You’ve heard it so many times–that America is the
Land of the Free, and trust me, you are going to keep hearing it
from those so called patriots proclaiming that the U.S. is the best
place on earth to live, and that you’d damn well better love it or
leave it, (so fuck off and let them do whatever they want to you and
stop complaining). So watch out, anytime you hear that kind of talk,
you are in the presence of a neo Nazi. It is these kinds of people
who brought Hitler to power and who made it possible for the Germans
to slaughter millions. If our ancestors talked this way back in 1776
Americans would have been completely satisfied with British rule
under King George, there would never have been a Declaration of
Independence, an American Revolution or a Fourth of July. We are a
police state, and even if it’s not so bad as it was in Nazi Germany
when most of Europe trembled underneath the jackboots of the German
S.S. , it is a fact. We are a police state especially when you
compare living in the U.S. to living in Thailand and perhaps many
other countries was well. But never fear, living in a police state
has its good points along with its bad. But the thing is, you really
have to live in other places to really know the difference. You see,
living in the U.S. is like trying to focus in on something with a
pair of binoculars from just six inches away. You are simply too
close to see anything else but the United States. No other country
from this close can be viewed through your lens and even the U.S.
is too blurred for you to see it accurately. Truth is, the police are
everywhere, and in most cases they are very busy trying to take
something away from you–whether it’s your money through fines, court
costs (DWI for example) or your freedom by putting you in jail,
detaining you from an important appointment, or other infringements
upon your freedom.
Diving in Thailand
Compared to
in the U.S.
Is utterly chaos. Even worse, it’s terribly dangerous. Yet it’s much
freer here. I asked my girlfriend, Spicy, how old a boy had to be
here to be able to drive after seeing young boys who appeared as
young as twelve driving motorbikes home from school. She replied:
“Up to the people.” Then she added that children were driving as
young as twelve, and that’s when she learned to drive. One soon
learns that there are either no rules for drivers or that if there
are any no one seems to be paying much attention to them.There are very few stop lights here in Pattaya. In fact, one can
easily drive a mile on a major street without seeing a single light.
On Second Road, a major artery that has four traffic lanes it’s all
one way. But if you are a pedestrian crossing the street you had
better be looking to your left, then your right, then to the back of
your head, before starting the process over again before venturing
out into the street. Theoretically an exception is made to this one
way traffic rule for baht taxis with a single lane being marked off
with a yellow line. So when all traffic is heading North a baht taxi
(and there are many of them) can head South in this lane. However, motorbike
drivers feel that they also have the divine right to drive South in
this lane delineated for baht taxis, no matter what the Thai traffic laws say.
And if you think you are safe walking down the sidewalks think
again. Once again motorbike drivers think they have more right to
the sidewalks than you do. And don’t ever make the mistake you have
the right away as a pedestrian. They do for they are bigger than
you, and if a Thai driver hits and kills a pedestrian, well, tough
shit. He doesn’t have any money anyway. And if for any reason it
should ever go to court, it’s going to take about six years or so,
and then the pedestrian’s family is going to wind up losing anyway.
The Western or Falang motorbike taxi drivers are just as bad as the
Thais. For one thing they seem to be drunk about half the time. And
it’s a case of monkey see, monkey do. Here a pedestrian is not even
safe on the beach, if he’s on concrete that is. I can’t even count
the times I was walking down the beach underneath the palm trees
along Beach Road only to encounter a motorbike I had to give up the
right away to. I wanted to kick the machine over as it went past
me, and I can assure you that in the United States its driver would
have been put in jail straight away.
Several days ago I ventured forth on my bicycle for the second time,
pedaling from just South of Soi Six on Second Road to the Long Beach
Hotel just off Soi 16 in Naklua. Now my bicycle only weighs around
19 ½ pounds and because of this it’s pretty fast. I could nearly
keep up with the motorbike traffic and over the long run in
Pattaya’s City traffic I could more than match the pace of cars and
buses. But I was nearly killed twice inside of twenty minutes.
The first incident was when two motorbike drivers decided they
wanted my lane. Now in the U.S. it doesn’t matter if you are driving
a motorcycle, car or bicycle. Once you occupy a lane it’s yours and
you have every bit of right away to it. So here I’m pedaling along
at about twenty miles an hour when I spot two motorbikes converging
on me from my left their drivers intent on driving right through me. Anyway, they didn’t but for a second or two it looked
like they meant to collide with me from my left. Which would have
meant they never saw me in the first place which is believable. This
is Thailand. It’s the tropics and it’s hot here, so I think a lot of
brains get the juice fried out of them during the heat of the day
making their owners oblivious to everything that is going on around
them.
