Still on Vacation!

The fatass drinking a beer says it all.

I've seen this in a number of news reports and it just seems so callous and unbelievable. I guess this is what folks are reduced to when they're too cheap to pay for the vacation insurance.

So. Big deal. Doctors, for example, eat, drink, (and possible even heaving love) next to a dead. You cannot be in such business if your skin is too thin.

At first it seems horrible, but then again many of the devastated sites were tourist spots. If the tourists keep away it would hurt the areas even more economically.

O my god, look how fat these folks are? I think they are Europeans. And the Europeans call us Americans fat!

I can't believe anyone seriously believes these photos are real. Most of them are so obviously fake as to be laughable. I would have thought people reading a website called the Museum of Hoaxes would know better!

A british reporter who hapened to be there at the time just 'relaxed' afterwards. He was on the phone to either BBC or ITV (can't remeber which) who said that when he saw it coming he had a quick search for his camera (being a reporter he knew how much it would be worth) but when he couldn't find it he ran for his son and ran at a right-angle to the wave and was carried about 10 metres. (This was one of the lesser hit areas.) He then went on to say that it almost spoilt his family holiday when, after traveling inland away from where the wave struck, they found a place to have a nice dinner and a hotel took them in, where they would stay until they could find somewhere else to go on holiday to.

NEVER underestimate the selfishness of people.

Although, the first image would be a hoax, for one thing it would be a shock to find one intact sunbed, let alone all the other stuff. And the second image, wouldn't there be some damage to the building those people are in?
A couple might be real though.

If these photos were faked, then: who benefits? Weight Watchers? Disney World? The Poor? Elvis Costello said: "I used to be disgusted- now I'm just amused". Well, I'm way past disgusted or amused. More like "untrusting and abused", these days. Yin and Yang, children, to every action, an equal and opposite reaction. Just cuz these turds don't care doesn't mean you don't have to.

If these pictures are real, I can think of two possible explanations:
(a) The people are relief workers taking a well-earned rest after a long day of digging bodies out of the wreckage, or
(b) The people are callous jerks.

In any case, the governments of some of the hard-hit countries are begging tourists to come back as soon as possible because they need the tourist dollars (or tourist euros or tourist yen or whatever) to finance some of the reconstruction they will have to do.

This is a program by the Thai Tourism people. They are afraid people will associate their beaches with the tsunami. They want to let tourists know it's safe and they want people to come back. It's all for the $$$

It could be that these people are just taking a well-deserved break. Or maybe they're doing their bit to help the economy by spending money. But still, I'd feel mighty uncomfortable sunning myself on a beach while people wearing gasmasks are picking up wreckage around me.

There has been a news report about this in New Zealand. People ARE going back to the beaches while workers are cleaning up around them.
I couldn't sit there while that was happening, but the places hit need these people. There $$ is everything.

Of course all of us that are condemning these tourists have all donated large sums of money and are at this minute on a plane to go help, right.
It's possible that the tsunami washed away all their belongings leaving them with their speedos and nothing else, and because the water is all contaminated the only safe thing to drink is beer.
There is a better explanation, its a hoax and we all have given our stamp of approval in a way by logging on to the link.

I believe all those photos are real. The top photo was featured here in the Sunday Mail, the Adelaide South Australia news paper. And that was a week ago, a couple days after the tsunami happened...so the photos aren't that new.

"I'd feel mighty uncomfortable sunning myself on a beach while people wearing gasmasks are picking up wreckage around me."

Personally, I'd feel pretty UNSAFE lounging on a beach that was apparently so contaminated that people nearby were wearing gas masks or dust masks.
Not to mention all the things on the beach I might step on.

I like the bottom picture of the worker-lady sneering at the guy with the sunscreen.

Alright that fatass in the ball-kini Speedo needs to stop slothing around the sand and get into the water, pronto. He could be used as a floation device by people wishing to access areas still submerged. Sorry to be cruel, but really, this guy is setting himself up for ridicule by showing so much of himself like that.
He's so gross, I think his navel has actually become distended from all that fat pushing against it...
ew!
Oh, & disclaimers before you slag me:
1. Granted I am not there helping, but I have donated $ & am holding weekly fundraisers benefitting tsumani victims for the month of January.
2. I am excercising daily to prevent myself from looking hellishly slothlike like the aforementioned human hot air balloon.
Thank you.

