On the morning that the Tsunami in Asia hit, we were scheduled to fly from Amsterdam to Phuket in Thailand. Early that morning before we left our home for the airport, about 5 hours after the tsunami hit, I was checking the web to see if there had been anymore bombings in Southern Thailand. At that time, there was just starting to be a few news reports about the tsunami and Phuket was mentioned. I called Peter into the computer room and told him he better take a look at what I was seeing. After a few phone calls between us and our travel agent and Thailand tourism, we were unable to determine the extent of the damage. The only information we could get from the travel agents in Phuket was "not today (don't come today), maybe tomorrow". We made the decision to head to the airport and await further information. Before flying out of Amsterdam, we had determined that we would have to change our travel plans away from Phuket and make final arrangements when we arrived in Bangkok. Needless to say, Kate and Anna were a bit worried about this, as were my parents and sister who had come to the Netherlands for Christmas. Because we knew the rest of Thailand was unaffected, Peter and I were not overly concerned about being able to visit somewhere in Thailand.
During the first few days, our local travel agent rebooked us into a hotel at Pattaya, a beach resort about 2 hours south of Bangkok on the Gulf of Thailand (the opposite side from where the tsunami hit). Pattaya is like Myrtle Beach in many ways -- fast, busy, crowded, and a little seedy. We spent a full day relaxing by the hotel pool, sitting by the beach watching the people go by and a couple of evenings shopping in the street markets where you can buy anything. Since Pattaya is right up the beach from a US military base, you see lots of American men with much younger Thai women. Actually, you see alot of men that we figure never left after the Vietnam and Korean wars. |
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After many more phone conversations between our Netherlands travel agent and the local travel agents, we determined that we would not be able to travel south in Thailand due to the tsunami and because everywhere on the eastern side was fully booked; nor could we travel north in Thailand because all flights north were also fully booked. Our original plans were to spend a week in Phuket and head back to Bangkok for 4 nights. We knew we did not want to spend a week in Pattaya, so, we decided to head to Cambodia, on the advice of our travel agent.
We had many frantic phone calls from friends who knew we had headed to Thailand and had one good friend send a message to the CNN website where people were posting queries about missing people in Thailand. Unfortunately, upon arriving into Bangkok, my PalmPilot reset itself and I lost all my phone contact data. So we were only able to call friends and families whose numbers we remembered or had on our cell phones.
To all those who were concerned, we thank you for your thoughts. In the midst of all the chaos and tragedy, we had a very good vacation, which caused us all pangs of guilt and moments of reflection.
Follow the links below if you would like to read more/see more photos of Cambodia or Bangkok. |
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