Lucky Lanta

On boxing day 2004 a devastating tsunami hit many countries around the Indian ocean. Traveling the Andaman coast in Thailand it is impossible not to think about this horrifying day. While certain islands and towns were lucky, other places suffered enormous damages with many lives lost.

Our two island stops along the Thai cost have been Ko Phi Phi and Ko Lanta. Two islands with very different fates that day. The location and topography of Ko Phi Phi turned out to be devastating. The island basically consists of two main land bodies with high steep cliffs. These two land masses are connected by a long sand bank that is only a couple of hundred meters wide and not more than a few meters above sea level. This gives the island it's fantastic beauty with one lime stone bay on each side but it also created a death trap when the waves came. Most of the buildings on the island are located on this sand bank and when the tsunami came towards the island the high cliffs tunneled all the water right into town.

Ko Lanta on the other hand was lucky due to it's location and shape. It is long and quite narrow and the tsunami came in parallel to the island. Most of the island was therefore not affected by the waves. After the tsunami Ko Lanta is nicknamed Lucky Lanta. One exception was the hotel we stayed at. It is located on a little peninsula in the north west of the island and as the waves travelled up along the cost it took out everything on this little peninsula. Luckily most people were already up and out of their bungalows as it hit at 10am. Two guests at the hotel lost their lives, one man sleeping in his bungalow and a young girl swimming in the pool.

We talked to several people on Phi Phi that had lost both friends and family to the tsunami. With everything now rebuilt you don't see any physical traces of the disaster. You do however know that everyone living on the island had their lives forever affected.

Ko Phi Phi