At 9:45 pm on August 29th the call went out for help from Somneuk Pramod , 57, assistant to the village head, that a king cobra had been spotted in a tree overhanging a worker camp in the village, in the Baan Chalong area. The Kusondharm volunteers, arriving at the scene, tried to catch the snake, but it crawled up to the top of a tree. In the dark it was hard to see the snake, much less catch it. The villagers, it was reported, were “freaked out” and worried that the snake might slide down the tree in the wee hours and attack them. They refused to let the volunteers go until the snake was dealt with. The decision was then made to shoot the snake. Almost three hours later a marksman managed to hit it and the cobra fell lifeless from the tree The villagers were reported to be happy and very relieved.
DSI
at Phuket
he
Department of Special Investigation hit a new level of flamboyance last week. A
team led by DSI chief Tarit Pengdith landed at Phuket airport, lined up the
notoriously unfriendly taxi drivers for inspection, and began issuing summonses
for illegal activities. Mr Tarit then held a press conference, in which he
named 11 prominent Phuket businessmen and groups, frequently and pointedly
using that well-known code word "influential".
Those on the list were not accustomed to or pleased with being the subject of such attention on their turf. Some summoned their lawyers and threatened lawsuits.
The DSI was trying to show it had drawn a line in the white sand of Phuket's famous beaches. It clearly hopes to shut down the increasingly notorious mistreatment of visitors to Phuket. Because the word is most definitely out, and spreading worldwide: Phuket rips off, abuses, hurts, beats up, robs and generally turns up its collective nose at millions of tourists.
The DSI hopes to shut all that down, and return Phuket to the attitude of the rest of Thailand _ that visitors are not just welcome, but deserve to be safe.
The responses of the named tourist operators to the DSI's aggressive approach are depressing. One insisted that he paid rent every month, that he has done everything by the book, and that he always "talks with officials". There is a missing component in this and other statements by the operators named by the DSI. That word is "tourists".
