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After our jungle adventure, we got back on our bikes (this time ready to take on the fl*pping great big hill!). Tracing our steps back to Takua Pa, and then onwards to Khao Lak – a popular tourist resort with a nice tropical beach, and loads and loads and loads of rooms, restaurants and everything else touristy!! Well – before the Tsunami that is…
Khao Lak had made the headlines last year as one of the most decimated places in Thailand hit by the Tsunami, on December 26, 2004. We were concerned of what we might find. Having seen some of the TV footage at the time we were expecting to see half destroyed buildings, uprooted trees, damaged roads, and perhaps even a bit of a ghost town in parts. As we approached the town we started to see Tsunami evacuation sites as well as Tsunami relief points. A lot of villages along the coast were reconstructed (some on stilts) – there was one make-shift town with tents whilst on the other side of the road the new town was being constructed out of concrete. But apart from that, there was very little to show that this was a badly hit area. The roads were smooth tarmac, and the vegetation seemed well recovered. In Khao Lak itself, it was business as usual – 14 months after the disaster, all resorts and hotels were open and back in business.
However the signs of the suffering were still evident in places – photos of tourists lost at particular resorts (bodies never recovered), with desperate pleas for information; a police boat washed up 1 km inland and left where the wave placed it as a reminder of just how far the wave had come; and several memorials to the victims of the disaster, more than half of whom were foreign tourists, undoubtedly having a Xmas break on the beaches of Thailand.
