I hadn’t been awake long when I heard my brother JJ outside our beach bungalow in Ko Lanta talking to our dad. Although it was the morning of December 26th, back in Seattle it was Christmas night, and JJ was wishing him a merry Christmas. It was the beginning of our last, lazy day on the small island off Thailand’s coast in the Andaman Sea, but when my brother yelled “Shane, get out here,” his tone indicated something was wrong.
When I came outside, he pointed to the beach where we’d been lounging for the past few days, but the beach was submerged. The water had risen to the point where sand met land, and the current was running parallel to the shore like a river.
At our resort’s reception area, no one knew what was going on, but in the minute or two it took us to get there from our bungalow, the sea had receded. We sat down to order breakfast, looking out at the Andaman, trying to make sense of its behavior.
Soon we spotted a set of waves far offshore. They weren’t much larger than the surf you might see along the Southern California coast, but these were out of place. In the three days we’d been there, we hadn’t seen anything that would resemble breaking waves, just gentle ripples lapping the shore. Something else—this I didn’t realize until I returned to Los Angeles—was the speed of these waves; they were moving too fast.
They charged ashore, roiling the sand as they surged, sweeping tables and chairs up at the restaurant. As the waves crashed into the restaurant’s foundation, the hotel manager ordered everyone out. Amidst the following tumult of confusion and misinformation, we spent the day atop a hill waiting for the approach of rumored waves. We slept atop the same hill that night beaneath a full moon setting into the Andaman.
We returned to our resort the next morning. Indicated by the ribbon of detritus, the water had come within feet of our bungalow door, and there was minimal water damage throughout the resort. My Reefs, which I’d taken off per custom before entering the reception area, had been washed fifty feet from where I left them.
When we walked up and down the beach, witnessing the decimation of other resorts and bungalows, the destructive force of the wave became clearer to me.
At the airport in Krabi later that day, the gravity of the tsunami was more pronounced. Everyone was trying to get back to Bangkok. Everywhere around us people’s faces told stories of a wave far more devastating than what we’d encountered.
When we returned to Bangkok, where news and information was more readily available, the magnitude of the tsunami that struck Southeast Asia, India, and places as far away as Zanzibar and East Africa crystallized.
More than five years after the wave, that day serves as a reminder of nature’s fickle way.
I remember telling my students after the tsunami that my New Year’s resolution was, simply, to have a New Year’s resolution the following year. After witnessing a natural disaster that killed more than 180,000 people, I resolved to make it another year.
When I came outside, he pointed to the beach where we’d been lounging for the past few days, but the beach was submerged. The water had risen to the point where sand met land, and the current was running parallel to the shore like a river.
At our resort’s reception area, no one knew what was going on, but in the minute or two it took us to get there from our bungalow, the sea had receded. We sat down to order breakfast, looking out at the Andaman, trying to make sense of its behavior.
Soon we spotted a set of waves far offshore. They weren’t much larger than the surf you might see along the Southern California coast, but these were out of place. In the three days we’d been there, we hadn’t seen anything that would resemble breaking waves, just gentle ripples lapping the shore. Something else—this I didn’t realize until I returned to Los Angeles—was the speed of these waves; they were moving too fast.
They charged ashore, roiling the sand as they surged, sweeping tables and chairs up at the restaurant. As the waves crashed into the restaurant’s foundation, the hotel manager ordered everyone out. Amidst the following tumult of confusion and misinformation, we spent the day atop a hill waiting for the approach of rumored waves. We slept atop the same hill that night beaneath a full moon setting into the Andaman.
We returned to our resort the next morning. Indicated by the ribbon of detritus, the water had come within feet of our bungalow door, and there was minimal water damage throughout the resort. My Reefs, which I’d taken off per custom before entering the reception area, had been washed fifty feet from where I left them.
When we walked up and down the beach, witnessing the decimation of other resorts and bungalows, the destructive force of the wave became clearer to me.
At the airport in Krabi later that day, the gravity of the tsunami was more pronounced. Everyone was trying to get back to Bangkok. Everywhere around us people’s faces told stories of a wave far more devastating than what we’d encountered.
When we returned to Bangkok, where news and information was more readily available, the magnitude of the tsunami that struck Southeast Asia, India, and places as far away as Zanzibar and East Africa crystallized.
More than five years after the wave, that day serves as a reminder of nature’s fickle way.
I remember telling my students after the tsunami that my New Year’s resolution was, simply, to have a New Year’s resolution the following year. After witnessing a natural disaster that killed more than 180,000 people, I resolved to make it another year.
For at least a few years, that resolution seemed good enough.
***
Tomorrow, my brother and I will return to the islands of southern Thailand, and we will stay again on Ko Lanta. I’m not sure what this reunion will bring, but the lesson from our first encounter is clearer to me now than it was in the days and weeks that followed Christmas 2004. It is also clear that the resolution of five years ago is woefully inadequate.
I have learned since then that it is not enough to simply resolve to get to the next year. Whether it is next year, next month, or even tomorrow, it is not nearly enough to simply count the time as it passes. Some purpose must attach to that passage of time. There must be something more.
Wow Shane.
ReplyDeleteThis is an amazing story that I would have never thought you were a witness.
Here's to many more years of resolutions for you.