All the pictures look suspect, but if you can't tell that first one is fake then you seriously SERIOUSLY need an eye exam.

these look photoshopped to me

I have actually seen a couple of stories on Oz tv with very clear pics of folks on the beach relaxing not long afterwards.

Apparantly because its the Northern Winter, its full of Europeans etc... Thats why the Swedish have such a heavy toll.

I still find it hard to imagine wanting to relax and have fun in a place so horribly devastated.
But it is true that tourism is the lifeblood of these people affected (in most cases). How do you help?

PS. I just had this horrible thought that tose group of men are likely to be on a sex tour, depending where they are!

I know it sounds terrible, but I know Aussie men who go to Thai just for the sex...

Urghhh!

Yes life goes on in the tourism industry.

USAToday has an AP article about the Asian governments urging tourists to come back.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2005-01-04-asia-tourism_x.htm?POE=TRVISVA

New York Daily News (I don't know much about this news agency so I am unsure how reliable it is) has an article about some of the tourists behavior right after the tsunami.
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/266958p-228627c.html

And finally a couple of pictures (from Reuters) showing sunbather's on Patong beach, Thailand, four days after a tsunami hit the area, on December 30, 2004. There are pictures on this page as well. It is graphics intensive, sorry about that, if you have dial-up be prepared for a wait.
http://worknplay.co.kr/Blogs/?bId=sophia&pSn=458&pName=View

Oops! That should have read "There are other pictures on this page as well."

THe first picture was in aussie papers not long ago which makes me think its real

photos being in newspapers mean nothing,

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=177678


especially when there is breaking news, as in the article above papers will be quick to jump at breaking stories

The BBC news also carried a story (TV news) about the tourists who ventured back onto the beach to sunbathe in the days after the Tsunami (inlcuding an interview), IIRC.

I can't find the exact page on the website, but read the first paragraph or so here; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4137633.stm

What kind of beer containers are in picture three? Heineken bottom and Lite top? Not necessarily hoax related, but I've never seen one.

Tyler, thats most likely a beer cooler (foamlike usually) covering the bottle.

Although newspapers ran the first picture (the fat man in the Speedo) as and example of callous western tourists, the German press actually tracked the man down (he is a Swiss national who was on holiday when the tsunami hit). It turns out he was helping the relief effort and the picture was snapped as he was taking a break from those efforts and having a drink from a bottle a local brought him. He was ticked to have been portrayed as a callous tourist when the opposite was true. This difference between reality and imagination is what makes hoaxes work, and it sells newspapers too!

THEY ARE PHOTOSHOPPED.

Look at the first picture. See the guy off to the left under the trees, what is that thing setting on his right shoulder?

Now look at the 5th photo in the sequence. Notice the distorted pixels around the relief worker's yellow helmets. This one is a very crude photoshop job. Also notice that the "relief workers" are walking toward the camera, as are the couple coming down the beach behind them (one in an all orange outfit and one in an all white outfit). This couple has moved toward the camera in the second picture in the sequence, but the "relief workers" are not in the previous picture at all = even though they appear to be walking toward the camera. They would be in the first picture if they were actually walking down the same beach.

It's a bad photoshop manipulation, about on par with what you see posted on http://www.strangecosmos.com.

Indeed, this photo is fake; however there are many others that are not. As written in many newspapers, current vacationers in Indonesia comment that "life must go on" and I feel have no respect for the dead or what has happened in that area. Some also tell the media that by them not vacationing there now, or postponing their already paid vaction, only damages or hurts the locals trying to earn a living. Unfortunately, they forget the fact that mourning is part of the healing process and and money is NOT everything.

So, let's not judge them too harshly...we should take comfort that their karma will deal with them accordingly.

I don't know if the pictures are real or not. I hope they are. The last thing the survivors need is for the only source of commerce (the tourists), pack up and leave. If the "fat" Europeans are willing to stay and endure the mess, the smell, and the wrath of self-rightous critics, then more power to them.

