3000 out of 10,000 people in Koh Phi Phi were killed this last December by the tsunami. That’s almost a third of the population. The wreckage is still strewn about and buildings with blown out windows still stand around waiting for repair or replacement. Before the tsunami, this island was packed full of highly expensive ritzy hotels, not a shoestringer destination. But now the island is trying to rebuild and most are starting from scratch so it’s a great backpacker-type place.
Cole, our scuba diving instructor, was high enough in his bungalow on one of the hills to escape. After the waves tore through at least 2 stories of the lowland, he came down to find pale, bloated, dead bodies lying awkwardly and crumpled up all over the place. He pointed out one small area where he said at least 25 bodies lay along with hundreds of rotting, stinking fish. Fish of all sorts, he said, many being fish he’d never seen or heard of. He saw one man trying to pick up his obviously dead wife with her legs wrapped around behind her head. Awful. But as the resilient species of humans generally do, the people aren’t moping and drowning in sorrow and sadness but are recovering with a new sense of community. We ate at the Papaya Restaurant last night (I had some excellent Phad Thai) and Cole told us the story of the owner/cook. Since the storm, he has spent most of his day volunteering to help rebuild. Before his restaurant was built, he would work on it after the volunteering. Now his restaurant (and probably his home) is built so he cooks in the evening. Cole said he stills helps clean and rebuild starting at 7 or 8 am until early evening when he starts serving food. And then the restaurant is open until 3 am. Wow.
I casually mentioned that Cole is our scuba diving instructor. Yep, yesterday afternoon we decided on a whim to do a day and a half introductory/fun course. After learning the required skills last night (plus a bunch more because a German girl was with us who is doing the full 3 days for Open Water certification), Cole explained how little we had left to do to go ahead and become Scuba Diver certified. Scuba Diver certification means you can dive to 12 meters and Open Water certification means you can dive to 18 meters. Open Water is the major step you have to take, from there you can do specialty things like rescue or photo-taking or something. Anyway, at the last minute Cole convinced us to go ahead with Scuba Diver certification because all it really requires is a little book learning and some tests and some more money. We’d be doing the same dives either way so it’d kind of be a waste not to get certified. We did our dives today, the first one I was concentrating more on the gear aspect of it but the second dive was awesome! It’s called Table Top and there’s all kinds of fascinating colored coral and pretty fish. I especially like this bright green coral stuff and the bright blue fish, but of course the clownfish mucking around in their anemones were sweet too. Well, of course, with a bit more money, a couple more tests, and 2 more dives tomorrow we can get our Open Water certification. Once you have that, you never have to do it again and you can dive anywhere in the world up to 18 meters! So we’re doing it! Duh! The other big draw to doing it here is that it’s one of the cheapest place in the world to get certified. Hawaii would be at least 3 times the price we’re told. So tomorrow we’re diving two more times in beautiful, calm, clear, green sea right by the picturesque island, Phi Phi Ley, where The Beach was filmed. Ah yeah.
Internet is expensive here and I’ve already been on too long, I may or may not have a chance to blog over in the Krabi area where we plan to be tomorrow night. If not, see ya’ll back home! Hasta.
I was wondering if you had mailed your tailor-made clothes to your place so have been looking for a package. The diving sounds awesome…so glad you tried it out…see you at Boring…Love you, mom
Cynde Mom | April 9th, 2007 at 3:52 pm |actually we sent everything to Danica’s PO Box in Portland so hopefully they will hold it there. i wanted to be able to wear it when i got back! thanks for watching.
admin | April 9th, 2007 at 3:52 pm |[...] Ko Phi Phi. This island was devastated by a tsunami on December 26, 2004, about 8 months before I showed up. So I had this random thought about Ko Phi Phi and Googled it to look at pictures or whatever and [...]
Keith and Lacey » Blog Archive » Ko Phi Phi Tragedy | August 28th, 2009 at 12:32 pm |