Khao Lak Tsunami Memorials

It's been a long time since I mentioned the tsunami on the blog. Seems like a very long time ago. Our son was born 2 weeks after it happened, and he's passed his 8th birthday now. We do occasionally pause to think about what happened on December 26th 2004. Was certainly an emotional time for me, although we lost nothing and I personally did not know people who died. Actually, Phuket suffered a lot less than Khao Lak (or Phi Phi Island). The number of deaths in Phuket was less than 300. In the Khao Lak area along the coast, the official number was more than 4,000. This is mainly due to the topography of the land and the sea floor - very flat, so the wave could just keep going. In places, the tsunami reached over 1km inland. In other areas where the land rises away from the sea, the damage was a lot less. One of the worst hit areas was the fishing village of Baan Nam Khem which is north of the beaches, close to the larger town of Takua Pa. We've driven this way quite a few times in the last 8 years, on the way to visit places like Khao Sok National Park and the old town of Sri Takua Pa. And each time we passed through I thought about stopping at a tsunami memorial, but at the same time I really did not want to be guilty of "tsunami tourism". But on our recent holiday, since we were staying in Khao Lak, we decided to visit the memorials, pay our respects to those who died. Quite a sombre holiday activity, but after all these years, it was something I wanted to do.

We visited 2 different memorials on different days. The first was the Baan Nam Khem tsunami memorial park. Just to the west of the village, right by the beach. The park looks to be well kept. There's a small museum with lots of photos, and several small stalls selling food and drinks. The main memorial consists of 2 long walls. One is bare concrete and curved like a big wave. The opposite wall is covered in name plaques, some with photos, some with fresh flowers. A long wall full of people who are gone but not forgotten.



I let the kids walk at their own pace, reading names. They know about the tsunami of course, but visiting this memorial at Baan Nam Khem made them stop and think. We stopped by one plaque showing a photo of a young European boy, age 10. Seeing a face and knowing his age really hit home with the kids. "Did he die?" my son asked.



Another who died that day in Khao Lak was a young man called Bhumi Jensen. The tsunami affected a great many families who lost loved ones, and even the Thai royal family was not spared. Bhumi was the son of Princess Ubolratana, the eldest daughter of King Bhumibol. There is a small shrine to him at the memorial park, and also a large Buddha statue right by the sea.



A few days later, and only a short drive from our hotel, we visited another memorial site, one of the symbols of the tsunami, demonstrating just how powerful nature can be. Police patrol boat number 813 was anchored offshore from La Flora resort, on royal protection duty looking after Princess Ubolratana and her family. The force of the tsunami was very strong at this point. The hotel was heavily damaged, many people lost their lives and the 80 foot long police boat was carried over 1km inland by the tsunami. Nobody ever moved the boat. It was decided to leave it as a memorial, although over the years the site had started to get developed. Shophouses line the main road nearby. In 2012 work started on creating a memorial park around the boat with a museum. Work is still in progress.



As you can see, it's a big piece of metal. And (I just checked on Google Earth) it's 1.2km from the sea. When the museum is complete, I imagine we'll visit again. We liked our days in Khao Lak, very relaxing and the hotel prices in low season are very low (see Khao Lak Hotels), although Khao Lak in low season gets more rain than Phuket and if the wind blows strongly, the waves just about cover the whole beach.





For the moment, it's just the boat, a completed but empty building, a wide open park area and a museum under construction very slowly - just a few Burmese construction workers on the job. I imagine they know that quite a lot of Burmese died in the tsunami too - not in Burma, but in the Baan Nam Khem and Khao Lak area - many Burmese work on fishing boats or do building in Thailand.

I think the whole family was glad to visit these memorials. Kids learned something, we got to pay our respects or say a prayer in our own way. Everyone living in this area had their life shaken up by the tsunami, and especially here everyone hopes it will not happen again although, if it did, the loss of life would be a lot less. People know what to do now, and with warning systems in place, such a disaster just could not have the same effect again. Certainly I have no worries about being on the beach, what happened on December 26th 2004 was absolutely a freak of nature. Not to be forgotten, but not to be feared either.


