A day in politics is a lifetime they say, and here
in it could be your life. As traffic casualty figures for the 2002-2003 festive season emerged, it was obvious that the combined government and police attempts to reduce accidents had failed. At the time of writing, there are no final figures, but by January 3rd they were already above the previous holiday season. An alarmingly large portion of the drivers had no license or insurance.

Last month I revealed the opinions of a random sample of tourists, interviewed at the start of December, concerning the traffic situation in Chiang Mai. Although the strength of opinion was possibly stronger than expected, the general results were not. We know that not just here, but also nationwide, the driving skills of locals leave a lot to be desired – the ‘my car is my (mobile) castle’ attitude predominates, and it can be a test of courage and determination to continue using the roads every day.

Soon after the New Year holidays, the government announced a framework for a new initiative attempting to rectify drivers’ skill shortages. It has been tabled to introduce road awareness and rules knowledge at all levels of compulsory education. It appears that the target of the plan is to have teenagers take a test of some sort before leaving school, and if they graduate successfully from this programme, then they receive a certificate, which then permits them to apply for a driver-training programme and test, eventually leading to the issuance of a license.

Laudable as the proposal is, it ignores the fact that many people simply drive without license and insurance anyway. Therefore, introduction of such a scheme will require the strictest enforcement of penalties for these offences. Yet, who will do the enforcement? We all know of the mid-month bonuses acquired by administering unregistered fines, and even MP Chalerm, father of alleged murderer Duangchalerm, is reputed to have accused that 70% of Thailand’s officers are ‘on the take’ (Bangkok Post 5th January 2003).

With my own few experiences of being assisted by the police, I have found them to be professional and very capable. They also display a level of understanding and compassion towards foreign ‘guests’ that should be envied by forces in other countries.

Returning to the tourists interviewed at the end of last year, the other half of the survey considered their opinions of what is good about Chiang Mai, what they enjoyed, and any suggestions they have for further improvement of the city’s tourism facilities. The responses in this section of the survey were less clear-cut than in the section about roads and traffic, although some marginal trends were identified.

To refresh your interest towards the survey sample, my data came from 67 random tourists interviewed by my students. Thirty-two of the interviewees were first time visitors, 19 were second time visitors, the other 16 ranged from 3rd to 14th visit. A broad range of nationalities and ages were sampled, including five South and East Asian countries. The breakdown was: Europe 29 respondents, North America 24, all of Asia 9, Australasia 6.

The first open-answer question asked for their favourite activity when visiting Chiang Mai. Although only one answer was requested, many could not make their mind up, and listed two or more activities. The answers were so diverse that with the exception of visiting temples (32 people / 47%) there was no clear leader. The reasons for the popularity of temples was given as the combined features of “free to enter / no dual pricing”, and, “they are historical and old”. I have therefore had to arbitrarily group the answers into three broad categories as follows:

- Visiting historical places (including temples, old buildings, the moat & walls, museums etc.) = 42 people (61.7%).
- Culture and nature activities (including nature parks, trekking, elephants, orchids, waterfalls and mountain viewing) = 41 people (60.3%).
- Sports and walking (including golf, swimming, cycling, city exploring, markets, etc.) = 21 people (30.9%).

As I have previously stressed, the north has no beaches or islands, and the western visitors especially like history tourism, which was also indicated by last April’s ABAC poll in Bangkok. It is possible that when giving trekking as a choice, the interviewees were thinking of hilltribe visits as places of historic significance, in addition to those treks which directly target places of historic significance, such as Wat Chedi Luang in Chiang Saen, however I’ve included hilltribe visits in the cultural activity figures.
Splitting history & culture from natural places becomes more significant when asking visitors about their favourite places, as opposed to favourite activities.
- In the History and Culture section, 42 people (61.7%)