The 2004 Dec TSUNAMI

Photo: Top - Big Game Fishing in the Andaman Sea, off Phuket, Thailand. Bottom - At Patong Beach , Phuket. I befriended some locals who were fishing for "pasir-pasir"[ snelt]. I had my fishing gear with me and joined them .They provided me the live bait...sea worms. There was a plentiful supply of the fish that day.

It was only 3 years ago on Boxing Day 26th December 2004, that the greatest Human disaster in recent times, caused by natural forces took place, killing more than 240,000 people with 140,000 still listed as missing. No one can forget the great castatrophe that was labelled the Asian Tsunami.
A week prior to that fateful day, D2 and I had returned from an overseas trip. We were contemplating to take a short getaway break at Phuket, one of our favourite places. We like the relaxing atmosphere and the usually fine weather there as it allows us to partake in more than one of our luxuries....enjoying unending Thai food, enjoying the vast expanse of the sea and sand in calm waters, enjoying the various exotic and exquisite body and foot massages....and fishing!
If we had gone it would definitely have been over those 3 days, including that fateful Boxing Day.....26th December 2004. And we would most likely have been at the Patong Beach front at that time .....for 2 reasons. The 1st is we usually prefer a hotel that is close to the beach. And the 2nd was after breakfast, we would have headed for the beach....as was our usual custom.
However, we had a family Christmas eve party to attend and on the 27th there were work related matters to attend to. So...in the end we abandoned the idea and kept Phuket for another day. I had often wondered what would have happened if we were out there on Patong beach when the Tsunami waves hit. Not so fortunate were the 5 thousand plus people who had no inkling what hit them that day. They lost their lives.
We were shocked at the almost complete destruction of the main Patong Beach thoroughfare. We had eaten at many of the cafes, restaurants,coffee -houses and patronised many of the other shops and businesses. The scale of destruction was hard to comprehend.
I remember that morning clearly. My Tv set was on....and remained on the whole day, overflowing with images of the death and destruction from so many places....Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Andamans, Sri Lanka, Burma, India, Maldives and even Africa.