New Years on Tsunami Trail

Well, happy New Year to you all out there. We are now on the west coast of the Thai peninsula (where we spent New Years), about 100 km north of Phuket in the area where the Tsunami hit hard. We have been gathering some stories from people who were here at the time....hard to believe that it happened right here only 4 yrs ago. A lot of rebuilding happening, but also a lot of vacant land, which probably was not vacant 4 yrs ago.

The beach here is beautiful about 10km long with not too much in the way of resorts, the weather is sunny and 30 degrees and I'm pretty sure the water is about 28 or 29...the warmest we have probably ever felt (and its their cold season here!!). It is nice to take time for relaxing, long walks on the beach, reading, and swimming in the surf.

Hope the snow / skiing back home is good....but I think the swimming here is better!

We decided to move over here from the East side of the Thai peninsula because the weather wasn't the best over there. Lots of overcast, occasional rain, fair amount of wind and quite poor visibility in the water.... not so poor that John didn't see the 2 sharks when he was snorkelling! But viewing the underwater world is one of the main reasons for heading south so we set off in search of calmer and clearer water.

We managed to find room in a smaller guesthouse (12 rooms) run by a couple who are a Danish/Thai pair. Wonderful hosts who really want to make their guests feel at home. So as we checked in on the morning of New Year's Eve and were informed that every year she throws a free dinner party for all the guests... wonderful to meet people from all over (Danish, British, American, Swedes, etc)....The Thup Thong guesthouse:

During the evening John chatted a bit with the owners....who were here for the Tsunami. Sa, the wife of the couple had a sister who owned a bunch of bungalows on the beach...these are no longer here...nor is her sister. Sa said that she and her husband and 2 young children happened to be out driving on the main road which is 1.5 km back from the waterfront. Suddenly they saw the telephone poles dropping like sticks and the next moment their Jeep was rolled a number of times and then came bobbing back up to the surface like a cork. They were able to climb out and survived. They said it was about an hour before all the water had rolled back to the ocean.

We also chatted with an older swiss gentleman who has been here every winter for 7 yrs. He was with a friend who went out to the beach for 10 mins while he decided to remain in his room on an upper floor of the hotel. He never saw her again.

We were told that although a lot of rebuilding has been done and is underway, many people who were here have decided not to build or return.

These days were spent mostly just relaxing on the beach, swimming in some big surf and of course Lori taking advantage of ever so cheap Thai massage on the beach front!