Koh Tao, Thailand, was the first Thai island I visited during my time exploring this fascinating and truly beautiful country. I was drawn there by the untouched scuba diving sites, the postcard picturesque sandy beaches and the legendary nightlife, all the things that attracts scores of tourists every year.
Heck, I even based my first novel here as I loved the place so much!
But, sadly, Koh Tao has recently been in the news, because of a spate of murders and suspicious deaths of a handful of Western tourists in the last two years. On Wednesday night Channel 4 (on UK television) broadcast a documentary called Murder In Paradise looking into the awful tragedies, and the darker, dangerous underbelly of Koh Tao.
The show focused on the terrible murder of two backpackers, Hannah Witheridge and David Miller, who were brutally killed on the same stretch of white sandy beach where I’d spent time a year earlier. It also showed how corrupt cops and bungling investigators meant the road to justice has not been easy, I cannot even imagine the hell the families have been through trying to get answers over what happened the night their adventurous son and daughter were murdered.
I felt my chest tighten and tears forming as I watched the father of Christina Annesley’s (a 23 year old backpacker who had been found dead in suspicious circumstances on the island just last year) , who had taken it upon himself to get the answers they were still waiting for after the unexplained death of his little girl. The pain and exhaustion on this man’s face was truly heartbreaking. It really shows just how far a parent’s love will go and how tragic it was that the he felt he had to travel thousands of miles to investigate his daughters death because the police had failed at their job.
We are all vulnerable when we travel, the same as we are vulnerable when we step out of our front door. The difference being at least in your home country you understand the rules and the way the justice system works. We are lucky to live in a society where corruption and torture is not as common as this television show suggested of Thailand.
One senior Thai figure was quoted on camera as saying the victims could be partly to blame. I know, my blood boiled too. Basically, it was suggested, because of binge drinking, Western attitudes and ways of dressing, and even the difference in cultures, anyone who goes to a foreign country is at risk of being brutally killed.
Nope, this is not true!
Yes, you should do you upmost to respect the cultures of the place you are visiting and, yes, getting so blinding drunk that you lose any semblance of common sense is a recipe for disaster, but neither of these things mean you should be at risk of being murdered.
I went on Twitter to see what others were saying about the show and was surprised at the amount of people tweeting that they would never set foot on that island, or even in Thailand, if you paid them.
Noooo, I wanted to scream at my phone screen.
Being scared to travel, to never see the world and the beauty and kind hospitality of foreigners, is not the answer. You cannot live your life in fear just as you cannot predict where or when horrific crimes like this will take place. If you were so afraid of being hurt then you would never live your life.
There are horrible, disgusting and evil people everywhere on this planet. But then there are so many amazing, wonderful and honest people too. These are the people who want to share their countries with you, who welcome you in and make the world seem a little smaller and a little less scary.