The second incident was all my fault. But it was because I’m
American and we Americans drive on the right side of the road. The
Thais like the Brits drive on the left. I had successfully managed
to get over to the condos on my bicycle and now I wanted to go back
to the Sky-Top Guest House where I’m staying. It took just a few
moments to drive up Soi 16 to Naklua Road which is a four lane
street where the traffic flows both ways. Instinctively I looked to
my left to see if my lane was all clear to the North. If no cars
were coming I could pedal off to my right and head South towards
Sky-top. But now that I think about it I probably was thinking I’d
have to get over to the far two left lanes to continue my journey.
The problem was that my eyes took in the traffic conditions to my
left and I never saw the car heading right at me to my right as I
pedaled out into the street. I saw the car when it was just a few
feet away and since I wasn’t going very fast on the bicycle I was
able to stop on a dime. But I knew I’d have to get further out of
the car’s way so as I stopped I jerked the bicycle upwards and away
from the car. In that spit second I was able to move the bicycle
something like three feet out of the car’s path as I felt the sharp
impact of the horizontal aluminum tube of the bike’s frame crunch
into the lower part of my groin and ass.
It was only because of my very fast reaction time that I was able to
escape death or serious injury. Had I been Thai or an Englishman I
would have been watching the traffic to my right in the first place.
All of this means being American means driving in Thailand is even
more dangerous than it is for most other drivers.
But while on the subject of motorbikes, it’s Songkran that kills
more people on motorbikes faster than any single other cause.
Songkran is a kind of New Year’s holiday celebrated by the Thais
that seems to be loved and loathed in equal measure. The object of
the game is to get as many people around you as wet as possible. And
what started as a holiday for the Thais has been taken up by
visiting Westerners (falang) with a vengeance. Songkran is
celebrated all over Thailand and to some extent by several
surrounding countries. But it’s at its worse or best in Pattaya
where it lasts for an entire week reaching its climax on the last
day. Every year four or five hundred people are killed during Songkran, most of them on motorbikes.
For a week traffic is jammed up along Pattaya’s main streets. In the
last couple of days driving becomes nearly impossible as traffic
slows down to a crawl. All along the streets there are what appear
to be 55 gallon barrels of water lining the sidewalks as pedestrians
scurry about filling up giant squirt guns and plastic jugs from
these containers. Meanwhile the same 55 gallon barrels keep coming
down the streets in the back of pickup trucks holding four to eight
men and women trying to gun down anyone within range with their
squirt guns and jugs.
The jugs are the worse because it takes just one person a split
second to dump up to a gallon of water all over your head and body.
And as thousands of people join together to water down the surging
humanity around them, the streets start to run deep with water.
And never mind the fact that Pattaya has a severe water shortage and
that Songkran wastes incredible amounts of water. After all, you are
free to do pretty much what you please here. In Western countries
such as the U.S. government would shut Songkran down simply because
wasting such huge amounts of water is not in the public interest at
all. Not to mention that Western governments and the people electing
them would be horrified by all the carnage caused by so many
motorbikes skidding out of control in all that water.
But it seems that Thailand is all about having a good time. And
never mind the consequences. Payback will start to arrive a couple
months later as Pattaya and the surrounding area starts to dry up.
The city is doubling its population every six years, and with the
huge amount of construction in new hotels and condos the available
water supply is stretched way past its limits. So water needs to be
brought in by small trucks carrying large tanks.
Water is supplied by reservoirs nearby. But there is no system in
place to collect all that water pouring from the skies into
Pattaya’s streets. They might be flooded but most of that water ends
up flowing out to sea where it is wasted. Water must pour directly
into the reservoirs for it to be useful to the surrounding
communities. One would think that government officials would realize there is a
severe problem and do something about it. But if you ask them most
of them will say there is no problem and carry on as if everything
is just fine. After all, it’s a free country and everyone’s pretty
much free to do as they see fit, even those working in government.
Americans feel pretty much forced to be careful out of fear that
somebody’s going to sue them for damages. Not here. Not too long ago
the strip between Beach Road and the ocean was full of potholes, and
even today there are lots of manmade obstructions that can cause a
man to trip and hurt himself. Back then there were large holes that
had been excavated in order to repair sewer lines, electrical
conduits, etc. A twelve year old boy fell in one that was full of
water and drowned. There had been no barricades to keep people from
walking into it and not as much as a single warning sign. The
parents were paid off several thousand baht or so–around a hundred
bucks. So that’s what that human life was worth.
