PHI PHI: We're outside the Palms Residence Phi Phi Island. It's 11.42 local time and tourists dressed only in shorts are strolling past.
There is also a group of Tourist Police and others who have the look of officials. They are coming and going, checking out the scene where two young Canadian women were found dead in a room on Friday.
The mystery or how and why Audrey Belanger, 20, and her sister Noemi, 26, died represents another chapter in this romantic holiday island's troubled recent history.
In 2009, two other young women, Jill St Onge, 27, an American, and Julie Bergheim, 22, a Norwegian, died on Phi Phi in similarly mysterious circumstances.
Phuketwan covered that case fully and is mystified, like everybody else, as to the cause of the deaths then, and the cause of two more now.
Ryan Kells, the fiance of Jill St Onge, who carried her body away from Phi Phi in the bottom of a speedboat, responded to a message from Phuketwan saying: '' Thank you for the email.
''What is going to be done about this? please tell me something to stop this senseless stuff from happening.''
The Canadian Embassy officials are due at 1pm and perhaps there will be some more news then. Right now, as I type, the inverstigation is going on in the room where the two sisters died.
People from the Palms Residence are being questioned. We watch. A one-eyed ginger cats strolls out of the front door.
The island is teeming with tourists, and we arrived on the morning ferry with about 100 more, most of them young, most of them impressed with the magnificent scenery on the boat from Phuket, and most of them entriely ignorant about the tragedy.
The deaths of Jill St Ongle and Julie Bergheim didn't stop the tourists coming to the island that TripAdvisor says is the top must-see island in the world.
Two more deaths, even though there cause is unknown, will not stop the tourists coming, either.
But the cause of death needs to be determined this time, or too many questions will be asked in future, and Phi Phi may not seem quite so beautiful.
There is also a group of Tourist Police and others who have the look of officials. They are coming and going, checking out the scene where two young Canadian women were found dead in a room on Friday.
The mystery or how and why Audrey Belanger, 20, and her sister Noemi, 26, died represents another chapter in this romantic holiday island's troubled recent history.
In 2009, two other young women, Jill St Onge, 27, an American, and Julie Bergheim, 22, a Norwegian, died on Phi Phi in similarly mysterious circumstances.
Phuketwan covered that case fully and is mystified, like everybody else, as to the cause of the deaths then, and the cause of two more now.
Ryan Kells, the fiance of Jill St Onge, who carried her body away from Phi Phi in the bottom of a speedboat, responded to a message from Phuketwan saying: '' Thank you for the email.
''What is going to be done about this? please tell me something to stop this senseless stuff from happening.''
The Canadian Embassy officials are due at 1pm and perhaps there will be some more news then. Right now, as I type, the inverstigation is going on in the room where the two sisters died.
People from the Palms Residence are being questioned. We watch. A one-eyed ginger cats strolls out of the front door.
The island is teeming with tourists, and we arrived on the morning ferry with about 100 more, most of them young, most of them impressed with the magnificent scenery on the boat from Phuket, and most of them entriely ignorant about the tragedy.
The deaths of Jill St Ongle and Julie Bergheim didn't stop the tourists coming to the island that TripAdvisor says is the top must-see island in the world.
Two more deaths, even though there cause is unknown, will not stop the tourists coming, either.
But the cause of death needs to be determined this time, or too many questions will be asked in future, and Phi Phi may not seem quite so beautiful.
This will also probably not get posted, but another classic example of the infrastructure of tourism in Thailand, always about the almighty dollar.
RIP girls.
Posted by LOS EX-LOVER on June 17, 2012 15:32
Editor Comment:
As in every other industry in Thailand, there are good operators and bad operators. There is no evidence that infrastructure of any kind was part of the reason for the deaths of these women. Pointless generalising. This is the sixth different name you've used on posts. Please stick to one.