just seen on the BBC news that now the Tsunami damage is slowly being repaied, citizens of Thailand are becoming concerned because many Western tourists think the place is still trashed and most of the revenue they expected isn’t materialising as people aren’t holidaying over there any more..
Although [as my family are from SE Asia] I have been critical in the past few years of SE Asia being used as a “Westerners playground” (particularly as some people travel there for questionable reasons such as more lax controls on prostitution and drugs [caused by poverty and police corruption, not by “liberated minds”], I think now is a time when people could embark on socially concious tourism to these area.
One particularly good thing I have seen on here is the Greenspirit festival – organised in Germany this was cancelled due to the tsunami but the resources already in Thailand which were intended for the festival were diverted towards the rebuilding effort.
This actually built valuble bridges (perhaps even literally?!) between East and West; and now the Thai authorities are much more welcoming to mutually beneficial non-exploitative tourism; an even better Greenspirit is planned soon..
we need more stuff like this…
