Phuket: Alive and Well April 7

Phuket is famous because of the Tsunami but I was urged by so many people here to make sure I told you that Phuket is a beautiful destination right now and worth visiting. I agree!

This is Tony Messenger from Britain. (I don't make these names up... honest!) Tony was eating breakfast next to me so we got talking about Phuket. He told me that Patong beach is actually much nicer since the Tsunami. He said the Wave removed the old layers of sludge and now the beach looks the way it did 15 years ago; pristine and white. I asked him about the feeling here now. Again he said: "Much better. There are fewer tourists now, so it has much more of that small town feeling like it did many years ago. I love it here now!"

I want to give a plug for the hotel I stayed at here; 'Sandy Beach Mansion'(I know the sign read different). The staff here were very friendly (notice the little guy behind the desk) and my room was the best one I've had in Thailand; very comfortable and inviting. And best of all, it had sheets on the bed, AND toilet paper!

I've spent so much time talking disaster that I never mentioned just how wonderful the beach actually is. There are palm trees for shade and the water is warm and inviting with a sandy bottom that feels great on the feet.

I got upset when I talked about the movie 'The Beach' because when I spend time here, I see a beach as beautiful as the one in the movie. Paradise is right here.

Even McDonald's is making a comeback!

These are the staff of a great Sushi restaurant in town. I ate here and thought it was as good as Sushi Ginsa in Calgary Alberta; which is saying a lot!

Yes, Phuket is alive and well. Everywhere I went, people asked me what I was writing about. They wanted to make sure I wasn't scaring people off. I told them all the same thing. The people are wonderful, The food is great and the water is fine. Come and visit!

Surviving Thailand's Tsunami

Kamala Beach,Phuket,Thailand,April 7,2005

Kamala Beach was hit the hardest by the Tsunami on December 26th, 2004. You may remember the 100 day Ceremony in which white balloons were released. That ceremony took place on Kamala Beach. I don't really know how to tell this story because there was so much laughter and so much sadness at the same time. So let me just tell you my day.

My two kidnappers from Monday came to my Hotel to pick me up for lunch. Dang is on the far left and her co conspirator, Ooy is on the far right. The other women all work in the same business of rounding up Farangs to see Vacation Club presentations at one of the three Hotels in town that sponsor them. You, my loyal readers, keep asking where I find such beautiful women in Thailand. The real answer is: they find me. I am just a very quiet person and the Thai people appreciate that very much. I asked Dang and Ooy if they would be willing to take me to Kamala beach as my guides. So Dang arranged a Taxi (400 baht round trip including many stops) and off we went.

We went a few minutes up the road to a place where the waves came in very hard. My new best friends are pointed to where the Tsunami came from. They said many many people died in this spot.

This building shows the effects of the enormous surge of water that crashed in from the Ocean.

After 10 minutes travel north on a winding coastline road, I get my first glimpse of Kamala Beach. You can see the darker area where the grass and trees had been.

A new concrete retaining wall has been built, much further back from the original beach to keep the area from collapsing further. All the buildings were wiped away clean by the Tsunami.

This shot of the beach shows where the Wave came from. It hit from the left, just beyond the peninsula you see here. New boats are being built right here on the beach.

The construction is coming along very well. You can see repairs everywhere.

This is another picture to show where the Tsunami came from.

Here is a closer look at the boat building.

Most of this work is done with hand tools.


Ooy took us to her friends; 'Solay' and 'Fatima' who are a Muslim couple living in Kamala Beach. Solay graciously offered to take us inland to the Tented Refugee Village that became the home to a hundred families when their homes were annihilated. Kamala's population is made up of 90% Muslum families and a lot of Farangs who have built expensive homes in this area. Solay told me he lost 4 family members in the Tsunami and watched many people die around him that day. He was at home asleep when the wave struck. As he told me his story he spoke very gently and talked with reverence, not sadness or fear.

We travel almost four kilometers inland and uphill to the refugee camp. Ooy points us the way into the gates. This is a property owned by one of the families from Kamala.

The people staying here are Buddhists and as we entered the gates, the first thing I saw was the Buddhist Altar.

Jack was on the second floor of a Beachfront restaurant when he saw the Tsunami. He saw the ocean suck back and many fish flopping on the beach. At first he did nothing. But then he saw the tidal wave coming and he went to ground and started running. He rotated the index fingers from both hands around his head the way you do to indicate that someone is a little crazy and he said: "everything go mad. People running. All I think of is,'where my daughter'. I run away and grab anyone I see and we come here." Jack said the Tsunami wave came three kilometers inland and destroyed most of Kamala Beach. He said 4 people in his immediate family died that day.