Even along some of the busiest streets there’s exposed electrical
wiring hanging off utility poles at around the height of a man’s
head. One early evening when Spicy and I were walking down Beach
Road in a heavy downpour we both felt a charge of electricity
coursing through our bodies. In the vicinity there’s a few bits of
exposed wire. I still don’t know whether it was a residual charge of
lightening that got us or electricity flowing through a wire we got
too close to, but I’m betting on the wiring being the cause and the
slovenliness and general carelessness of the Thais being the cause.
Living in Thailand can be terribly dangerous in ways that most
Westerners cannot even conceive of. After awhile you begin to feel
like a rabbit always having to dodge cars and
motorbikes, and that only the smartest and most alert rabbits are
going to survive.
There are all these little streets going between 2nd Road and Beach
Road each up to two blocks in length. There might be as many as six
hundred bar girls filling up the sidewalks and bars lining these
Sois with hundreds of Westerners and Thais walking down them.
There’s also a lot of baht taxis and cars and even greater numbers
of motorbikes pouring down these Sois, their drivers whether Thai or
Falang equally oblivious of the fact that they are a total hazard
to the people milling about on foot. But to the mindsets of even
many of the falang, what rights does a pedestrian have anyway?
And if one should not be able to get out of a motorbike's way in time,
tough shit. Sue me. If you can.
Here you can go to a Go-Go Bar, order a Heineken, and then leave
without finishing it. No one will complain if you walk out with the
bottle in your hand and into the street where you are free to take
it into the next bar with you or drink it as you walk along. I’ve
even seen guys drinking their cans or bottles of beer while shopping
in large supermarkets. Think you can get away with this in the U.S.?
Think again. You will be arrested for disturbing the peace, creating
a public nuisance, or some other drummed up charge.
Here prostitution is rampant with thousands of girls working the go-go’s,
beer bars, the Beach or practically anywhere they can meet a man
with money in his pockets. The going rate is $12.50 for an hour or
two with a girl along Beach Road where you will see hundreds in a
two mile walk. But this is Thailand. In the U.S. the police will be
out busy making a clean sweep while letting the real criminals go
wild.
There’s lots of police out here but they don’t seem to be doing too
much of anything. Now don’t get me wrong, when there’s a murder to
be solved they seem to be about as effective or ineffective as the
police in the U.S. They do seem to take their murders seriously. And
they don’t allow any fighting to be going on either. But in the U.S.
you will see police car after police car lined out on the
superhighways, each with his latest catch, the hapless motorist he’s
caught speeding, making a wrong turn, or who he suspects has had a
couple beers or more. In the U.S. they are starting to look like a
bunch of black ravens swooping down on whoever they can catch so
they can add their share to the money coffers of their state or
local government. And God help you if you should wind up blowing
over .08 % alcohol and get a DWI which is going to cost you over
$3,000 let alone a possible great loss in your personal freedom.
You are conditioned that whenever you see a police officer to gasp:
“Not good.” And you are at least a little bit scared deep inside.
But very rarely will you ever see a Thai cop stopping anybody. And
as I’ve already explained, there’s one helluva lot more traffic
infractions being committed here than in the U.S. And if you do see
a Thai cop checking someone’s drivers license it’s usually a
Westerner who’s been stopped out driving his motorbike. Very seldom
will you see a Thai driver being stopped. But don’t get me wrong,
although there’s some obvious discrimination here I only see a
Falang being stopped every several days or so.
Recently a law was passed closing all of the bars at 1:00 a.m. But
how many times have I sat in bars until 3 or 4 a.m., even later? All
they do is to turn the music way down and many of the lights. And
keep doing business as normal as the police politely and quietly
file past. Here it’s live and let live. Well, almost. More like, as
Spicy once put it, “Up to the people’. And if the people want their
bars and why wouldn’t they–Thais like to drink too and they
certainly like reaping in the profits poured in by thirsty
Westerners, then the bars shall remain open like oases out in the
desert.
Next door is a bar complex with the worse god awful music in the
world. One night they were playing it well past one and the police
came to shut it down for the night. But that was just for once
night. After that the bar complex kept playing its music to after
two and sometimes as late as three. It is very loud and awful, as it
has to be the worse music I’ve ever heard in Pattaya’s bars. But it
wouldn’t do much good to complain. This is not a police state such
as we have in the U.S., and that is both good and bad.
Costs are extremely low here. Food is oftentimes insanely cheap.
Medical care is very low. Wages are ridiculous. But there isn’t the
extremely high costs built into all goods and services by a very
bloated legal system in which practically everyone’s out suing
everybody else for practically anything. There’s no social security
for people when they get old. That’s left up to the children to
provide, which is priority number one, making sure that Mom and Dad
are given as much money and often more than they can afford to pay.
The government stays out of it while the family stays very much in.
