Larry Banks

Will be tuning in again, start liking your show, Felix.

/Linda

So Felix, are you saying Isaan women aren't honest?

2 minutes left, this will be fun.

Thailand’s tourist attractions to be rebuilt within a month

PHUKET: -- Tourist attractions in Thailand's six southern provinces along the Andaman coast, which were devastated by last Sunday's tsunamis, will be rebuilt within the next month according to the country’s Tourism and Sports Minister Sontaya Kunplome.

Most of Phuket’s seaside hotels are still operational, the minister said.

''Phuket was the least destroyed and most of its 40 seaside hotels can be repaired. I want to tell holiday makers that these hotels are still operational and could reopen for service as usual. They only need to clean up the rubbish and debris,'' said the tourism and sports minister.

But many holiday makers have cancelled their hotel bookings for the New Year celebrations in Phuket after the natural disaster.

Only 30 percent of visitors plan to proceed with their holiday in the devastated seaside resort.

''Some tourists have begun to swim in the sea and we are confident that there would be no further tsunamis. This is a good sign for tourism,'' he said.

Mr. Sontaya made his comments to reporters after he and Interior Minister Bhokin Bhalakula had inspected the damage on Phi Phi Island off Krabi Province and Khao Lak in Phang-nga Province.

The minister’s said he found the damage done by the tsunami smaller than he had expected.

The government fully supported rebuilding the tourist industry in the six affected provinces, including Phuket, Phang-nga, Krabi, Trang, Ranong and Satun, he added.

''It should not take beyond January to rebuild the places. But we must concentrate on cleaning up the area first before we move on to renovate the

damage, public relations and marketing. We will inform tour agencies overseas that our hotels are still opened,'' he said.

--TNA 2005-01-01

HM King praises hospitality and unity of Thais during crisis

BANGKOK, Jan 1 (TNA) - His Majesty King Bhumipol Adulyadej, whose grandson was among the thousands killed when massive tsunamis struck on Thailand's southern coastlines on Sunday, addressed the nation yesterday evening with a New Year's speech in which he praised the Thai public for their response to the tragedy.

In a speech made poignant by the tragic death of Khun Poom Jensen, His Majesty the King urged the public to help assist the survivors and engage in repair operations, while ensuring that such disaster did not happen again.

However, he also noted that the disaster had shown the kindness of the Thai people, and had demonstrated the unity of all Thais, whether soldiers, police officers or civilians.

As soon as the disaster struck, Thais were ready and willing to make sacrifices for those affected, irrespective of race or nationality.

"I want to stress to you all the thing that I said many years ago: that in our lives we cannot just have happiness, but that there is also constant suffering and danger which is difficult to avoid", he said.

"In the New Year, I urge all of you to help maintain unity and good will. These are the special characteristics that have enabled our nation to remain safe, and which help us all to live together…for as long as we preserve these characteristics, our nation will be secure".

Calling on 'those sacred things which Thai people respect and believe in', His Majesty the King called for all his subjects to be free from suffering and danger over the coming year.

--TNA 2005-01-01

A MATTER OF 30 SECONDS: Tourists: Why weren’t we warned?

Dutch pair expresses gratitude for local help but says alert system could have saved hundreds of lives

A Dutch couple who survived last Sunday’s tragedy when tsunami waves hit Phang Nga province thanked Thais for their help, but said that if a warning system had been in place to warn bathers just 15 minutes before the 10-metre wave battered the beach, many lives could have been saved.

“We had 30 seconds [to run and] that saved our lives,” said 52-year-old Arlette Stuip, a schoolteacher.

Stuip said she and her husband, Tom, survived simply because they decided to seek safety inland after witnessing an unusual and drastic change in the water level in the Khao Lak area after feeling the earth shake an hour before.

The two said they lived in California, where tsunamis are not unknown, and so were familiar with the telltale signs of impending tidal surges.

Several tourists and locals were out at the beachfront picking shells and crabs. “They were staring at [the beach],” Tom Stuip said.

