Thais pissed off but want their money:
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Thais irked as Kuwaiti bikers living the fast life descend on Pattaya for ‘good food and cheap hotels’
* Students from Kuwait are flocking to Pattaya, attracted by lower temperatures, their higher spending power, and the chance to create online content
* But many are racing motorbikes and mopeds without a licence, speeding and causing accidents – dividing locals who nonetheless need their cash
by Aidan Jones
August 20, 2023
Theatrically wobbling the handlebars as his cackling passenger covers his eyes from behind, a young Kuwaiti driver whips his motorbike around a bend of a narrow lane, blithe to the potential danger posed by a moped rushing towards him.
It’s 9pm in Thailand’s Pattaya and the nightly show is just beginning.
“They go round and round like this until 3am or 4am,” says Ammy, a masseuse who has a free ringside seat to the motorised mayhem jump-started by Kuwaiti students visiting the country’s most popular resort city.
“They are not bad people, they are not drunk – I don’t think they are smoking cannabis,” Ammy adds, giving one name only. “But they are babies. They must be high on their mother’s milk.”
As she speaks, another convoy of bikes, each with three passengers wedged in, tears by her massage shop: Kuwaiti boy racers who are splitting opinions – a nuisance to some, a key off-season revenue stream to others – across Pattaya, a city which has long welcomed the world but appears a little unsure about how to handle its affable yet boisterous new guests on bikes.
Their pencil moustaches, and even thinner arms and legs, attest the youth and inexperience of this new summer cohort.
The majority are aged 18 to 21, locals say, and have arrived in their thousands since July. Getting away from Kuwait’s punishing summer heat, they will stay in Thailand until the new college term starts in early September.
Of course, Pattaya is hot too, but not as hot as Kuwait, where the mercury can push past 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).
Kuwaiti students have been coming to Pattaya for a number of years, but their numbers surged following last year’s post-pandemic border reopenings.
The fixation on motorbikes has also grown, driven both by social media and the youngsters’ love of riding back home.
Nightly police stops on the Pattaya streets where the students are staying have failed to alter the Kuwaiti tourists’ risk analysis. Nor has the rising tally of accidents – one visitor nearly lost a leg in a crash this month.
Between July 14 and August 15, police officers issued 800 speeding tickets to Kuwaiti riders, impounded 272 bikes and fined 153 bike-shop owners for renting vehicles to people without a licence, Pattaya traffic police said in a statement.
The visitors are all young men, well-heeled by Thai standards, who almost without exception want to ride this summer’s must-have accessory – a moped or motorbike, often without a helmet.
Their antics are being juiced up by social media.
“Everyone is watching at home on Snapchat,” said Sultan, 21, a technical college student from Kuwait City. “Yes, it is a little dangerous, but we don’t care. Everyone at home now wants to come here.”
‘Our money is strong here’
Pattaya is Thailand’s most risqué resort, with a reputation for an uninhibited nightlife, which is part of the allure for the millions who visit each year.
But the Muslim Kuwaiti crowd don’t come for the go-go bars or nightclubs. Instead, they have block booked hotels around Soi Yen Sabai, a narrow lane of Arabic restaurants and cafes, tour agencies and bike rental shops, with their entertainment largely self-made.
Around the wide roads near an underpass, the most daring take on dangerous, impromptu – and highly illegal – motorcycle street races.
"We come here because it’s too hot in Kuwait now, the food is good and the hotels are cheap."
Omar Ali, Kuwaiti student
Videos shared with This Week in Asia showed long queues of students being detained by the police after checkpoints were flung up at the entrances to the roads where they had set up camp.
Other images showed the increasingly gruesome injuries sustained by riders who had lost control. Kuwaitis bikers have also reportedly got into a few fights after scratching or colliding with Thai people’s vehicles.
But it’s not just the bike racing that’s alarming locals, as social media encourages the visitors to push the line of acceptability.
One hidden-camera video shared last week purported to show a man with a gun searching a group of Kuwaiti men at a popular family viewpoint overlooking Pattaya.
The video turned out to be a prank by a group of Kuwaiti students using a fake weapon – content for their growing social media audience at home.
Still, with a week to go before the start of the new college term, there are few signs of the students easing off the gas.
“We come here because it’s too hot in Kuwait now, the food is good and the hotels are cheap,” said Omar Ali, a 21-year-old engineering student from Kuwait Technical College. “It’s very good for us … our money is strong here.”
Pattaya’s agile tourism sector is happy to help them spend it, grateful for the low-season kicker to incomes that are still recovering from the long, lean years of the global pandemic.
“I speak enough Arabic to take their money,” jokes one motorbike rental shop owner on the street, requesting anonymity. “I don’t understand why people complain about these kids when they are the only people who bring us business … this is a low season and without these kids, business would be very quiet.”
Thai tourism authorities are ever-vigilant for new markets as they target 25 million arrivals for this year – still 40 per cent short of the pre-pandemic peak.
Indians, Malaysians and Hongkongers have streamed back. And Russians remain regular visitors, especially as men try to avoid being conscripted to fight in the invasion of Ukraine, while China still accounts for the highest volume of visitors – albeit down from the pre-Covid era.
In the first week of August, 95,581 tourists arrived from China, according to Chinese state media, adding to the 15.89 million tourist arrivals from January to early August who have poured billions of dollars into Thailand’s economy.
Tourism accounts for anywhere between 12 and 20 per cent of the country’s economy, experts say, once indirect spending is added up.
Central bank governor Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput said on August 16 that Thailand’s economy was recovering, despite geopolitical uncertainties and gridlocked domestic politics.
Thailand has been under a caretaker government for over three months as the election-winning Move Forward Party, which took the most seats in May’s polls, has been blocked from forming a new administration.
“The economy as a whole was recovering on consumption and tourism,” Sethaput said, adding that the economy expanded 2.7 per cent year on year in the first quarter, helped by tourism.
This year, Saudi Arabia emerged as a new source of tourists after the two countries ended a long-running diplomatic feud, throwing open to Thailand´s doors to tourists and big-spending investors.
Other Middle Eastern visitors – including Kuwaitis – have had Thailand on their map for longer, as a relatively cooler hideout from sweltering summer temperatures at home. It’s also a top medical tourism location, with an industry worth over US$1 billion.
Back on Soi Yen Sabai, Omar Ali flashes a disarming grin and waves away worries over arrest or injury.
He chain smokes as he walks to his moped while a friend with a bandaged ankle from an exhaust burn inflicted the previous day limps at speed to keep up.
They make for a happy pair of students seemingly armour plated by their youth against the risks of a night of riding that lies ahead.
“This is the best holiday. All of our friends are here, we have freedom and we will be back next year for sure,” he said.
Story, photos, video:
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/a ... eap-hotels
