Three months after the Indian Ocean tsunami, entrepreneurs in the Thai resort of Patong, on Phuket, have found a new source of income: selling graphic photographs of the after-effects of the storm including explicit shots of dead bodies.
CD-Roms and DVDs of the tsunami are also on sale as the island economy struggles to recover from the decline in tourists after Dec. 26 disaster.
Shops on the busy Thanon Bangla, a street close to the beach where the tsunami struck, are selling pictures of the devastation.
Many of the shots, selling for up to 80 baht apiece (US$2) are of bodies lying on the beach in swimming costumes. One shot shows a row of dead children.
The DVDs are being sold, alongside the standard counterfeit Hollywood fare of The Incredibles, and The Princess Diaries 2, for 199 baht each.
A man who gave his name as Jack, who was selling the photos to European tourists, said that many people were interested in buying them. He said he did not know the identity of the photographers but many shots appeared to have been taken from helicopters.
A middle-aged tourist from Ireland in khaki shorts and shirt studied what was for sale at Jack's store and eventually bought eight photos, including all the most explicit ones.
"Why am I buying them?" he said. "Because a lot of people want them. A lot of people want to see these."
Later the same man was showing the photographs to another man at one of the town's many Irish bars.
Somchai Silapanont, of the Phuket Tourism Association's Tourism Recovery Center, in Patong, said that he disapproved of the sale of the pictures.
"It is not right that they should be for sale, but I am afraid that as long as there is a market people will supply it," he said.
Other souvenirs include a T-shirt, displayed at many stores, which proclaims: "2001 - bomb alert; 2002 - SARS; 2003 - Bird flu; 2004 - Tsunami. What's Next?"
Phuket is slowing recovering from the disaster but there is concern that the vast sums of money that were contributed internationally are still not finding their way to those most affected.
"My sister was killed and my house was completely destroyed," said Chet, a taxi driver from a village to the north of Patong.
He gave a hollow laugh when asked if he had received any help or compensation: "No, nothing. The politicians have put the money here ... " and he made a gesture of stuffing money into his shirt pocket.
In all, visitor numbers are still well below normal, at around half of the capacity of the island, where tourism accounts for 80 percent of the economy, Silapanont said. Asian tourists had been slow to return, he said, because their belief in ghosts made the island less attractive as a honeymoon destination.
"On the positive side, we found out that the world had a big heart," he said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS