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It's important to note that not all of Thailand was physically impacted by the tsunami. The southern islands and coastal areas were devastated, Bangkok and more inland areas were not affected at all. I just left Bangkok (literally, like 30 hours ago), and there was no sign of the disaster anywhere--except for a few collection areas for food and water to fly down to Phuket, which is about 300 miles away. As early as New Year's Day, people were back on the beaches that weren't affected. Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and the Phillipines were not impacted--in some ways, this is just a reminder of how many of "us" still lump the nations of SE Asia together.
I don't know if there's been a major difference in what news I got, being in Southeast Asia, and what people here in the States received. The true death toll will probably never be known due to bodies not washing back onto shore for various reasons as well as the fact that corpses are often being buried right where they are found, without notification of authorities. As recently as Wednesday, some of the local news channels were saying that some remote areas of Sri Lanka and Indonesia have yet to be searched, and these searches wil most certainly yield more bodies.
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