We were told after last week’s Phuket boat disaster that a “Marine department patrol boat has braved rough seas to bring 33 tourists stranded at Koh Racha Yai back to safety”. Indeed with winds of 35kph, and a swell of 2.4 metres, local tour boats should have kept ashore.
A Vietnamese mangrove draped with polythene, a whale killed after swallowing waste bags in Thai seas and clouds of underwater trash near Indonesian "paradise" islands -- grim images of the plastic crisis that has gripped Asia.