General Chat

shameless nudge

MAZ thanx for sharing this e-mail with us It will take a long time if ever for your friends to try & put this behind them, but I am glad they are safe. Love Lorraine xx

maz thankyou for sharing this with us. thank goodness your friends are safe,they must have been so afraid love and hugs susie

Maz I am so glad they were safe, what a relief for everyone. Christine

oh Maz - thank God they are safe.

That's amazing. I'm glad that your friends son and girlfriend are OK. Also shows the best of human nature - we're at our best when things are at their worst and differences, religious or otherwise are totally irrelavant. (pity it couldn't be like that all the time) Kxx

Maz how on earth do you help any one who has been through so much, there lives will never be the same Thank God they are alive, love and my prayers to you all. Love Debs.

Hi Guys, Firstly thanks so much for the nice emails of concern and well wishing and aspecially xxxxx who helped us try and sort out where to go, that meant a lot. In case you did not hear we were staying on Phi Phi Island just off of Phuket when the wave hit at about 10am in the morning. The island was totally destroyed and just a few buildings remained standing, ours being one, albeit the floors below were flooded. We were so lucky, had we not have been in our hotel we would have been in all sorts. For some reason despite the nice weather and an early night the night before, we were both being incredibly lazy and I was in bed and xxxx had just come out of the shower when we heard screaming and banging coming towards us. I thought it could be a carnival, perhaps a runaway truck or something, then it got louder and louder and the building started to shake. Xxxx looked out and saw a wall of water coming towards us people running trying to run into the nearest buildings. By the time I made it to the window the water had flooded the floor below us and was still rising but the main wave had not touched our floor. We got dressed and removed the glass out of our bedroom window so we could escape onto the roof if need be. The water then went back out to sea and we could see the destruction it left behind. The about 15 mins later a second wave came in, unfortunately many people had gone onto the ground to look at the damage and rescue people so these people were caught up in the second wave. We could not get down onto the street level as the floors below us were destroyed, furniture lay in the corridors blocking the exit. This was probably a blessing in disguise. We realised we had to get out and there were a few of us in the hotel who managed to climb out a window onto a bank at the back and climb onto the roof and up to safety on a hill. ..we could not go down to help the injured for fear of another wave. Temporary hospitals were set up by travellers and we climbed back in through top floor windows to rescue bed sheets which we used in combination with bits of roofing panels to make into stretchers. There was four of us doing this, us two and a scottish couple, we took the stretchers to the injured and the thai people transported them to safety, and later to helicopters. We were also breaking down doors in hotels to use them as stretchers too, the number of injured was incredible, people with broken legs, backs, arms but mainly deep cuts where the glass in the water had cut them. One friend we made lost his girlfriend, he found her later but she was in a bad way. Many of the children and families we had seen earlier were nowhere to be seen. As news spread of a second wave coming in we headed up to the highest point of the island .... We reached the top to find about 200 people up there, many injured and many too scared to venture back down in case the water came again. We found a place by a tree and as darkness fell tried to rest. It was always going to be the worst nights sleep ever but it was unbelieveably scary as people were shouting 'snake' and a huge stampede away from the area would occur, people were trampling over others to get away from snakes, scorpions and spiders that were up there. The thai people also kept lighting fires, not wise since it was so dry, these got out of hand too and fire became a problem, basically everyone was so on edge, scared and the slightest noise would set people off. I stayed up all night and at first light we headed back down the hill .... and headed to where people were saying boats were coming to rescue us. We somehow managed to get on the first available ferry that morning and were in Phuket by 10am and greeted by the most amazing and kind people who gave us food, water, free transport and accomodation. We then spent one more night in Phuket before flying out to Bangkok and again we were greeted by locals and the British Embassy which sorted us out with a top hotel in Bangkok for 2 nights totally free, awesome. So far we have slept for almost 30 hours in the last 2 days, absolutely shattered but well. (Any spelling mistakes are my own. I have permission to copy this, but have omitted the names deliberately. Maz. XX)

When I went to work today I found that my friend's son and his girlfriend were in Phuket during the Tsunami. They have been travelling for nearly a year. My friend had a terrible wait until they managed to text a message to say that they are safe. He has now sent her the following e-mail from Bangkok which I thought you would like to read. There was a lot more that he told his mum but didn't include in the e-mail. Maz. XX Please give me a few mins to type it up as its quite long.