Leaving Koh Phangan wasn’t easy; the island just takes you
in its grip and one could easily find that they waste away the next month
exploring all of the beautiful unspoiled beaches of the North and getting ready
to loop back to Had-Rin for another week long Full Moon party. The girl that works in the hostel that I was
staying in came for a Full Moon party and ended up staying. That was a year and half ago... However the tickets were booked and we were
being picked up at 9am to leave the memories behind.
The bus/boat/bus/taxi ride wasn’t the most enjoyable;
however after 10 hours Matt and I were in Ao Nang and searching for a place to
stay. This took the best part of 5
minutes as the first place we looked at was pretty decent, had air-con and we’d
managed to haggle for a bargain price of only 600baht a night. As we’d gotten to Ao Nang fairly late we just
went out to get some food, stopped in the Irish Rover for a beer and to watch
the football and hit the sack ready for another day in Paradise tomorrow.
We left Ao Nang at 10am to make sure we had as much time as
possible in the sun and took the short boat ride round the Railay. I won’t go into a lot of detail as it was
pretty much the same as the previous post about the beach. We chilled out for most of the day and at
around 4pm dark clouds quickly crept over and the heavens opened. We took refuge in one of the posh bars on the
front; had an overly priced Pad Thai and as soon the rain began to stop, headed
to the boats to go back to Ao Nang. The
night was much like the last. On a
semi-detox after Koh Phangan, so just went to a small Thai place and again saw
an early night watching movies in the room.
The following day started off like any other; however by the
end of it my mind’s perspective had changed a lot... We again arrived at the beach at 10ish to get
the boat around to Railay. The weather
was much better than the previous day and there was not a single cloud in the sky. We chilled on the beach for a few hours with
large bottles of water and banana pancakes, had lunch on the west side of the
island and back to the sun; not expecting at all what was to follow...
At around 4.30 Matt was flat out asleep and I was just
sitting up looking out into the horizon.
A Thai guy came along the beach and started talking to me, saying
‘Phuket, Phuket; you go now’. Not having
a clue what he was really saying I replied; no, I don’t want to go to
Phuket. The conversation for the next 2
minutes followed suit and I was trying to tell him that I couldn’t understand
and for him to go away. He then said;
‘You know before, Phuket, Big wave’, to which I said yes, I remembered it and
him saying again; ‘Yes, you go now’. He
then walked off along the beach and started talking to a few over people that
also didn’t have any idea what he was saying.
Matt woke up during this and also two English guys sitting in front of
us turned around to ask what he was saying...
I said that he’d mentioned a big wave, before saying that if there was a
big wave coming, then tide usually goes out.
This seemed to be the kiss of death; as we all looked up to the sea and
saw that it had dropped back about 15 metres from where it was about 20 minutes
ago. Looking along the beach, it was
also getting a lot emptier, which at first I thought was just to do with the time
of the day. We also talked about feeling
the ground move in a wave motion beneath us whilst lying on the beach about
half an hour previously; however I had passed it off at the time to be a
vibration from a passing boat.
We decided to pack up and head back to Ao Nang; however as
we were half way along the beach, the warning sirens for a tsunami burst into
life. This was the moment that
everything changed. I have never seen so
much terror on somebody’s face as I saw in the boat drivers. They were all standing on the edges of their
boats screaming at people to get on board.
Many of the boats left without anybody on them and the rest only half
full. There were 7 people in total on
our boat which can normally fit 16. The
rest of the people on the beach were being ushered further into the island
towards the high points and to hotels that had 3 or more stories. Still not really knowing what was happening
we were racing towards the main pier at Ao Nang where we to be dropped off and
to head to the evacuation zones. We had
an old German couple on the boat with us know were trying to get the driver to
take to boat to a small beach where their beach bungalow was and were not
really grasping the fact that if a tsunami were to hit, the place that they
should be least of all is on the beach!
All of the boats from the neighbouring beaches were heading
towards the pier and it looked like a fleet of longtail boats driving as fast
as the motors can take them and each person had the same worried and
not-knowing look on their faces.
We got off of the boat about 25 minutes later and ran along
the beach up to the main road. There
were no taxis or buses; however there was a pick-up truck with canoes and surf
boards in the back that was just about to leave. We flagged it down and they left us jump in
the back. They kindly rove us further in
land, and we picked up a few more stragglers on the way. The driver first took us to a school; however
it only had 2 stories and we were told that it may not be safe enough; so they
dropped us where a taxi bus had just pulled up and we asked to be taken into
Krabi Town; which is 20km inland and with the safe zone. Half way to Krabi Town it started raining;
which wasn’t great as we were in an open-sided taxi.
