Thanh Nien Daily | Mysterious deaths of Canadian, American tourists still a mystery

Mysterious deaths of Canadian, American tourists still a mystery 

Last Updated: Tuesday, August 07, 2012 12:00:00

Cathy Huynh, a 26-year-old Canadian-Vietnamese who died in Vietnam last week, in a file photo

The cause of death of two foreigners who passed away at a Vietnamese hospital last week remains a mystery, according to a Tuoi Tre report published Tuesday.

Cathy Huynh, a 26-year-old Canadian-Vietnamese, and her American friend Karin Joy Bowerman, 27, died last week at the south-central province of Khanh Hoa's Khanh Hoa General Hospital in Nha Trang City.
The two were admitted to Khanh Hoa Army and People's Hospital at around 7 p.m. on July 30.
Cathy, who spoke Vietnamese, told doctors they had had been vomiting since the afternoon.
Dr. Ngo Thi Thanh Tam said Karin was in more serious condition than Cathy and had vomited around 15 times. He said her heartbeat was much faster than normal.
Around 10 minutes later, Karin was transferred to the Khanh Hoa General Hospital with respiratory failure, a fast heartbeat and no blood pressure and pulse.
Dr Nguyen Thi Anh Phuong said the patient died at 10:40 p.m. the same day.
Meanwhile, Cathy was discharged from the Khanh Hoa Army and People Hospital at 9:30 p.m. and got back to a hotel where she and Karin had stayed.
According to the hotel’s owner, Cathy said she was okay and it looked like she was in normal condition until the morning of August 1, when she said she felt tired.
She was offered some porridge but she refused, the hotel owner said.
At noon, Cathy took a taxi to the Khanh Hoa General Hospital.
Dr Pham Dinh Chi said Cathy was conscious when she was admitted to the hospital, but it looked like she was dizzy.
Her condition got worse and she died early on August 2.
On Monday, Huynh Thi Huong, Cathy’s 57-year-old mother, and her brother arrived in Ho Chi Minh City to bring her body back to Canada for a funeral.
Huong said Cathy always wanted to be a teacher. Cathy and Karin taught English at a primary school in South Korea and later took a one-week leave to the beach city of Nha Trang.
Thomas Tanner, Public Affairs Officer of the US Consulate General in HCMC, declined to comment on Karin’s death, according to Tuoi Tre.
Dr Pham Xuan Thong, director of Forensic Examination Center in Khanh Hoa, said an autopsy had been done on Karin after her death.
Her samples are being preserved at the center and will soon be sent to Hanoi for analysis.
It usually takes two weeks before the results of the analysis are available, Thong said.
Meanwhile, an autopsy has not yet been done on Cathy.
At her family’s request, Karin’s body has been cremated in HCMC and her ashes have been sent back to the US.

New tourist death riddle in Thailand

The mysterious deaths of two Canadian sisters on Phi Phi island in Thailand is baffling local officials.

Thailand's top toxicologists are attempting to determine what caused the mysterious deaths of Canadian sisters Audrey and Noemi Belanger at the Palms Residence on Phi Phi island - one of Thailand"s most popular destinations for young travellers.

''As for the cause of death, it's impossible to know at this stage. There just isn't enough information,'' said a doctor at Krabi hospital, where the sisters were taken.

Canadian Embassy officials have been at Krabi to talk to the authorities about the pathology tests.

Tourists on Phi Phi, quoted by local media, said there have been water and sewerage problems on Phi Phil following a recent monsoon.

The deaths in a small resort hotel last Friday has revived memories of the 2009 deaths on Phi Phi of two young female tourists - one from the United States and the other from Norway.

They were in adjoining hotel rooms and died in baffling circumstances. No cause of death has ever been established.

The island, 90 minutes by ferry from Phuket, has a reputation for tropical night life and binge drinking - and it was recently chosen as the world's top must-see island by TripAdvisor.

Last year in Thailand, there was yet another riddle - the mystery of what killed 23-year-old New Zealand woman Sarah Carter and several other tourists in Chiang Mai and the city's Downtown Inn.

By Ian Jarrett

Canadian resort owner protects Vietnamese wildlife

Canadian resort owner protects Vietnamese wildlife

January 10, 2010 about News

A Black-shrank-ed douc, listed as critically endangered in Vietnam, near Jungle Beach

Endangered species hunted by poachers find an unlikely friend north of Nha Trang.

When he’s not tending to his duties as the owner of Jungle Beach, one of central Vietnam€™s most secluded beach resorts, Sylvio Larmache spends his days looking after his languors.

In the jungles of Hon Heo mountain, on the foothills on which Sylvio’s backpacker getaway sits, endangered deer, douc langurs and four kinds of rare eagles live undisturbed, despite the fact that poachers could fetch high prices for the animals.

Larmache can take at least some of the credit for protecting the animals and ensuring that they thrive in their natural habitat, which has been whittled away piece by piece via encroaching developments: mostly hotels and factories.

