The Similan Beach and Spa Resort is situated in a most tranquil location of Khao Lak, an unspoilt paradise on the west coast of Phang-Nga in Thailand.
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Posted on 12/28/2004 1:58:44 PM PST by BJungNan
And get three of us together and you'll get five opinions.
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The Similan Beach and Spa Resort is situated in a most tranquil location of Khao Lak, an unspoilt paradise on the west coast of Phang-Nga in Thailand.
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Really? Almost as much as we engineers!
Anyone seen or heard from BigWaveBetty?
Bump. Good thread. Kudos to you, my friend.
bump.
Heaven's assault on Islam continues.
Surviving the wall of water
29 December 2004
Sydney Morning Herald reporter Alexa Moses writes a harrowing account of experiencing the tsunami first hand while on holiday in Thailand.
A tsunami, when it approaches, is silent. A brown mass of water billowing towards the bedroom where I and my partner, Robert, were sitting on the bed in Khao Lak, in Phang Nga province just north of Phuket in Thailand.
We were staying in a hotel on the beach called the Seaview Resort, where Swedish, German and Austrian families raced to the deckchairs on the sand each morning to roast themselves. It was Boxing Day.
It was just after 10.30am when Robert jumped off the bed and said quietly, "There's a tidal wave coming." I turned and saw a brown mass of water swallowing the self-contained bungalows near the sand. They dissolved like balsa wood.
I still didn't comprehend. I said "No" and then Robert repeated it. Then I asked, "Are we going to die?" as the wave hit the concrete building where we were staying on the third, and top, floor.
It sounded like an aeroplane taking off. A roaring that swelled and dipped, completely surrounding us.
The building under us began to wrench and creak. Glass was shattering, but we couldn't hear anything human. It was as if we were alone.
The water rose ankle-deep in our room and it seemed to be slowing, although the horrible thundering continued.
When we ran up to the roof we couldn't see the ocean, but the thundering had stopped. The wave was sucking back out again. Suddenly we heard car horns, people screaming "help" in Thai, German, Swedish, banging on walls, sobbing.
Robert scrambled to the top of the roof and saw that the ocean had moved. We were in it. But the water was 10 metres higher, brown and clogged with floating timber, cars upside down, houses in pieces.
A Japanese couple arrived, terrified, on the roof, also from the third floor. Robert called to a German couple, the wife half drowned and blue-lipped, gurgling water with every breath. The six of us waited together on the roof and the German man began to pray.
The water seemed to drop at midday. So we went back to our room, grabbed our passports, small backpacks and water bottles, put on our sneakers and made the decision. We weren't waiting here for the next wave. We had to get out, and fast.
We clambered down through our destroyed building over stacks of wood, glass and doors, electric wires, bathroom fittings - it was completely silent. We climbed over bodies in sarongs, swimming costumes and thongs crushed under the rubble.
The reception area was missing so we climbed down into deep water and carefully walked the 400 metres up to the main road.
We picked our way over cars, timber, bodies and roofs through a demolished building site, past people injured and screaming, giving them extra bottles of water that we had taken from our room.
On the other side, the main road was immaculate. A stall with exotic fruit was intact but the normally bustling roadside was almost empty.
We hurried up the mountain on automatic pilot to a half-built resort where people seemed to be heading. And then the waiting, and the stories, began. Parents without children, husbands without wives, children without parents, a blond two-year-old boy wandering around without anyone.
A few hours later rumours were spreading - India was hit, Sri Lanka was hit, we heard that Phuket had been razed.
There were also rumours of another tsunami. Tourists and Thais with energy left headed up the mountain for the night.
A small group of 17 tourists and 10 Thais camped out on palm leaves at the top of the mountain as the full moon rose. People had broken arms - some of them were in pain.
We waited the night, hoping that the next night we could come down. We heard that the streets were filled with bodies.
The next morning we picked our way halfway down the mountain and waited with the Thais, who gave us rice, bananas and bread.
Suddenly, at 1pm, people seemed to start moving down. Rumour had it there were no more tsunamis and we should get out while we could before diseases like cholera set in. We left on a local truck and found our way to Phuket Airport.
Our resort had about 250 tourists staying in it and perhaps 60 Thai staff. We had watched the tourists dance and eat and drink at the Christmas Eve party on the beach.
We don't think more than 20 people, tourists or Thai, in our hotel survived and that was on a beach crammed with seaside resorts like ours.
danke......... this entire story will never be known.
A view from a helicopter of the damage caused by Sunday's tsunami in Phi Phi Island, south of Bangkok, December 29, 2004.
Ping to an intense story.
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My Prayers are going up daily for them. :(
bump for later
No, I didn't catch the tsunami but I did watch Step into Liquid again last night. It's a good movie just to watch the waves and the surfing, one just has to get past the dialog, "one with the wave" and that sort of rot.
The last story is the best, one of the waves they measured at 66 feet. Out in the middle of the ocean (sorry, didn't catch what part of the world) four surfer dudes find huge perfect glassy waves. It was like buttah.
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