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Koh Tachai Island - Day trip from Khao Lak

On our recent holiday we spent a total of 4 nights in Khao Lak, and we'll be going again next time the kids have some school holidays. It was very relaxing, much of the time was spent in the pool, or walking on the beach, or having breakfast, lunch, dinner and sunset beers! But we did have one day trip planned and booked in advance. Koh Tachai is a small island about 50km north of the Similan Islands, out in the Andaman Sea off the west coast of Thailand. We had heard that the speedboat tours left from Ban Nam Khem, a small fishing port and village north of Khao Lak, and from there it would be about 50km to Koh Tachai. I have been to Koh Tachai many times in the past for diving on liveaboard boats and have had some great dives there with manta rays at a dive site called Tachai Pinnacle, but I had never set foot on the island before! Over the last couple of years Tachai has been becoming a popular alternative to the Similan Islands, which get a lot more visitors. Thai tourists especially seemed to be heading to Tachai, I saw lots of lovely photos on Thai websites and also on Thai TV channels. I knew my friends at Easy Day Thailand could book us on the tour, so we signed up and were ready on a warm but hazy morning on April 25th. Minibus pick up was on time, but we headed south towards Thap Lamu port, not north to Ban Nam Khem. Looked like we'd be leaving from Thap Lamu which would mean a 70km speedboat trip. We had a wait of about 20 minutes before boarding the speedboat while the tour operator sorted out various groups heading to different islands. Coffee, tea and toast were provided (self service) and then we headed to the speedboat. Aside from our family of 6, all other customers on the trip were Thai.



We sped out of Thap Lamu, the sky cleared up a little, the sea was flat calm, looked like a perfect day coming up! I had been a little worried about my parents doing a long speedboat trip out in the sun all day, but with mirror-like seas and a bit of cloud cover, we all sat in the front of the speedboat while all the white skinned Bangkok Thai people hid in the shade :)



It was going to be quite a long ride, about 90 minutes to Koh Tachai. Would have been less from Ban Nam Khem, but departure point had been switched due to the tides - Thap Lamu is a deep water port used by dive boats, fishing boats and the Thai navy too. Well anyway, as the sun came out and the sea was so calm, a longer ride did not matter. My daughter enjoyed being right in the bow with the wind in her hair ...



Unfortunately ... things then went a bit pear shaped. Some dark clouds ahead. Surely just hazy skies? Maybe a light shower? We sped onward. Very dark clouds. Lightning. Are we going through that? Well, the sea was still calm. I sent the family "inside" and took a quick snapshot with the phone before the rain bucketed down...



Well, the next 30 minutes were very very wet. Everyone was soaked since the roof of the speedboat had a gap all the way around, and in came the rain. My poor dad was not feeling too healthy, and I was just cursing our luck! The speedboat carried on, sea was a little bouncy but there were no big waves, but at the same time, there seemed to be no let up in the rain and no brightening of the sky. We arrived at Koh Tachai in the rain, left all bags and cameras under cover on the boat, then off into the treeline to find some shelter. Must have carried on raining for another hour, time we would have spent snorkeling or walking on the beach, instead of hiding and drinking tea!

And then, as if by magic .. within minutes (so it seemed) the rain disappeared, the sky cleared and it was suddenly the perfect day! Everyone was stripping down to swimwear and hanging up clothes to dry in the trees. And then we could all see the attraction of Koh Tachai island! Our guide decided that the 'jungle walk' that should be part of the day would be cancelled to give everyone plenty of beach time after the rains. I went climbing back on the speedboat to look for everyone's bags and cameras which had been stored in a dry space when the rain started. And then the photo-shoot could begin!



