Monkeywatch - February 2022

[monkeyman 1,604]

Greetings Monkeywatchers, core coon crap for visiting us once again, and welcome to this month’s look at what’s going on in Not-Much-Fun City as the Land of Masks slowly edges towards reopening.

Well, more and more bars and go go’s are opening up by calling themselves restaurants, though in many cases all you’ll get is a handful of nuts. So now you know how the girls feel.

Pigs were sent flying after an agricultural truck was in collision with a car just outside Pattaya. A passer-by was most disappointed to learn that the sight of the airborne pigs didn’t mean that Thailand had introduced some sensible Covid restrictions.

The oil slick off the coast of Rayong won’t affect tourism according to the minister in charge. It was noted that he’d skilfully avoided mentioning that the reason for this was that there weren’t actually any tourists. Locals were also assured that seafood caught in the area didn’t contain any more arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury than normal in Pattaya following the spill. Prospective diners will no doubt be curious as to what “normal” actually means. Sounds about as appetising as the two South Pattaya restaurants that were busted a few years back for hiring eight illegal Burmese immigrants. It was rumoured that two of them had been hired as waiters and the other six as ingredients.

This year’s Cobra Gold exercises have begun, though they’ve been scaled down a little from previous years. This is the formation flying exercise…

 

South Pattaya’s speed bumps have been repainted by City workers “to enhance pedestrian safety” following several incidents where motorists didn’t slow down because they didn’t see them. So now they won’t slow down because they did see them. Seems like City Hall need to do a refresher course on the mentality of the Thai motorist.

You may know that Bangkok is being renamed Krung Thep Maha Nakon for some reason or other. Whether this catchy little name will be embraced by foreigners remains to be seen. Perhaps whoever came up with his idea should be renamed as well (we’ve come up with one or two suggestions.) What we can’t understand is why they’ve chosen to use the shortened version of the new name instead of the full name. For those who don’t know, the full name is Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit. The airport announcers would love it.   

Police raided a Pattaya tourist attraction after receiving reports that crocodiles were being raised there without a permit. The project was apparently aimed at Chinese tour groups. Fair enough – even crocodiles have to eat.

In an effort to make Pattaya seem more like normal, officials have attempted to simulate a crowd of Chinese tourists on Beach Road…

 

Bar news now, and as usual there’s bugger all worth reporting. Meanwhile, the outbreak of “restaurants” is continuing to gather pace while we wait for an end to the madness.

A Pattaya councilman has suggested that Beach Road prostitutes should be zoned to protect the public from exposure to such goings-on. Others have suggested that a more useful idea would be to zone councilmen to protect the public from bloody daft ideas.

Slide back a decade now as we revisit a couple of snippets from Monkeywatch in February 2012…

“A man from Rayong was arrested last week and charged with being a police impersonator and sex abuser, though it is unclear at present whether this is one charge or two.

A German who went to retrieve the boat he had left on Pattaya Beach got a bit of a shock when he returned to the spot and found that his status as a boat owner had been revised to that of a former boat owner. The craft was eventually recovered, but he was advised to find a safer place to leave it in future. He’d left it opposite the Police Station.”

Low tourist numbers have led to McDonald’s downsizing yet another of its restaurants…

 

It seems that Boyztown is making a determined effort to rid itself of its recent image as a ghost town. Not sure that “ghost town” is the first thought to enter most people’s minds when the place is mentioned. Still, it’ll probably please the MGBGTs, or whatever it is they call themselves. 

Police searched a temple after it was revealed that the abbot and three officials from the National Office of Buddhism were suspected of having it away with 100 million baht of the organisation’s funds. The abbot is now in police custody but the three officials couldn’t be located as they’re believed to be hiding in the United States. A representative refused to elaborate and denied reports that the temple has started mentoring courses for members of the Russian Mafia.

Finally, a Pattaya shopkeeper was hurt yesterday when she got her hands caught in the security door of her shop. Customers at her Everything 20 Baht shop took the opportunity to relieve her of her entire stock at a 20 baht discount and several of them shagged her on the way out before she could get her hands free. And the Ukrainians think they’ve got problems.

be seeing you

monkeyman