Is it safe to get a tattoo in Thailand?

I think my low threshold for boredom would prevent me from ever contemplating getting a tattoo. (Soon after selecting a favorite photograph to serve as a desktop background, I get bored with the photo). So I can't imagine wanting to sport any particular body engraving for a lifetime.

I have noticed that many people choose to commemorate a trip to Asia with a tattoo. When lots of people do the same thing for more or less the same reason, I wonder why they bother. Getting a tattoo in Thailand just does not seem that special when everyone does it.

That's not to say I have never been impressed by traveler's tattoo. Sarah, an adventurous Englishwoman, showed me a tattoo she got on a four-week trek through the jungles of Sumatra. It seems a local tribesman had used nothing more than a safety pin to tattoo her arm. Sarah's tattoo -- crude though it was -- truly represented something special. I had to admire it.

As it happened, staying at the same Bali guesthouse where I met Sarah was a lovely blond twenty-six year old German woman named Beatrice. Beatrice told me of her intention to get a large tattoo of "boy riding a dolphin" on her back.

I pleaded with her not to do it. But Ludo, her boyfriend, was adamant that Beatrice should go through with it.

The night before her appointment with destiny, over dinner, I laid out my case.

"Beatrice," I began, "you don't know what is in those inks! This is Indonesia! Do you think they test the chemicals that go into the inks? Who knows what kind of poisons you could be injected with."

"Don't worry. They assured me they clean their needles so I won't get HIV," Beatrice replied.

I urged Beatrice should go back to Germany and get tattooed there, where shops are likely to practice better hygiene.

Beatrice would have none of this. She had already picked out the dolphin-rider picture, and spoken with the local tattoo "artist."

"Besides," said Beatrice, "I want the tattoo to remember this time in Bali." Ludo, arm around her shoulder, gave Beatrice a squeeze.

What I did not know back then was that even in the US, tattoo ink -- the ingredients that go into it -- are unregulated and potentially toxic. US News reported:

Delaware Valley College chemistry Prof. Ronald Petruso has found what he says are potentially carcinogenic substances manufactured solely for car paint in a yellow-orange pigment he tested. And traces of lead turned up in ink samples analyzed by a Northern Arizona University colleague, Jani Ingram. "It just boggles my mind that the federal government has never set regulations for anything like this," Petruso says. Experts believe these materials are being mixed into ink because they endure. "Look at your car—the color is there for 20 years," says Wolfgang Bäumler, assistant professor of experimental dermatology at the University of Regensburg in Germany. His own study of some 40 inks revealed that most contained potentially hazardous chemicals.

Also worrisome: Animal research has shown that pigment in ink doesn't stay put where it's injected but rather roams to the lymph nodes.

Car paint? The bottom line is that there is probably no such thing as a safe tattoo, whether in Bali or Thailand, or anywhere else.

But if the tattoo causes any health problems, you can always have it removed later, right? The US News article continues:

Chemists from several laboratories, including the government's National Center for Toxicological Research, have identified low levels of carcinogens in tattoo ink. But the laser removal process, which demolishes the pigment by scorching it with heat, triggers chemical reactions that generate carcinogenic and mutation-inducing breakdown products, which are then absorbed by the body.

As for Beatrice's tattoo... How did that turn out? Well, I caught up with Beatrice in her guesthouse room, her back wrapped up in white bandages. She didn't look too happy. It seemed the "dolphin rider" mural intended for Beatrice's back did not end up looking quite the way Beatrice had anticipated.

"What's the matter?"

"It looks as if the girl is riding a shark."

Laleena guest house on Phi Phi

Updated


Photos of Laleena guest house on Phi Phi Island where two tourists mysteriously died -- perhaps due to a "strange smell" in the rooms. Top photos shows the stream behind the house; bottom one shows the guesthouse itself.

Photos via Mustava Mond at Teak Door which has a number of updates. Frisko has more.

Update
I have updated this post -- my own theory.

Unexplained tourist deaths on Koh Phi Phi Island

SEE UPDATE (UPDATED MAY 11)

Thailand's Koh Phi Phi is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful tropical islands on the world. It has also seems to be one of the most deadly.

