The school and university years had ended so we set off for a two week jaunt in Thailand. We landed in Phuket and were driven an hour or so north to the small beachside town of Khao Lak. The coastal area around the town had been hit harder than any other parts of Thailand in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. The official death toll was around 4,000, but the ever reliable Wikipedia reports that due to lack of reliable census data and the large numbers of undocumented Burmese immigrants it could have been as high as 10,000. There was no shortage of reminders of what had happened here - a tsunami museum, and a brand new early warning with sirens and signs directing people where to go to get to high ground in the event of a repeat. It was hard to imagine just how extraordinarily bad it had been. When it had all subsided a large navy boat was apparently found some two kilometres inland. Weve since seen the horrific movie The Impossible starring Naomi Watts. It was filmed in Khao Lak, and was based on the true story of Spanish doctor Maria Belon and her family. Theyd
been staying at one of the Khao Lak resorts when the wave hit and were swept away and separated. Maria suffered horrific injuries, but somehow survived, along with her husband and their three young sons. We very much suspected that the locals were highly dependent on tourism for their so it was good to see that most of the resorts seemed to have been rebuilt and the tourism industry seemed to be well and truly up and running again.
Emma, Troy and I decided wed go elephant riding. Now Im not sure Id do this again knowing what I do now about how some of these poor creatures are apparently treated, but the ones we rode on seemed to be well cared for as far as we could tell. They dont walk all that quickly, which probably shouldnt have surprised us. The trek was fairly short, and took us to a nice waterfall out in the jungle where we could cool down, and the elephants could get a drink. We got back to the car park to be confronted by a man with a small and very lively monkey on a lead. Hed seemingly appeared out of nowhere
and his charge immediately made a beeline for one of Emmas legs. A few seconds later it had wrapped itself around her head. Just as well shes an animal lover. I started to take pictures, but of course there was a catch. Payment was required. It was hard to begrudge that. It certainly was entertaining, and we were left wondering how the handler and the many like him had managed to survive both the tsunami and a few subsequent years here without any tourists.
Most memorable travel stories inevitably seem to involve things that went wrong, and this trip was no exception. Troy got sick, and boy did he get sick. He said he was feeling a bit off, so he stayed in the room one night while the rest of us went out for dinner. When we got back we found him lying on the floor in the bathroom looking like he wanted to die. The hotel called a doctor who gave him a jab and something to get him rehydrated. Emma had gone out in sympathy, so she got jabbed as well. The medico told us that if Troy wasnt a lot better in a few hours
wed need to get him admitted to the local hospital. Hmmmm. We were in a relatively remote location in a distinctly third world country, so this didnt seem like a particularly attractive proposition. The hotel chef then turned up to offer his apologies. Im not sure why - Troy could have picked up whatever hed got from anywhere. If it was the hotel food then surely the rest of us would have also been sick, along presumably with most of the other guests. Im not sure Id want the stress of being a hotel chef - one dodgy meal and all the guests get sick. And I dont think youd be getting too many positive reviews, so you could probably forget about too many more guests turning up for a long time afterwards. Fortunately Troy did recover relatively quickly, but the memory lingers.
We took a tour to some of the local Buddhist temples.
