No Go-go In Phuket Bars After Tsunami Tragedy

[george]

No go-go in Phuket bars after tsunami tragedy

PATONG BEACH: -- The go-go girls hang listlessly on their poles, the bar stools stand empty and club owners are thinking of closing their doors.

Nearly two weeks after the tsunami smashed ashore, one of Thailand's raunchiest resorts is feeling the pinch as tourists are scared away by television images of death and devastation.

"It's going to be a disaster for us if the tourists don't come back. The girls are worried about their jobs and things are looking really bad," said 27-year-old Sukjai Suppajuk, selling coffee and flowers outside one deserted bar.

This is peak tourist season in Thailand and normally the neon-lit streets of Patong Beach, lined with "Boom Boom" bars, transvestite cabarets and pounding discos, are alive and buzzing.

The Dec. 26 wave has changed all that, killing 5,288 people in Thailand, injuring 8,457 and leaving 3,674 missing -- many of them Europeans on a winter break.

Most of Thailand, however, was untouched, including tropical resorts, a message tourism officials are desperate to get across.

Along Patong's sandy beach, where dozens died, many survivors carried on with their holidays regardless but as they head home, new tourists aren't taking their place and cancellations have soared.

The "lady boys" still dance on their curb-side podiums, giggling in their skimpy bikinis, but their "Moulin Rose Cabarat" (sic) is empty and they might soon have to pack away their lipstick and blue boa feathers and look for work elsewhere.

"We are suffering a lot. We are doing 10 percent of the business we were doing this time last year and not making any profits," said Alfred Keller, a Swiss businessman who owns two bars and has a 50 percent stake in the Crocodile Disco.

"Some bars will have to shut and my disco will almost certainly have to close. Fifty people work there and it's going to be very bad for them," he said, flanked by a bevy of bored-looking bar girls.

"GAINING STRENGTH"

While the tsunami obliterated some resorts around the island of Phuket, other centres were barely touched and frequent visitors are urging tourists not to turn their backs on the tropical coastline in its hour of need.

"It's very strange because 100 metres from here, life looks devastated. There's no life, it's dark, it's empty, it's almost scary," said Severin de Wit, a lawyer from the Hague in the Netherlands, holidaying with his wife and children.

"But the Thais want us to be here and want us to have fun. Our Thai friends are saying please spread the word that Phuket is gaining strength again and coming back to life."

Down at the shattered seafront, builders are working into the night to patch up the damage and the first beachside restaurant has already reopened for business.

But locals fear that however fast the rebuilding goes, the horrific images of destroyed hotels and bloated bodies will keep tourists away for months to come.

"Some people say they will be back in two or three weeks, but I don't think so. I think it's going to take a long time, two or three years," said Wohrawuth Pongpaow, a 23-year-old doorman at the Playschool A-Go-Go joint.

"I'll have to move north and find another job."

--Reuters 2005-01-07