Brushed by Catastrophe: an Eye-witness Account of the Tsunami
© Pieter
Thanks for thinking of me in Thailand.
Returned yesterday afternoon from Phuket.
We flew down, Thai Airways (myself, Noi, and the 2 children, Saifa, out 4 years 9 months daughter, and Tawan, our 8 month son) on the 21st, Tuesday at 11 am, with the intention to return to Bangkok on the 26th, Sunday evening.
We stayed at the JW Marriott Phuket, which is around 20 minutes from the airport, located north central of the Island.
We had the same one bedroom beachfront suite as last year. From our location is a short walk out to the pool and behind the pool, the central part of the hotel with the lobby and main restaurants on the 2nd floor, and shops, a large pond with fire shoots on the ground floor.
Naturally, we had a good time. We visited Phuket Fantasy on Christmas even and Santa came on Christmas day in the afternoon.
As the trip before, the health club let me use one of their rooms to lead a Kundalini Yoga Sadhana for anyone that wanted to join up (room for 6 people, plus myself), an people, some who had been practicing yoga for many years, had the chance to experience their life force emanating in and around their bodies and radiating through their minds, with just one or 2 classes, 2 hours from 6 to 8 am.
Our last day we were to leave the hotel around 4 in the afternoon for a 6 evening flight, so rather than going swimming towards the end of the afternoon, as I did with Saifa each day, we were getting ready to go out around 10 am.
Saifa was at the glass windows, while I was finishing up some e-mails at the desk, when she called me to look at the boat. I went over and saw a 25 meter yacht coming across from the horizon being pushed by a large wave. The boat hit a sandbar of some type some about 100 meters out, but the wave kept coming.
The private, secluded beachfront of the JW Marriott is relatively small, maybe around 10 meters of slightly sloping beach front that goes up sharply at a 45 degree incline for another 30 to 40 meters. Then there's another 50 meters from the crest of that upward include across flat sandy area with light vegetation to the pool area and maybe 60 to 70 meters to our patio and the sliding glass doors of our suite.
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