Larmache’s five loyal dogs, including Momma Dog and Ugly Dog, act as his eyes and ears, vigilantly watching over the hills to spot illegal loggers or hunters who covet the area’s raw timber and untouched wildlife, 60 miles north of Khanh Hoa Provinces€™s prime beach resort town of Nha Trang.

Sylvio Lamarche (L) shows a tourist the animals he watches over. The owner of the Jungle Beach resort in Khanh Hoa Province has taken it upon himself to protect local endangered species.

Lamarche himself walks the mountain barefoot every day to count the animals he sees. He keeps specific track of four species of eagle, four endangered species of deer and communities of slow loris and black languor in his personal journal.

“I have no authority. But I have love for plants and animals,� the 54-year old Canadian said in Vietnamese.

Not just on TV

Larmache found the present-day Jungle Beach’s pristine sands and crystal-clear waters in 1995 as a traveler kayaking the Ninh Hoa Commune coast. He knew that he would one day make a little slice of heaven his home.

In 2000, Larmache sold his farm back home in Canada and returned to Vietnam to buy the one hectare of land along the Hon Heo foothills, where he and his Vietnamese wife then built Jungle Beach.

Larmache gets up very early everyday and uses binoculars to check if his favorite mountain animals have gone for their breakfast.

“I love them. They need protection,� he said. “I also want my kid to see a deer or langur right in front of his eyes, instead of just on television.�

Lamarche accepts no payment for his work protecting the animals, but he is proud of the Certificate of Merit given to him by the Ninh Hoa District government for his volunteer efforts.

Most Jungle Beach guests spend at least part of their stay watching the animals through his binoculars or a telescope. Some even hike into the hills themselves to get a close up view.

Jungle Beach manager Luu Vinh Quang, 43, said Sylvio has had to confront trappers in the past.

Quang remembered one incident in which local residents had trapped a slow loris nearby and Lamarche tried to buy its freedom. But he refused to pay their exorbitant price for fear it would fuel the trade.

Lamarche then called local forest wardens to seize the loris and he carried it back to its home on the mountain and set it free himself, said Quang, who taught Lamarch Vietnamese as one of his first friends and guides in the country.

“These animals only eat plants,� said Lamarche. “They don’t harm people and they should be protected for our children. But just me is not enough,� he said.

Discovery

In 2007, Lamarch was credited with discovering a group of 110 black langurs that had been previously unnoticed by local authorities.

He sent his records to Tilo Nadler, director of a German rescue center under the Frankfurt Animal Association.

Nadler and several experts from the center then studied the group and found that they were Blackshanked doucs (Pygathrix nigripes), currently listed inVietnam as critically endangered.

The doucs have been protected since and have given birth to around 40 new members of their community as of December 2009, Lamarche said.

The bold Canadian hasn’t left Vietnam since 2000.

“I’ve deleted Canada,� he said. “Now I’m just a white-ass minority Vietnamese at the foot of Hon Heo.�

Reported by Phan Huy Tram

Deepa Mehta to adapt Rushdie's Midnight's Children for screen

Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta is set to co-write and direct a movie adaptation of Salman Rushdie's 1981 book Midnight's Children in a deal brokered during a dinner in Toronto between the two.
The film is expected to start production in 2010, according to the British newspaper the Guardian.
"If I was doing it myself, it would be rather daunting," Mehta told the Guardian. "The fact that we like and respect each other is a good foundation for collaboration."
The novel, an allegory about the blossoming of modern India, is required reading in many university courses.
It captured three Booker prizes: The book won the Commonwealth fiction award in 1981, topped the Booker of Bookers trophy in 1993 and then captured the reader-nominated Best of the Bookers this year.
The 650-page novel, with its mix of historical events and magical realism, has often been described as "unfilmable."Salman Rushdie's most recent book is The Enchantress of Florence. (Random House Publishing Group/Associated Press)
"War and Peace has 1,000 pages, and they made a movie of that," remarked Mehta, who said the two hatched a plan to film the book after Rushdie dined at her home recently.
Toronto-based Mehta is noted for films that touch upon explosive topics and may be best known for her Elements trilogy — Earth (1996), Fire (1998) and the Oscar-nominated Water (2005). Her most recent film, Heaven on Earth, examines domestic violence.
Much like Rushdie, Mehta has experienced dangerous conditions in the pursuit of her art. The filmmaker had to abandon her original production of Water after Indian protesters destroyed sets. The project was remounted in Sri Lanka.
Midnight's Children follows Saleem — born at midnight on Aug. 15, 1947, just as India achieved independence — who shares special powers with every other person born in the same hour and comes to see himself as the incarnation of India.
Rushdie wrote a five-part television series in the late 1990s based on the book, but the project was abandoned when the Sri Lankan government wouldn't let the shoot proceed.
"Those scripts will be a helpful blueprint for what will work in the film," Mehta said.