This is Jack's five year old daughter. His wife also survived. He lost 4 brothers I think. Seventy-six people died from the Tsunami. Jack said the worst part was that he saw people dying over a four day period.

When the Tsunami struck, there were 100 families living here. Now, after three months, there are still ten families unable to find homes.
Jack told me that each family was given 20,000 baht for their losses. Dang said that a simple house costs 100,000 baht to build so many families simply cannot afford to rebuild. I asked these people if they were aware of how much money was given for Tsunami relief from around the world. Jack said he was. I asked where he thinks that money went. He and the others just gave me coy smiles and shrugged and said they didn't know.

This is 'Lot'; Jack's grandmother. She is a real cutie pie and wanted me to take her picture. She is a very soft spoken woman who likes to laugh.

These tents were donated by European travellers who wanted to give something on the spot, to these people.

Jack told me the greatest fear is that the Tsunami is coming back. He says many people here cannot sleep. I asked if he thought the 100 day ceremony had helped. He said: "Chai. Much better now. Many ghosts gone from beach now."

So for now, these people live in tents.

As we drove away, everyone thanks us for coming and the last one to see us as we left was Lot who smiled and waved and wished us 'Sawadee Cup'. I felt very emotional as I left and didn't want to talk. I didn't feel sorry for these people. It was something else. It's something I keep finding in Thailand. A connection to what is important; to family; to their country. These people have seen unspeakable horror and yet they invite me into their lives and smile and laugh with me as family.
Just before I left these wonderful people,I asked Jack: "What will you do now?" He said: "Stay away from water."

Phuket:Patong Beach After Tsunami: April 6

This is Patong Beach in Phuket. It's still fairly early in the morning but there are very few people here just the same.

Rows and rows of deck chairs waiting for the visitors who don't come. My friends here say that the 'Farangs'(Foreigners who are white) are starting to come back but not the Asians. They tell me the ghosts of the dead are still on the beach so they stay away.

As I sit on a chair, I look at the sand which is now the whitest it has been in 15 years. The Tsunami removed the top layers, creating a brand new world here.

Just behind me, you can still see the signs of the wreckage. Many of the walkways are still broken.

I'm writing this story from 'World Star Travel' where I was met by the owner, 'Sak' who was very helpful in giving me details of what he saw that day. His office is just two blocks from the Ocean. Sak told me he was upstairs having a shower at about 9:30 in the morning when the Tsunami hit. He said: "I see water below and not know why. Sak closed the sliding doors to his office as he left and so the water only reached the level of the watermark he is pointing to on his wall. "I rush downstairs and everyone running and screaming: all run up hill. I see four friend dead across street from my office, lying in street when I return at 3:30 that day." Sak told me he came back to his office that night to sleep but couldn't. "Everyone say Tsunami come again and no one sleep." He says the power was knocked out so everyone was in darkness, listening for any sign that the horror was about to happen again. When he felt the earthquake from Sumatra recently he saw people running up the hill again all around him. They all assumed it was another Tsunami coming. Sak had a staff of 7 the day the Tidal wave struck. Now he has two employees who he really can't afford to pay. The relief effort paid no money to the businesses here as far as he knows. He certainly has received nothing.

People are rebuilding at a furious pace all along Thawiwong Road (the beachfront road).

I don't really do justice to Patong Beach though. There is so much construction but it is a beautiful area even as it is. I see more than most because I'm a carpenter. I find it a wonderful place to relax in and because there are fewer people than usual, it makes for a tremendous vacation spot.

The Ocean wave rolled right through this street because it is at right angles to the beach.

You can see from this building, how high the water was. It actually was 4 stories high at it's peak. Much of the repair work has been done on this street but as you can see from this balcony, the water flooded this street at a very high level.
Sak told me the Tsunami came three kilometers inland and it took until late afternoon before it had receded enough for people to come back into the town. Most of the day they just waited in the hills. Sak has a very happy personality and laughed and joked with me while we talked. But when he talked about the many friends he saw die, just a few feet away from his office, he covered his eyes with his hands and just shook his head. He said it is a vision he will never be able to get out of his mind.

Phuket After The Tsunami: April 4

Phuket has been on my mind ever since I began planning this trip. The Tsunami hit Thailand the hardest right here. Then a few days ago, Sumatra experienced an earthquake which caused people to wonder if another Tsunami was coming. Many people have told me I should not come here. One of my dearest friends wrote me from Calgary with the caption on her email: "GET OUT". I wrote her back to say: "If the Thai people stay, I stay."

