Tsunamis, past and present

We just got back from a few day visit to the Ko Phi Phi (pronounced "P.P."), which is famous for a few things, the main ones being that it was the setting for the movie The Beach, starring Leo DiCaprio, and it was also one of the places that was hit the hardest by the tsunami, seven months ago today.

A couple of days ago we went for dinner at our new favorite hangout, a really cool place on the beach called Hippie's which had good food, funky waiters, and a view to die for. We finished our long, relaxed dinner, and headed back to our bungalow just down the beach. We were sitting in bed, Caroline reading, and I writing in my journal, when Caroline said to me, "Hey, did you feel that?" I thought maybe my mad scribbling was shaking the bed, so I stopped. She said, "Did you feel that again? The bed is shaking." I have to confess that I didn't feel anything. Turns out there was a magnitude 7.2 earthquake on the other side of the Indian Ocean, and as soon as word reached Ko Phi Phi that there had been an earthquake, people headed for the hills, literally. They evacuated Hippie's, and most of the Thais headed for an observation point on higher ground. Obviously, the memory of the tsunami is still fresh in everyone's minds.

I was curious to visit Ko Phi Phi to see how it looked, now that several months have passed since the disaster. To be quite frank, it still looks horrible. There is a lot of garbage and damaged buildings, and palm trees with no tops on them. It really makes you feel bad for the Thai people. A lot of them can't afford to rebuild, or can only afford to do a little at a time, so things are going slowly. After I had stayed there a few days, though I began to realize that quite a lot of progress was being made. Things are slowly starting to pick up, and as tourists start to visit the island again and spend money, the pace of reconstruction and clean-up will speed up.

I, along with a few other friends I met there, wondered where all the donation money has gone in all this. I hope that it's filtering down to the people that need it the most, but it sure doesn't seem to have made its way to Ko Phi Phi.