BEIJING, CHINA - Chinese local officials on a "study visit" to Thailand have triggered outrage after photographs of them at a transvestite show were posted on the Internet.

In one of the photos published in the Beijing News Friday, an official from Luzhou town in the southwestern province of Sichuan is shown dipping into his pocket for money to give to a transvestite performer.

"Going to see transvestites in Thailand is normal, the problem is whose money they used to go!" one angry Internet user said in a posting.

Following the publication of the photos, the town authorities ordered an investigation of the five people who took part in the "study visit" in 2004.

According to the newspaper, the visit took place as part of an MBA programme for several Luzhou officials in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

The Communist Party secretary of Luzhou promised to investigate the affair and said civil servants who had broken the law and regulations would be punished.

Official overseas trips by local civil servants are regularly criticised on the Internet and in the Chinese media as being holidays in disguise.