OPINION

Growing pains

Re: "Infrastructure upgrade to lift Thai tourism", (Business, Oct 25).

Thank you for your recent article about Phuket's overstretched legacy infrastructure. Phuket is growing. The nine road projects described in the piece as "bold" nevertheless triggered laughs among the locals with whom I circulated the article.

If only two of these could be completed over the next two or three years, it would be hailed a success.

Phuket is a long and skinny island (50km x 15km).

There are two roads going north-south; a windy and hilly beach road, and there is the main road giving essential access to the airport, hospitals, schools, hotels and beaches.

Everything in 7-Eleven, Makro, and Central comes in on this road. Tanker trucks from Surat Thani bring diesel and petrol in on this road. Jet fuel goes to Phuket Airport and Krabi Airport on this road. Tourists use this road for day trips and arrive and depart from the airport using this road.

Yet this road continues to have cars double parked outside convenience stores, it has temple festivals stopping traffic, and it has new shopping malls being installed along its length. Planning historically has been poor.

The tunnel passing Central Mall was built for three lanes, but safety now dictates it being used for one lane in each direction. This week we entered the province from Phangnga. The northern part of the bridge was not illuminated at night in a rainstorm.

As we drove south we passed slow moving palm oil trucks heading for the Port of Phuket. I have estimated that 175 palm oil trucks must pass this road to get a small palm oil vessel over to India.

Highway 402 is accessible from roads east and west throughout the island. It is this road that is screaming for a 20km master plan involving elevated sections in congested areas. This is almost its entire length from the airport south to where it splits into the bypass road and Thepkasattri Road heading into Phuket Town.

The idea of a sea taxis is crazy. For this past week, weather conditions of high wind and heavy rain would have rendered it too dangerous to operate.

Buddha said it best

Re: "Absurd logic" (PostBag, Oct 25).

The headline for Jason A Jellison's latest letter is perfect. His views on the Buddha's teachings regarding eating meat are as flawed as is his jumping to universal conclusions about cannabis solely on the basis of one or two personal anecdotes.

When you buy meat or order a meaty dish, you are paying someone else to kill a sentient being on your behalf. And that flouts the plain intent of Buddhism's First Precept.

No more do we think that mafia godfathers are innocent of killing because, rather than committing the murder themselves, they ordered a paid underling to do the dirty deed.

I do not claim to be a Buddhist, and I disagree with the Buddha's reasonings. Still, I greatly respect his consistent respect for rigorous critical thinking.

If only Thai law and political players creating that law had some respect for the Buddha's great wisdom, Thailand would be much healthier and more developed in every way.

Alas, it is not.