Sriracha John at ThaiVisa pieces together various news accounts and shows that there have been not two but five unexplained deaths on the island in the past 2 months:

1. The Norwegian woman, of the OP that died, is Julie Michelle Bergheim.

2. The Norwegian woman, that was Julie's companion and got ill but survived, identified as "Venninnen"?

3. The American woman, that died at the same guesthouse, is Jill Sheree St. Onge.

4. There was another Norwegian woman, at the same guesthouse that died in April, is unnamed. Her autopsy is not ready.

5. There was a 46 year-old Norwegian man, that died also in April, is unnamed.
[According to VG (Norwegian newspaper) "a 46-year-old Norwegian man died on the Phi Phi Islands for a month ago. He was on honeymoon when he became ill, probably suffering from food poisoning."]

6. There is an unidentified nationality man, that died this month, and found in the waters of Phi Phi and is the subject of the separate thread:
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Dead-Foreign...-I-t262091.html

That makes 5 unexplained deaths and 1 nearly died in Phi Phi, all in the very recent past.

The fiancée of 27 year old Jill Sheree St. Onge believes she was poisoned from chemical fumes coming from a nearby water treatment plant.

I found out later that there is a water treatment plant right behind the guesthouse. I feel that Jill was poisoned by a chemical from that plant. She spent about 5 more hours in the room than I did. She was just breathing in the fumes for so long. The only reason I did not get deathly ill, is that I kept getting these short breaks from the air in the room, writes Ryan Kells on a family blog.

Some people have commented that the Jill's symptoms (stomach pains, etc) resemble CO2 poisoning. The Andaman Times reports on a doctor's autopsy that cyanide was found in the body; Phuket Wan is covering it too; and the Seattle Times has a story. The brother of Jill St. Onge has blogged about the tragedy.

Meanwhile, a Swiss woman was found strangled to death on a beach in Krabi -- only a short boat ride away from Phi Phi Island.

UPDATE

The most reliable source of insight we have into what may have happened is Ryan, quoted above. He wrote: "I found out later that there is a water treatment plant right behind the guesthouse. I feel that Jill was poisoned by a chemical from that plant."

More from Ryan via Skype:

Jill was looking real bad, vomiting, I laid down with her to try to make her feel better still thinking it was the burger that was making her feel bad.

Probably around 4 am I started to feel bad and vomiting myself. . . . They did CPR for about an hour to no avail. I now think that is why I didn't get sick, because I kept getting these breaks from the air in the room, while Jill kept staying in bed. She was exposed to the air in the room for probably 5 or six more hours than I was. I was vomiting at the hospital, but I thought it was just because of the situation. Now maybe it was from my shorter exposure to the air in the room

Based on the information about the water treatment plant and the symptoms reported by Ryan, it seems to me that the most likely cause of death was chlorine gas poisoning. One of the chlorine storage tanks near the water treatment facility may have sprung a leak. As this report out of New York indicates, even a small leak of chlorine gas container calls for an evacuation:

A major use for chlorine is to treat water (disinfect it). Tanks of chlorine are often at both waste water treatment plants and municipal water supply treatment and intake facilities.

First Response To A Chlorine Gas Release

Those not especially trained and employed by the chlorine gas user should promptly evacuate the area as soon as the respiratory irritation is experienced. If the source is known and it is practical to do so without getting closer to the source, attempt to flee upwind from the gas release source. If it is practical to do so without getting closer to the source, attempt to flee to higher ground, especially if it is upwind from the release site. If there is little wind, the chlorine gas will tend to move, or stay, in low areas. Another option is to go inside a building and close off all outside air intakes and call emergency services on the telephone. However, evacuation is advised for 3 miles downwind of a small chlorine release, 5 miles downwind for a major release, and anywhere within 1500 feet of the source. The best defense is a gas mask with independent air supply and special fully encapsulating, vapor-protective clothing. (fire suits used by firefighters for structural fires are not adequate.)

If a water treatment plant is, indeed, located near the hotel where the tourists died, then a chlorine storage container may have ruptured. The classic symptoms of chlorine gas poisoning include vomiting. Based on what Ryan has told us, a chlorine gas leak must be strongly suspected.

It would seem advisable that tourists and residents of Phi Phi be kept far away from the island's water treatment facility until a full investigation is undertaken by competent authorities.

Bangkok: Swedish tourist shot on Khao San

The Bangkok Post reports that a Swedish woman was hit by a stray bullet and three Thai people are dead after a man started shot his ex-wife, their son, and her lover in the tourist district of Khao San Rd. The Swedish tourist, hit in the back, is expected to recover.

As if Bangkok has not had enough bad press already this year!