Today brings the last day of October and here in England the weather has turned decidedly colder. Each morning over the past week I have woken up expecting to see snow falling outside, instead it’s just cold and bleak and the only thing falling has been the British pound against the Worlds currencies. Last week the pound plummeted to a miserly exchange rate of 52 Thai baht, today recovering to a still unhealthy 56.4 baht to the pound. The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis saw British sterling hit a massive 90 baht before settling over the past ten years to a general range between 65 and 75. The current low exchange rate will be sending shockwaves through Pattaya’s pension funded British expat community, their Thai partners and the many bar girls who receive a monthly overseas handout.

Its good news for the cheaper airlines, their phonelines will buzz more often as the tourists start to look at ways of cutting costs and the Thai bus services should pull in the punters as some holiday makers give the more expensive taxi services a miss. Back in Pattaya and the expats will be searching out the happy hour bars to stretch their weekly allowance so as to maintain their daily alcohol fix. The monthly funded bar girls turned Pattaya WAGS (When Awake Go Shopping) will find many of their budgets credit crunched and shrunk. For the WAGS it could be goodbye to Big C’s air conditioned boutiques and back to their old budget buster the stifling sweat filled sauna commonly known as Soi Buakhaow Market.

Are we going to see the working girls sat around the counter bars with a needle and thread making good their worn and tatty clothes, gone their days of gyrating and pouting on top of the bars down Soi 7 and 8. That scenario seems very unlikely bearing in mind those four famous Pattaya words “No money no honey.”

It’s going to be the poor farang who has to cut his cloth to allow his WAG to strut with the latest chic accessories. The farang will be the one with the hole in his shorts sat as far from the bar bell as possible and the soi’s ashtrays and floor will be covered in ground out hand rolled tobacco butts instead of the more illustrious filter tipped farang cigarette. The Thai food stalls could have a new influx of pale skinned customers which could launch a new YouTube category “Eating With Chopsticks” and the new fashion could be the swimming pool replacing eight ball pool. Let us hope the pound strenghens over the next month or it could be lonely and cold this Christmas and I am talking Pattaya not England. Good night and God bless. Hoo Don.

Credit
Photograph – Money Aarin Free Photo.com

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