Both he and his wife said they were sure that had a system been in place to warn people on the beach of the approaching tsunami with as little as 15 minutes to spare, many of the dead would still be alive today.“Why weren’t we told?”

The Meteorological Department recorded the underwater quake off the coast of Sumatra Island in Indonesia right after it struck at 7:58am and the first tsunami struck Phuket at 9am, leaving an hour during which to issue a warning.

The couple, however, added that they were overwhelmed by the hospitality of local Thais who gave them water, food, clothes, blankets and shelter. Civilian motorists also offered to take them to Bangkok free of charge.

“Such hospitality is unbelievable,” Arlette said, adding that a local man offered them help before he returned to look for his missing sister.

“This could never happen in another country.”

--The Nation 2004-12-28

Sweden fears many of its 1,500 missing tourists in Thailand are dead

12-28-2004, 18h55

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - The Swedish government said it feared that many of the 1,500 Swedish tourists in Thailand who are still unaccounted for after giant tidal waves struck Asian coastlines may be dead.

"We fear that many of them will not be found," Freivalds told a news conference.

Six dead Swedes have been positively identified so far, Freivalds said.

The admission by the Swedish government, which on Sunday had erroneously claimed that all Swedes were out of danger, could mean that the Scandinavian country with a population of nine million citizens turns out the be the European country worst hit by the disaster.

"The tidal wave catastrophe is a national trauma," Freivalds said.

The government's figures of unaccounted-for tourists is slightly below an earlier 1,600 estimate put forward by tourism officials.

Neither estimate includes people who organized their own holiday in Thailand without the help of a travel agency.

When the waves struck, some 20,000 to 30,000 Swedes were believed to be holidaying in the disaster areas, of whom up to 10,000 could have been travelling independently, officials said.

Of Sweden's big three tour operators, Fritidsresor said it still has no news from 600 Swedish travelers in the Phuket and Khao Lak areas.

"We know that many got out of Khao Lak by themselves and have gathered in the mountains," Fritidsresor spokeswoman Eva Olivecrona said, saying agency representatives were on their way to locate survivors.

Another operator, Mytravel, said it did not have any contact with around 500 Swedes in Thailand.

The Apollo agency said it was also still trying to reach 500 of the Swedish holidaymakers it had flown into Thailand for Christmas, but spokesman Mats Dahlqvist said there were "enormous communications problems" with neither fax or data lines working properly.

Some media reports, quoting sources in Thailand, said up to 200 Swedes could be dead in the country.

The Swedish foreign ministry has come under criticism since Sunday for being unable to field the thousands of telephone calls coming in from holidaymakers' families and for having insufficient resources on the ground in Thailand to help Swedes in trouble.

"Sweden is very good at helping distressed people all over the world, as long as they are not Swedes," quipped tabloid Expressen in an editorial on Tuesday.

Papers also picked up on a foreign ministry statement on Sunday which said, falsely as it turned out, that "all Swedes in the disaster-hit areas in Thailand, southern India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives are out of danger".

Expressen said the statement was made in "reckless ignorance" and showed "unforgivable cruelty" to the families of Swedish holidaymakers.

"After a terrible morning they were told that everything is fine, only to be plunged back into the nightmare a few hours later," Expressen said.

Freivalds admitted on Tuesday that mistakes had been made, but said Sweden would now step up air transport between Thailand and Sweden, and the minister said she would accompany a rescue team to Thailand on Tuesday to take stock of the situation herself.

In addition to scheduled and charter flights, Freivalds said 20 aircraft were needed to repatriate all Swedes from Thailand.

Half of those planes had been booked with tour operators, and the government would ensure the remainder, with the aim of flying 20,000 Swedes home by January 4.

Sweden has also dispatched a crisis management team to Phuket to help the Swedish embassy, which had set up a temporary bureau in Phuket to help Swedes in distress.

An identification team, made up of doctors, dental identification experts and police, was to leave for Thailand on Wednesday.

--AFP 2004-12-29

Merry Christmas from all of us at BangkokChat.org

Linda

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