 35 children there, as well as goods and equipment for the Pattaya Street Children’s Project. Also helping with some items for the blind children, especially Jakpan Kratudngern who is now 7 years old and was born with no eyes.

If you need any more info please let me know. People can contact me at travelswithmum @AOL.com or travelswith mum@hotmail.com

All the best,

Tracy Cosgrove

Thank you CMU

Hello Chiang Mai Mail,

I am a student at Chiang Mai University and would like to thank you Chiang Mai for letting me enjoy my university life. I transfer my credits in order to study here from Hua Ciao University in Bangkok and I enjoy living in Chiang Mai more than in Bangkok. It is quieter and cleaner as well.

The university is very nice and the teachers, I think, are a lot better than in Bangkok. At Hua Ciao my teachers did not speak in English because they are Thai and I am studying Arts English so when I wanted to learn and speak English everybody looked at me very funny.

Here there are a lot of foreign teachers and they all speak very clear and slow for us to understand. Also, your newspaper gives me a chance to read some English and learn more about Chiang Mai as well.

Maybe my writing is not so good but I want to tell everybody who lives and studies in Chiang Mai to enjoy it and try to learn as much as possible. The university life here is more fun and healthier than in Bangkok so everybody should be happy and try to learn as much as they can.

Thank you to Chiang Mai University and to Chiang Mai Mail for helping me to learn English and I hope in the future I can speak better than now also.

Pisamai Desakhun

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