My story of Phuket is really about the people. I was walking on the street just minutes after I arrived and two Thai women kidnapped me to take me to a 'Vacation Club' presentation. They get very little money for doing this but I was happy to go along with it and besides, I got some free T-shirts and a week of free accommodation for the future. This is 'Dang' and 'Ooy'. They are 28 and 31. They have both been struggling to make money ever since the Tsunami hit. They told me there are only 20% as many tourists as usual.

They couldn't get me into a presentation that day so they came to my hotel the next morning and picked me up. So the three of us sped off on a motorcycle. They even took me to find a cheaper hotel. I'm now at the White Beach Mansion and paying 550 baht a night including breakfast. I asked Dang about what she saw the day of the Tsunami. She was working in a hotel up from the beach. She says she ran outside and saw a truck full of mangled bleeding bodies, very badly hurt but still alive, being rushed away from the oncoming tidal wave. She said she lost many friends that day and when she went to the hospital she couldn't stand the sight of so many people in pain all at once.

After the presentation they arranged a tuk-tuk driver to take me around. I messed up their commission though, because I said I was here for three months instead of three weeks. I felt so bad that I helped them book me into another place.

This is Lee. She got the commission for the second meeting and split it with the other two women. Then she insisted I come for lunch on her. I asked her about the Tsunami. She said the death toll is much higher than the 5000 that the authorities say. She said the figures are reported as less because Thailand authorities are afraid to scare more people away from visiting. She also told me that when I go to Kamala I will see the people who still live in tents because they lost their homes. If you saw the 'Hundred Day' event in Phuket, you were seeing this beach. All three women told me that the authorities have been holding back much of the aid money because of local corruption. I am going to talk to the people on the beach tomorrow if I can and see what they say.

The guy who gave the presentation is Aaron from Edmonton Alberta, right near where I lived the last 26 years. He and I had a great time talking and he taught me a lot about the Thai culture because his girlfriend is Thai. He said they were here the day the Tsunami hit and were saved because they are two beaches away in an area that is protected by a cove, or he would be dead. He also told me the authorities have been holding back money that is supposed to be going to the victims of the Tsunami.

These are a series of pictures I took from the balcony of the Hotel I was looking at for my presentation. The Tsunami came from an angle just beyond the peninsula to the left.

Again, you can get an idea of the direction to think of it coming in from left to right at an angle just beyond that peninsula you see to the left of the picture. It didn't hit Patong beach straight on but it was forceful enough that it destroyed the beachfront. Aaron told me the salt water came far enough in that it flooded this hotel's underground parking.

The grass right below this balcony was under salt water which it is just recovering from now.

Again you can see how this foliage was killed by the salt water. Now look at the peninsula to the right. Now see the one just beyond it? Between the two peninsulas; that is Kamala Beach. The Tsunami had a clear path and so it hit with full force onto that beach.

This is looking straight ahead of me toward Patong Beach. The ground is still quite brown because there is no grass yet. I asked Aaron how the Thai people were able to handle such an overwhelming tragedy. He said they don't act the way we do in the West. They don't talk about it much. They understand life from a different cosmology and different social reference. They don't tend to cry over such losses. They just pull together and find a way to survive as a community. I find it hard to believe that these warm gentle Thai people, who helped me so much in the last couple of days, have all seen the death of close friends and family so recently.

***Just as I was preparing this Story, a couple from Idaho were reading a CNN piece reporting that another earthquake could be coming shortly. The scientist quoted, also said that another Tsunami could come with it this time. My understanding is that the pressure release from the tectonic plates have not finished yet but that the quakes will be happening much further South and should not be a threat to Thailand this time.

Thailand Sex: April 5

There's no way I can discuss this topic without sounding like I'm talking in double entendre; so I'll just plunge in...
Of all the places I have visited in Thailand, Phuket has the strongest sexual current I have ever experienced. This impression is enhanced by the fact that there are so few tourists right now, compared to the huge number of young women competing for the Thai Massage dollar. Patong Beach is much more Westernized that other parts of Thailand so you don't see the same modesty in the Women that you see elsewhere. Many of the women dress in miniskirts and tight-fitting tops. If a Farang (Foreigner) walks close enough, the women will reach out and take you by the hand and gently pull you to their studios while smiling and nodding their heads.

This is Roweena. She is dressed in that typical style. I want to stress though, that she was NOT one of the women who sell themselves. she just does massage.

