Not Just Another Day In Pattaya

[Dodger]

Undersize pipes???

Surely you haven’t forgotten this already?

Those are exactly the type of concrete castings you would expect to see being used throughout the City. My guess (could be wrong) is that the farang business owners in Boyztown may have helped finance this.

The entire water management system in Thailand needs to be modernized. They've been kicking this around for years with input from experts from around the world. Not only have they been dragging their feet on this massive project, but Thais (in general) don't know what "preventive maintenance" is, and I would guess that the water pumps in Pattaya are both outdated (under capacity) and poorly maintained.

I hate to make a mountain out of a mole hill, but it actually is a mountain. The lack of investment in infrastructure improvements in Pattaya over the past 50 years, coupled with the fact that the funds needed to support improvement projects disappear into thin air, has contributed to Pattaya completely imploding. The population (in normal times) has exceeded the capacity of the city's infrastructure, i.e., electric systems, water drainage and purification, roads and highways, as well as the buildings themselves, many of which are falling apart due to lack of preventive maintenance. Generally speaking, Thais don't fix anything until it breaks. Well the City is now broken.

Their solution to this problem was to choose the only option available to them, and that was to abort thoughts of investing trillions of baht in Pattaya's infrastructure, and start investing in expanding tourist destinations farther down the eastern seaboard (from Na Jomtien to Rayong). Thus you have the EEC Project (Eastern Economic Corridor), which has been in full swing for the past 5 years.

The town where I live (Bang Saray) is the first town on the southerly path of the EEC. Three years ago I watched them dig up all of the drainage pipes along the ocean (which were those cheap small diameter plastic pipes), and replace them with those large concrete castings. This was done under the supervision of the Navy. Even during the most brutal torrential rain storms we don't even get a puddle filled with water on our roads - yet Pattaya (at least South Pattaya) is completely under water. According to what I was told before making a decision to invest in Bang Saray, this is all part of the EEC expansion. The work I just described has continued south along the coast in Sattahip and now making its way towards Rayong.

[arsenal]

I doubt the business owners of any ethnicity financed this Dodger. They did it during high season so getting to the bars involved walking along mud covered planks of wood. Didn't stop me though. A line of Taliban sub-humans wouldn't stop me getting to the boys.

[Armando]

Three years ago I watched them dig up all of the drainage pipes along the ocean (which were those cheap small diameter plastic pipes), and replace them with those large concrete castings.

Until around 2009 my soi in Bangkok would regularly flood during monsoon rains. Usually the depth was nearly a meter making even wellington boots a waste of time. That year, the BMA raised the level of the soi and replaced all the drainage pipes in our and adjoining sois with the large concrete ones Dodger mentions. Since then we have had absolutely no flooding, not even during the dreadful 2011 floods.

[dab69]

All the size queens here worried about the size of the pipes...

Thais have made major improvements in Bangkok and Pattaya on sanitation.
The major feature of Bangkok when I first arrived in 1997
was noticing the "stench of sewer" everywhere.

[goji]

I would have thought a drainage system ought to be like a river basin.
Small streams feeding into larger streams, then into small rivers which feed into large rivers.

So by the time we have collected all the water from Sukhumvit, third road, soi Bukhao etc, then by the time the piping gets to second road, the main drains ought to be much larger to accommodate the water from further inland.

[Dodger]

.

......Didn't stop me though. A line of Taliban sub-humans wouldn't stop me getting to the boys.

LOL...same, same.

I remember being in Sunee Plaza one night during a flood that was so bad that some of the seat cushions in Violet House were floating on water. I took my sandals off and started slushing around that knee-deep water from bar-to-bar without a care in the world.

One of our forum members was sitting in Violet House that night as well...and I remember him yelling out..."you're a crazy bastard" when I started splashing in the water with the boys. I wonder if he remembers that night?

[christianpfc]

... the BMA raised the level of the soi...

I noticed that wherever is refurbishment of roads or sidewalks, the new level is higher than before, as if they are trying to out-raise the sinking of Bangkok, or trying to get an advantage in case of flood over their lower-lying neighbors.

In case of roads, that means in some places the roads, after two new surfaces, are at same level as sidewalk. You can still see the two new surface levels at what used to be the curb/kerb, but is now just a gap between sidewalk and road.

But those on ground floor, who cannot raise their floor level because there is a ceiling, have to install walls to prevent water from sidewalk/road now being higher than their floor level from flowing into their house.

[francois]

I remember being in Sunee Plaza one night during a flood that was so bad that some of the seat cushions in Violet House were floating on water. I took my sandals off and started slushing around that knee-deep water from bar-to-bar without a care in the world.

Dodger, you must have been mau! Walking barefoot in knee deep water is a prescription for an unwelcome surprise.

[goji]

But those on ground floor, who cannot raise their floor level because there is a ceiling, have to install walls to prevent water from sidewalk/road now being higher than their floor level from flowing into their house.

Ideally regulations would require a high ceiling on the ground floor of all new builds.

[Dodger]

Dodger, you must have been mau! Walking barefoot in knee deep water is a prescription for an unwelcome surprise.

I think that's the reason my friend yelled out "you're a crazy bastard".

Sunee Plaza...in the middle of the night...definitely mau.

I never worried about where my feet were stepping - it was where my tongue was going to end up that gave me nightmares.