Their fellow Czech travelers took a similar view of the devastation that, in Thailand alone, claimed the lives of a now estimated 8,000 people. "My only problem at the moment is whether to order a royal lobster or a tiger lobster, orange juice or mango juice," explained the wife of Michal P., a Czech visitor to Thailand who did not want to reveal his name.

"Many tourists took what happened here on Boxing Day (Dec. 26) as a bit of an adventure," said Ivan Knorr of the Czech-based Eso Travel agency. "Who can normally boast to have seen a tsunami? Anyway, the local people are working very hard to return everything to normal. The go-go bars are now running just as they were last week."

As the result of a private initiative, the British public collected 60 million (Kč 2.59 billion/