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[sceadugenga]

In the Thai news clippings section.

[sbk]

Restricted to moderator posting only. Please post in General and ask a mod to move it to News.

[sceadugenga]

Nah, more trouble than it's worth.

You'll just have to die wondering what it was.

[raro]

Nah, more trouble than it's worth.

You'll just have to die wondering what it was.

you are mean!

[sceadugenga]

Nah, more trouble than it's worth.

You'll just have to die wondering what it was.

you are mean!

OK, here it is.

Joe Cummings in the New Statesman.

Beauty at a price

Concrete hotels, go-go bars and drug tourism have scarred Thailand, Laos and Cambodia - yet it is not too late to develop a less destructive travel industry.

Tourism in mainland south-east Asia has entered a new era. Thailand, once something of an underground destination, has become hugely popular, attracting more than 12 million tourists every year. Its top resorts, such as Phuket and Koh Samui, are swamped by foreigners, particularly in the winter high season.

But political and social trends are reshaping the country's travel scene. The stereotype of Bangkok as a city that never sleeps was shattered by a "new social order", propagated by the conservative Thai Rak Thai political party (reformulated after an anti-TRT coup as the People's Power Party). Prompted by the then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's conviction that "dark influences" cause all manner of social ills after midnight, the Thai government began imposing early closing (between midnight and 2am) on bars, discos, massage parlours and every other entertainment venue.

Nowadays, tourists arriving in Bangkok expecting to party all night often say they feel cheated. "If I wanted to head home early when the pubs shut," I heard a young Englishman complain recently, "I'd have stayed in Brighton."

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