This doesn't actually surprise me, people suck in general. They are there for a vacation and the flood doesn't affect them all that much, in the grand scheme of things. What kind of a vacation is it if one has to clean all the time? That would suck.
I wish the country would just kick all the tourists out, though! 😛 Especially the ones acting like that, they need to go home.
Worst part is, they are most likely Americans. (as am I)

If you look at the first photo of the large group of people (picture #4) you see that the beach is pretty much flat from where they are sitting all the way to the water. If you look at the second photo of the large group of people (picture #5) the workers in yellow hats appear to be walking on a lower level, you now can't see below their knees. And if you look at the garbage bag carried by the guy in the middle, the sand appears to make a right angle. Looks photoshopped to me.

Whether the pics are real or not is not that interesting, as long as they very well could be. Phuket is THE place for many Scandinavians, and in the aftermath of the disaster there have been several interviews with - and comments on - people who go on with their vacation as if nothing had happened. Such interviews have been on national TV and radio, and in the press.

Some Norwegians, Swedes and Danes even set off a gigantic display of fireworks on New Years Eve. In Phuket! DOWN ON THE VERY EFFING BEACH! Their reason? "We're just trying to liven things up a bit!"...

Btw; one family complained that their vacation had been TOTALLY RUINED by the tsunami, and to add insult to injury, their cell phones had been damaged by water!

Life can be tough sometimes...

Why is it so unbelievable? This is life. People can be like this if they want. In all this negativity for these people remember that the areas affected by the tsunamis rely most on tourism as a source of income. If the tourists leave where will the locals be then?

As someone who went through three hurricanes last year, inevitably life must go on. Each of the three hurricanes that hit here in Orlando came over the weekend. Each one left downed trees, no power, damaged or destroyed buildings, etc. but every Monday morning afterwards the majority of people were back at work. As soon as the airport was inspected and the runways inspected, flights began coming and going. As soon as Disney and the other theme parks were inspected, they reopened. You just have to pick up the pieces and continue on with your life. The Monday after all three hurricanes I'd get up (whether I had power or not), get in my car, dodge the downed trees or power lines or pieces of houses in the road, and make my way into work. The tourists were flying down here on the first available flights and the city just swept up the streets, put tarps on the roofs and continued chugging away. What other choice is there? You deal with the tragedy and then you have to move on. Its amazing how quickly life gets back to normal. Or at least some resemblance of normal.

Saribellum, I'm in Florida too..I would have gone to work the very next day, except our building's power was out. My brothers went over to the east coast to surf...things went back to normal pretty quickly. It was only the people whose homes were gone, or whose family members had been injured that were dealing with it after Monday.

If this is the only chance they have to take a vacation this year...let them take it. It's sad when a lot of people die in a single tragic incident...we can't all weep & gnash our teeth while wrenting our sack-clothes. Life goes on!

P.S. the comment about the cell-phones being damaged was pretty heartless though...they should have purchased the insurance.

Sorry, only german:
http://www.bild.t-online.de/BTO/news/2005/01/12/flut__gaffer/flut__gaffer.html

Ewww...

Fat man in a Speedo 😛 :sick: !!

The top picture was featured on the front page of the Globe and Mail (Canada) on it's Jan 1st edition of the daily paper. Yes it's disgusting but not hard to believe considered how self-absorbed some people are. I actually heard someone a few weeks ago say "This Tsunami relief stuff is getting annoying."

i don't know if those photos are real or not, but i know what i saw in the news reports on tv here is Australia, in particular when a whole bunch of Aussie tourists went to the pub for new years to celebrate after the disaster, in particular one guy who said it was terrible but he was here to have a holiday and that they should just get over it. We also had mock fundraiser ads on the radio to raise money for "the poor tourists who had their holidays ruined" such as this woman "i couldn't even sunbathe on the beach because of the corpses, it was terrible!"

It's probally very upseting for the volunteers to see these rich people on vacation. Seriously though if I paid to go on a vaction and A tsunami hit, and I survived.... I would drinking me a hieny' too.

See, it's true there are callous people (Example: C-money) who only think of themselves and see the misery of those around them as someone else's problem.