I did talk with a girl who looked just like this Roweena and WAS selling herself.
The woman I met called herself 'On'. She offered to give me a Thai massage for 250 baht. I learned my lesson from Khon Kaen so I made it very clear that I just wanted a 'Thai Massage' not an Oil massage. AS it turned out, she was definitely interested in selling me much more and because her English was very good, we ended up having a very enlightening conversation.
As 'On' led me upstairs she started with the selling job to get me to go for the 'Works'. I looked her in the eyes and said: "I'm not here for sex." She put her finger to her lips."Shhh. No talk about that here."
"Why not?" Then she gave me a mischievous smile and said softly: "Why not try it. If not try it, you never know." She went on to say: "I try everything. I am free girl. Why not you try it?".
Because I have to be true to myself", I said, pointing to my heart. On smiled and said: "I free. Do whatever want. Have boyfriend. Not have boyfriend- enjoy life."
"That's great. Do you enjoy having sex with Farangs here?"
The smile dropped from her face. "Is just money."
"Do you enjoy sex?"
"No. Not enjoy. Not need to enjoy. Just for Man."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-three."
"Have you been married?"
"Chai. Married, have child."
"What happened?"
"Man no good. Baby in Bangkok. I earn money for family and baby. Must work."
"It must be very hard for you, to be so young and caught in two worlds. You have so many commitments but you would rather just be a party girl, out drinking every night and having fun, Chai?"
She looked at me puzzled. "How you know?"
"I read eyes."
"My eyes tell?"
"Chai. But you know what 'On'? You're still so young. When you're twenty-six, you will know so many things you don't know now."
"I know lot now."
"I think you are very smart Party girl. But sometimes, can be too smart for own good, chai?"
(These are the women who work with Roweena. They were delighted to have their picture taken.)

'On' gave me a sad smile. Then, as if waking from a dream, she suddenly sat up straight and said in a startled voice: "What you do? I never talk like this! Always quiet with massage."
Then she moved in for the kill. she leaned over to me and batted her big Thai eyes at me and said: "Now time for me to do my job."
"Not a chance."
Then with a voice of resignation she said: "I tired anyway. Work from 9AM to 3 in morning."
I said: "I'm so sorry you are tired. Do you want me to give you a massage?"
She sat up straight again and looked at my eyes to see if I was kidding or not. "You give me?"
"Sure. Just 400 baht." I said with a smile.
"Too much. I give my own massage!"

Wallenpone 2: Bangkok April 3

I have a post titled 'Wallenpone'. I talk about how I almost missed the train to Chiang Mai and all I had to get me there was this one magical word which I repeated again and again until I got on my train with only seconds to spare. Well now I know that Wallenpone is the name of Bangkok's Central Train station. But I seem to have a curse when it comes to this place. Here's what happened.

It's 6pm Sunday night and here I am, sitting on the train that leaves Bangkok Station (Wallenpone)in 20 minutes. I have booked the ticket through my travel agent in Bangkok. I have no worries. I am content. Then a woman sits down across from me. She smiles. I smile back. She shows me her ticket and smiles. I show her my ticket and smile back. Then I read her ticket. It says seat 30. I look at my ticket. IT says seat 30. I wonder how she and I could have the same seat. Then I look at the date. My ticket is not for tonight. My ticket is for Wednesday. Then I put it all together. My travel agent booked using the March calendar instead of April's. I have to get off the train RIGHT NOW.

I leap off and race to the ticket refund area. I find a Tourist information person who sees my panic and comes to my aid. She lets me know that there are no seats left on that train. She sends me upstairs where I book a ticket on an all night bus. Then I race downstairs to get a refund on my train ticket. I try to phone my travel agent but there is only voicemail. The bus leaves at 7pm. I pay 800 baht and get my refund of 435baht for most of the train ticket. I get help to phone the hotel I am booked to in Phuket to change the arrival day. Some day I will tell you how I was able to accomplish so much in such a short time and still make it to Phuket the next day.

But for now, let me just say that the good luck from Buddha was with me that night. Thank you to all the dear souls who helped me get on that bus that night, especially one wonderful woman from Bangkok who saved my Canadian Bacon that night by translating for me on more than one occasion. It was 17 hours sitting in a cramped bus that got me to Phuket on Monday just after noon.

And this is the hotel room the Travel agent booked for me. It is a beautiful place but too fancy for my needs. It cost me 1200 baht, which I didn't realize until I found out how much my travel cost me. The next day I booked out of there into something much more modest.

This is the first glimpse I had of the ocean from Phuket (Pronounced 'Poo-get'). This is Patong Beach, which was hit very hard by the Tsunami in December. I will show you more in the next post.