'this Is My Home

[Sunbelt Asia]

'THIS IS MY HOME'

Long-term foreign residents want the world to know that life goes on

Story by WORANUJ MANEERUNGSEE

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=24544

Longtime resident Juliet Toland can't afford beach property, which probably saved her life.

Juliet Toland offered a sigh. ''Thank God we're still here today. Part of the reason was that we aren't wealthy enough to live on the beach.''

The 60-year-old British housewife has lived on Phuket with her disabled husband for more than a decade. Phuket is her home.

We're sitting at a table in the cafeteria of Bangkok Phuket Hospital, nearly the only people in the brightly lit room. It's almost hard to believe that just a few days ago, this room was jammed packed with patients, volunteers, doctors, all joined together in a fight against nature.

Mrs Toland spent the days immediately following the tsunami in this hospital, volunteering to man the jammed phone banks and using her fluency in French and Spanish to help translate the pleas of injured tourists for the medical staff.

''There's no reason for me to leave. This is my home,'' she said calmly.

Phuket has become world-famous for tourists seeking an island paradise of sun, sand and sea

And it's those same factors that have drawn people such as Mrs Toland to put down more permanent roots in the southern province.

While one of the most expensive places in Thailand to live, relative to coastal resorts in Spain or France, Phuket is a downright bargain.

Provincial planners and property developers have been increasingly looking to develop Phuket as a long-stay destination by promoting the island's spa and medical services, international schools and other family services.

Around 40,000 foreigners are estimated to live on Phuket, including retirees who have decided to settle on the island for their golden years.

And like their Thai neighbours, almost all of them say that the tsunami has done little to change their feelings for their home.

Indeed, many share the frustrations of local tourist operators about media coverage of the tsunami, saying that the image being painted was a misleading one suggesting that the entire island had been hit by the waves.

Australian Rowan Sanderson, a marketing executive at the Bangkok Phuket Hospital, said the foreign media in particular had ignored the fact that much of the island was now completely back to normal.

''My family in Australia phoned me and urged me to come back to Australia, saying that Phuket was no longer safe for my son, after they saw the pictures of the devastation. Come on, let's be realistic,'' he said.

Mr Sanderson, a two-year resident of the island, laughed, and said that one friend, a dive shop operator, had received an e-mail from a US tour agency asking whether Phuket was suffering food or water shortages.

''My friend was reading the e-mail while holding a giant Slurpee,'' he said with a smile.

''The disaster hasn't affected my daily life. I can still go to the shop to buy my bread. And I don't spent time worrying about another tsunami. It might not happen for another 500 years.''

It's a sentiment that tourist operators, landowners and investors hope to communicate to the outside world, if only to save Phuket from slow economic death as tourist arrivals have plunged following the deadly tidal wave, due in part to mistaken assumptions and fears that the island's infrastructure was completely wiped out.

Piyanoot Hongsyok, the general manager of Health and Travel Co (PHT), a company offering health tourism services, said he was hopeful that the recovery period would be short.

''Phuket still has the potential to be a world-leading health care centre,'' Mrs Piyanoot said, noting that Bangkok Phuket Hospital, the company's business partner, handled some 2,400 patients in the first four days alone after the tsunami hit.