Patong beach lives on!

[Guest]

Thanks everyone for all the SMSs and phone calls.  I haven't been able to check email, but am sure there are a lot there as well.  Poo and I are ok.  We are near the beach, but high enough on a hill that the water didn't make it to us--we could see it from our window, but try as it may it just didn't get here.  Yet, we are close enough to see many of the same pictures shown on CNN from our window.  I'm uploading a gallery now to show some of what has happened here.  Tsunami Damage  We took these a few days ago, but haven't been able to get online as our phone lines are down--thus Internet too.  I recently discovered that I can access a very weak hot spot IF I sit on TOP of the desk in my guest room--don't ask how I figured that out.  The upload speed sucks, but it doesn't allow me to surf at least.

I will post some new pictures soon.  Bangla was mostly trashed as the water went all the way to the end.  Yet, with all the news teams here from all over the world you know the local government wasn't going to pass up the chance of showing Patong in it's best light and they got Bangla fixed ASAP even better than before--although ALL these rest of the areas near the beach are still trashed and all other bar areas aren't even being worked on.  So, Bangla has never looked better--new paint, cement, wood work, lights, etc.  Town is jumping with people although they are mostly news teams.  Don't cancel your trip to Patong yet as this might be the best time ever to come (cum?).

As for questions about LBs.  Check the pictures.  There are pictures of many ladyboys mixed in so you will know they are ok.  I have asked and have received no reports of any LBs being killed.  Some where slightly injured, but you know that LBs weren't up that early and were safely at home when the tsunami hit.  Those odd few that did get up and went to the beach early managed to outrun the guys they were with and as I heard some are still looking for their dates--seriously.

Anyway, my Internet hot spot sucks.  Hopefully I'll have my phone line fixed in a few days.  Move this topic to another area if needed.  I'll try to get online very soon (not real comfortable sitting on TOP of my desk) and respond to any questions and post more pictures.

[Guest]

thanks a lot, Mickey

  thanks for the update and we are all happy that  you and Poo and all the models that we know of are OK right now.  Everyone up here have been keeping the people in Phuket in our minds and believe me when I say that all the world  is still watching this and it is still the most important news story day and night in the west.

 good luck, and thanks for the great pics....keep your spirits up

[Snick]

Glad you are okay. I tried to call, but never got thru.

For those reading this thread: I did get in touch w/ Nick at Cocktails and Dreams. He is fine as are all the girls.

[PigDogg]

Glad to hear your OK Mickey!  If it had hit six hours later things would have been much worse.

[Guest]

Same here Mickey. Glad to know that you, Nick and all the ladyboys that you know of are alright.

As for what if's, Pigdogg my friend, think too how bad it would have been if it had happened in the middle of the night, when Bangla and all the side sois are jumping.

Or on the other hand, think of how many people would have survived if the Thailand meteorologists, who had a three hour advance notice it was coming, had issued a warning...

[wisetraveller]

"believe me when I say that all the world is still watching this and it is still the most important news story day and night in the west"

This is so true. It is round the clock coverage on CNN, BBC World, Sky, Fox, as well as all the major newspapers. Other news items such as Iraq and the Ukraine elections are a 20 second footnote at the end of each bulletin.

Reading the international newspapers on the net I would say there is not a country in the world which has not lost someone.

[wisetraveller]

The good news is that there has never been bigger $$$ donations for the relief effort in world history. I don't just mean contributions from governments but donations from ordinary men and women in street from every corner of the globe.

[Guest]

This article really tells a lot about how the worldwide disdain for protecting the environment, makes things like the recent tsunami even more devastaing. And it ain't gonna get much better...

Global Warming, Pollution Add to Coastal Threats
Mon Dec 27,12:29 PM ET

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) - A creeping rise in sea levels tied to global warming, pollution and damage to coral reefs may make coastlines even more vulnerable to disasters like tsunamis or storms in future, experts said Monday.

Few coastal ecosystems are robust enough to withstand freak waves like the ones that slammed into Asian nations from Sri Lanka to Thailand Sunday, killing more than 22,000 people, after a subsea earthquake off Indonesia.

But global warming, poorly planned coastal development and other threats over which humans have some control are weakening natural defenses ranging from mangrove swamps to coral reefs that help keep the oceans at bay.

"Coasts are under threat in many countries," said Brad Smith at environmental group Greenpeace. "Development of roads, shrimp farms, ribbon development along coasts and tourism are eroding natural defenses in Asia."

Scientists say a build-up of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere from human burning of fossil fuels threatens to trigger more powerful storms and raise sea levels, exposing coasts to more erosion.

Leaders of small island states will meet in Mauritius on Jan. 10-14 to debate threats such as global warming.

World sea levels rose on average by 10-20 cm (4 to 8 inches) during the 20th century and an additional rise of 9-88 cm is expected by the year 2100, according to latest report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001.

RISING SEAS

Island nations like the Maldives, swamped by the tsunami, could literally disappear beneath the waves if seas rise. And in Bangladesh, 17 million people live less than one meter above sea level, as do many in Florida in the United States.

Richard Klein, a senior Researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said vulnerability to natural disasters often went hand in hand with poverty.

"Vulnerability has as much a social dimension as an environmental one," he said. The Netherlands could afford to build higher dykes to defend against the seas, for instance, but developing states could not.

He suggested better early warning systems for everything from cyclones to tsunamis in the Third World.

"And one of the first risks for small islands is not that they will be submerged (by rising sea levels) but there will be no fresh water," he said. Salt water would poison reservoirs of rainwater and purification equipment would be too costly.

Smith at Greenpeace said damage to coral reefs was also making coasts more vulnerable to battering by the sea.

An international report early this month showed that about 70 percent of the world's coral reefs had been ruined or were under threat from human activities, ranging from over-fishing to coastal pollution and global warming.

"Corals form a storm barrier and if they die many islands will be more vulnerable to cyclones," he said.

[wisetraveller]

This is interesting reading. A lot of stuff I read in the media suggests that the tsunami had nothing to do with global warming. It was just one of those things.

I wonder why this article doesn't get more attention?

cheers

WT

[Guest]

In the 70's the front cover scare tactic was of the impending Ice Age. Up until just a few short years ago nobody knew of the existance of "El'nino." When Al Gore was running for President, he actually said that with taxpayer help "we can defeat el'nino." Same with fluorocarbons. Great big scare until the proof came out that it is actually heavier than air and does not rise to the atmosphere. It settles to the ground.
andyman

( fear=cash, big cash)

[PigDogg]

If he invented the internet who says he can't defeat el Nino?

[Mai-Kee]

Great pics Mickey!
...and good news for Mirimark: Your baby has survived!!!

MK

[Guest]

I thought Mirimark's baby was Dow from Pattaya. Is one of the above pictured LBs also Mirimark's sweety?

[Tomcat]

A really good place to go for LBs is the Royal Paradise Complex gay area around second Caberet time about 12am.
I was forced to hang out here after the Tsunami hit.

About 4 bars there have LB caberets and the Tamgmo is the best show to be with the nicest girls. All the girls hang outside afterwards in there dresses to chat up the punters.
ManyLadyboys also visit the shows as well and dont mind being chatted up.........

Most of the LBs in Patong also live in this complex and i had some good pulls here.

[Guest]

yup, that is indeed a good area and as TC says most of the girls live in those crappy studio apartments above the complex. This is a 90% gay area but the gay boy cabarets have ladyboy shows and many LB's hang in this area. Many nights Mickey and I have stumbled through here and they all know him; we were just in the Tangmo about a month ago and many of our models work in that place.