If a man is shot or even if he falls from a twenty story building to
his death, there’s going to be pictures of it in the newspapers and
on t.v. and the Internet. And there’s no sparing of all that blood
and gore. But in the U.S. the police and the courts are out to spare
the public from having to view all of that. They must be protected
from the realities of life and the carnage of death after all.
Get married in the U.S. and then just see what happens if you decide
to get divorced. And trust me, most Western countries are just about
as bad. If you are a man you will probably wind up paying at least
50 % for the worse mistake of your life. But get married in
Thailand...or at least if you get married in a Buddhist ceremony,
and your woman stops pleasing you, you can walk and not even have to
pay child support let alone alimony.
You used to be able to rake leaves out on the street in the U.S.,
even in the city, and be able to burn them. But not anymore. And you
can’t even do that out on the farm if you add a rubber tire or
practically anything else to the fire. Instead you have to drop your
rubbish off at certain E.P.A. approved places while paying
exorbitant prices for such ecologically clean places.
And then there’s all those safety shields on all that equipment you
have to buy if you are a farmer. Tractors have PTO’s, (power
takeoffs) sticking out of their transmissions towards the rear. For
years now implement companies have been required to mount safety
shields around both the PTO stub shafts coming from tractor rear
end’s and the shafts that mount to them attached to such implements
as rotary mowers, augers, stalk shredders, etc. Such pto devices
should be greased every four hours or so. But now the farmer finds
them very hard to grease because the safety shields often make it
practically impossible for him to reach the grease zerks with his
grease gun.
Ptos at the farm can easily take off an arm or a leg. However, most
injuries are caused to a man who is foolish enough to leave his pto
on while he is stepping across it or trying to work with it with his
hands. So government steps in to protect the farmer from himself. But it makes him far less efficient in doing so.
The classic one very cold winter morning I remember only too well.
It was around zero degrees outside and we were delivering corn. The
first semi truck was about to arrive at any moment to get a load of
corn from one of my grain bins. I had to move corn from one bin to
another bin from which the truck would get its load of corn. But the
belt on the roof auger at the top of the first bin had gotten loose.
I went up there with a large crescent wrench around thirty feet up
in the air on top of the bin. It would have taken me just five
minutes to tighten that belt. But there was a safety shield fastened
around the auger’s tightening belts. To get the shield off required
my completely taking off four bolts and nuts with a smaller wrench
than I had brought with me. This required me to climb thirty feet
down to my pickup’s tool box, retrieving a couple small wrenches,
then climbing the bin’s ladder another time. And then I still had to
remove the four bolts and nuts before I could even begin to tighten
the belt by the two large bolts on the auger motor. What had started
out as a fine minute job ended up taking fifteen minutes during
which I nearly froze my hands off while almost falling off the
slippery bin while doing it.
And I haven’t even touched upon heath care. Which is so heavily
policed now and so ravaged by malpractice lawsuits that doctors are
now telling their kids–“Do not practice Medicine.
So nothing is left to chance in our hospitals and doctor's offices
where countless unneeded procedures are imposed on patients just to
cover the health care provider's asses. No wonder heath care
costs in the U.S. are rising 20 % per year. Meanwhile here in
Thailand you can get all kinds of goodies without a prescription.
There’s generic Viagra from India. And there’s all sorts of sleeping
pills you can get for around two bucks for a small supply. They
might be bad for you, but that’s up to you to decide or at least
that’s the way the Thais have figured.
But there’s hell to be paid if you are a record or movie company.
The latest production of King Kong had been playing at the Big C
theater for less than one week at about the same time it was hitting
the cinemas in the U.S. Then one night as my girlfriend, Spicy and I
sat, at a bar close to Sky-top, a teenage boy came up to us with an
assortment of bootlegged DVD’s. This kid had the latest, including a
DVD of King Kong which I promptly bought for just 100 baht ($2.50)
and which we saw in the comfort of our bedroom the next night. You
got to hand it to the Thais. They might not respect the rights of
the pharmaceutical companies, film companies, theaters, European
watch companies, etc to make exorbitant profits, but they are damn
good at copying practically anything and everything to be sold for
low prices and which are often of excellent quality. Here you can
even buy poor to excellent copies of $3000 Rolex watches at anywhere
from $10.00 to $100.00.
In the United States and in the West in general we are a very
regimented society where the police seem to be everywhere out
collecting hidden taxes for governments unable to live within their
means. We live in constant fear of having to pay steep fines or of
being sued. But at least we feel reasonably safe while crossing the
street. But land of the free we aren’t. We are the land of the
protected. Protected by police, governments, and courts all preying
on us to get more than their fair share of the action. But this is
what we voted for, and are continuing to vote for, so who are we to
complain?
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