---

A spokesman for Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
has told us by email: ''We can confirm the death of a 49-year
old Australian man from New South Wales in Phuket,
Thailand on 11 October 2009. Australian consular staff in Bangkok
and Canberra are providing assistance to the man's family.
We can confirm the death of a 45-year-old Australian man
from New South Wales in Phuket, Thailand on 15 October 2009.
Consular staff in Bangkok are providing assistance to the man's
family in Thailand. In relation to the circumstances of each death,
these are matters for the local authorities. Consular staff from
the Australian Embassy in Bangkok are liaising with local authorities
regarding the deaths.'' Phuket police add that results of forensic tests
should become available in about four weeks. It appears we were
misinformed about the date of the first man's death.

Original News Analysis

THE CASKETS of two Australian tourists were airlifted out of Phuket
on the same flight to Bangkok last week, a tragic symbol of the
secrecy that surrounds sudden deaths among expats in Thailand.

Both caskets contained men who died in sorrowful and mysterious

circumstances. What is equally sorrowful, though, is our lack of
knowledge about what actually caused the deaths of the two men.

We know just a little, gleaned from police and hospital sources.

One tourist died last Thursday in a Patong guesthouse,
apparently after a tryst with two Thai women,
while his wife was in another hotel elsewhere on the island.

The previous night, the first Australian tourist died in bed with a bar girl.
In this case, instead of disappearing into the night and leaving
the body to be found sometime the next day,
she alerted the authorities to the man's sudden death.

Police do not believe that there are suspicious circumstances in either case.
But the fact remains that two coincidental deaths of
this nature inevitably arouse public interest.

A senior Phuket policeman told us: ''People come here and drink too much,
they perhaps take Viagra or other drugs, then get very excited.

''Thai women are beautiful. They are much more beautiful than most western women
. In this kind of situation, some men simply suffer shock.''

Forensic blood and tissue tests on the two men will probably provide a
more professional assessment. But that will take time, and we do not
know whether the two men have been autopsied thoroughly in Bangkok or shipped straight home.

Efforts to find out more through the Australian embassy in Bangkok
and in telephone calls direct to Canberra, the country's administrative capital, have failed. They always do.

This is because the entire diplomatic community makes the privacy
of the families of the deceased its priority at the expense of the travelling public's right to know.

Unlike their British counterparts, the Australians don't
even provide an annual summary of the statistics,
perhaps offering a sensible analysis of the dangers
for those visiting Thailand, or living here.

There is also a sizeable expat community in Thailand, a fairly
nervous collection, inclined to always believe the worst. Deaths
of this kind inevitably provoke curiosity and conspiracy theories.

When nothing is properly explained, rumor runs riot, damaging
Thailand's reputation as a safe tourist destination for 99.9 percent of holidaymakers.

The diplomatic community is collectively locked into this code of silence.
In fairness, it has to be said that there are times, as with the jet-ski rip-offs in Patong
, where their behind the scenes efforts can work wonders.

But all deaths need a satisfactory explanation.

As the unsolved deaths of Norwegian Julie Bergheim and American
Jill St Onge on Phi Phi earlier this year illustrate so plainly,
there is a need to know that extends beyond the family to the broader community.

The diplomatic mandarins have to find ways of meeting both needs.

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