Whilst in the taxi Matt turned his roaming on and managed to
get some information on what was happened.
We’d learned that an 8.9 magnitude hit the coast on North West coast of
Sumatra; approx. 500km from Phuket. A 24
hour tsunami warning had been given for all South Western Thai islands,
Indonesia and Malaysia.
We arrived in the centre of town around 6pm and headed with
two German people that we’d met to a bar to plan what to do next. We still had very little information and the
first place that we went to did not have Wi-Fi.
Matt’s phone and my iPod had run out of battery and both of our laptops
and my phone were back in the room at Ao Nang.
The rain had eased off a bit so we went in search of somewhere that had
Wi-Fi and also to get something to eat.
The majority of the town was deserted and most bars and restaurants were
closed. We found one place just in time
as another storm began to pass over and rain the rain started up again. The place we found was a little livelier than
the last. We met in there a few more
Germans, a Swiss guy and 2 English girls – Jess and Martha. We hung out in the bar for a couple of hours;
swapping stories and still trying piece together what was happening. We managed to get online; however with the
storm, the connection was very poor. I
couldn’t get into my emails, so put a distress call out on Facebook for someone
to call the Old Man and let him know I was safe.
We thought that as the warning was for 24 hours, there would
be no point trying to get back to Ao Nang tonight so Jess and I headed out in
the pouring rain in search of a cheap place to crash for the night. Probably wasn’t the best idea as it was
absolutely torrential; however we were now 3 big bottles of Chang down and
thought that it would be a good idea. Flip Flops were useless as they were far too
slippery and would cause more harm than good.
So a minute later we were running down the middle of the road,
completely soaked to the bone; not exactly 100% where we were going. The first couple that we found were fully
booked; but after another 10 minutes of running around in the rain be found
one; spent another 5 minutes bargaining with the reception and managed to get a
couple of rooms for 400baht each. We got
back to the bar – absolutely drenched –, dried out for a bit and when the rain
finally ceased, checked into the hotel and got ready to head out for the
Unofficial Tsunami Party 2012.
We found a bar around the corner that had a rooftop terrace
and got going. It was fairy busy as was
one of the only places open in that area of the town. They also had a really good singer playing
acoustically. We met up with the German
guys from the place before and spent the next hour relaxing and listening to
the music. As the hour approached we
decided to spice the night up a bit and opted for a couple of Sambucca shot and
Sambucca chaser. Matt left and headed
back to the hotel shortly after and the 3 of us remaining went across the road
to a small club that wasn’t at all busy, but was playing half decent music... We danced and partied for another few hours
and as 3am rolled round it was time to call it a night. Whilst walking back, the German guys that
we’d met earlier had lost the key to the main gate of their hotel and were
trying to figure out how to get onto their balcony 2 floors up. They chose not to go for the Spiderman
approach of scaling the wall and through enough persuasion managed to get into
the hotel next door and climb across 3 balconies until they reached theirs;
with a lot of encouragement and cheering from below.
The next morning was not a pretty sight... We wanted to get up early and get back to Ao
Nang as soon as possible; so at 9am the alarm went off and as I sat up it felt
like someone had smashed my head in with a hammer. After a wobbly 10 minutes we were ready to
leave; and then realising that my iPod was in Jess’ handbag, spent the another
5 minutes trying to wake them up. They
were planning to go to Ao Nang in a day or so; so we arranged to meet up and
then Matt and I went in search of a taxi to take us back.
So, what would be one of the worst things to happen when you
are more hungover than imaginably possible?
We arrived back the room at around 11am and the first thing that I
noticed was that my BlackBerry – which was plugged into the charger and sitting
on top of the TV – was no longer there.
At first I thought that it may have just fallen; but after 5 minutes of
searching it was definitely missing. We checked
all of our other belongings and they were all there; including two laptops
which were right next to the phone.
I knew it would be one of the maids when they cleaned the
room, so went straight to the reception.
You never can quite believe how ignorant some people are until a
situation like this. To say they were
unhelpful would be the biggest understatement of them all. Every single person working there had somehow
lost their ability to speak the perfect English that usually came out of their
mouths and all they could do was shrug their shoulders and say sorry and ‘I
don’t know, I don’t know’. I went
absolutely ballistic at them. I thought
if they want to play the ignorant foreigner, then I’ll do the same.
The Police were equally as helpful and the only thing I got
from them was a statement written completely in Thai to pass onto the insurance
company.
The phone I didn’t have a problem with; that can be replaced
easily enough. It is the hundreds of
messages/pictures/videos that I won’t get back.
The remainder of that day was a wash-out. After the ordeal with the phone, the hangover
started to crept back; so I shut my eyes for 30minutes and woke up 5 hours
later...
x
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