Scaremongering

[Tyfon]

A friend in the UK emailed me this, I'm having great difficulty convincing people that everything here is fine - there are rumours of disease & blackouts affecting everywhere, which may be true in some places but not here.

30-Dec-04, 22:00
TRAVEL ADVICE: FCO AMENDS ADVICE FOR THAILAND & SRI LANKA

The Foreign Office today revised its Travel Advice for Thailand and Sri Lanka.
We advise against all but essential travel to affected resorts and towns along
Thailand's west coast, in particular Phuket, Krabi and Khao Lak and advise
against all but essential travel to affected areas on Sri Lanka's eastern,
southern and south western coasts until local conditions improve.

http://www.wired-gov.net/WGLaunch.aspx?ARTCL=29021

The FO have to cover themselves and give conservative advice and also want to deter people from coming to search for the missing and add to the emrgency system's burdens, but the above is simplistic and borderline scaremongering.

Beyond the lower 50m of Bangla it was almost as if nothing had happened, a little quieter then usual some say, but almost all bars open, deafening fire-crackers, farangs asleep in the streets, BGs puking everywhere - just another New Year's...

Best Wishes to all and especially to Nicke and Ead and their expected arrival for 2548.

K.

[steve@thaib]

It will not put off the party people, or the guys that have been visiting Phuket for a while and have some affection for the place.

I guess it would deter the mainstream tourist just now, and maybe families or package tourists are the sort of people that the FO is warning off?

[K2]

Ken - you are totally right - the last things Thailand needs is tourists abandoning holiday plans. That will create even more hardship on what is already a sad situation.

The authorities and private sector have done a truely remarkable job in getting Patong back up running and while some 20% of hotel capacity may have been temporarily taken out there are plenty of undamaged hotels available.

10,000+ people have lost jobs in Phuket already, and it is mainly the Thai's who will suffer ... so please if your able to come then go ahead - the infrastucture has been repaired there is power and water is not affected since it comes from higher griound and was not contaminated.

New Year's was a good night - of course tinged with sadness of the loss of so many. Life needs to go on and we hope that foriegn media will be postive and show that life is returning to Phuket as we know. As for Khao Lak and the outlying islands this will take longer - lets hope that in a couple of months life there too returns and that never again do so many tagically loose there lives from something that warnings should have be made for.