Much of the next couple of hours was spent on the beach, playing in the water with the kids, doing a little snorkeling (but not much to see right by the beach, you have to swim out further) and taking photos. The tour operator provided drinks all day (juices, sodas, tea, coffee, drinking water) and snacks like nuts and biscuits. The actual lunch was a bit disappointing for me, though I think the rain meant that the staff had a hard time getting everything ready. Anyway, why waste time eating in the shade when you can jump!



The kids wanted nothing more than to swim, snorkel and play in the shallow waters by the beach. It certainly is very beautiful and you can't really get colours like this so close to Phuket, although Racha Yai island is pretty good. I just wished the weather had been like this ALL day, although considering that I got a pretty good sunburn anyway, maybe that was enough sun. The kids can normally be out all day without feeling the sun, though my daughter has fair skin which can get quite red, and it did on this day. For a couple of hours, kids were in their own private paradise!



OK, not quite private, there were about 6 speedboats there on the same day, but as with most tourist locations, if you walk a couple of hundred meters you lose 90% of the people who just plonk their lazy behinds down on the first available patch of sand. The beach on the east side of Tachai is about 700m long, plenty of room to spread out. Tommy the guide called it 'Paradise Island', which I guess is the tourist name or the name his employers tell him to use! There are plenty of paradise islands around these parts! Koh Tachai has no development save for a ranger station, some toilets, a couple of covered areas with a concrete floor and some thatched bamboo gazebos. Hope it stays that way.



Days like these are more for the kids than the adults! I am happy that our kids love the outdoors, swimming, boat trips, and don't complain too much when we do other things like visit temples. On this same trip (to be blogged) we visited a couple of tsunami memorials and I think the kids learned something from that. But the day at Koh Tachai was certainly more fun! Here's the boy, mask in hand, skipping his way through the shallows...



A word about our guide on the trip, Tommy - nice guy, very friendly. We met him the next week on our return to Khao Lak, on the beach with his family and we stopped for a chat. If you are on this tour, leave him a tip! When it was time to get back on the speedboat he wandered up and down the beach to find everyone, ukelele in hand ...



Took a while to get off the beach, as the tide was low. Everyone had to get onto a national park flat bottomed boat to transfer to the speedboat. For a moment I was worried that we were heading straight back to port, and with the rain we'd really only had a couple of hours of beach time, surely we could not be leaving already? No ... we headed along the east coast of the island for some snorkeling. The kids and I joined most of the Thai folks from Bangkok and Tommy for about 20 minutes, and there was some good fish life on this part of the island. My son was quite proud of the distance we swam during this snorkeling session. The kids love the water, I guess I'll have to be taking them diving soon!

How much did you enjoy the day, son?



In the end a very good day out. With the rain, and then the sun, everyone was cream crackered by the end of the day. It is actually possible to do the trip if you stay in Phuket, but that means a pick up at about 6am. Certainly this is a better option if you stay in Khao Lak. Now, until last month I did not really care for Khao Lak, but I can see now why people like it. If you have a 2 week Phuket trip, then a few days in Khao Lak is a good idea, but the day trips to Koh Tachai and the Similan Islands only operate in high season November - April.

• Contact Easy Day Thailand to book trips to Koh Tachai, Similan Islands and just about anything else.
• More Information about Khao Lak
• Khao Lak Hotels at Agoda.com
• Phuket Hotels at Agoda.com

Koh Tachai - Location Map


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Ton Prai Waterfall near Khao Lak

We've all just had a little holiday, and life is now settling back to normal with work and school and blogging! While on holiday I took plenty of photos and posted updates on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but couldn't face a whole blog post and was trying to keep off the computer as much as possible and spend more time with the family. Mum and Dad were here from England, kids had school holidays and I had a couple of weeks away from the dive shop. Much of the time was quite relaxed, nothing too strenuous. We did 2 separate trips to Khao Lak and I will write more about Khao Lak sometime soon. We'd not been to stay there before, and we liked it. Khao Lak is less than 2 hours drive from our house, about 100km north. On the way home from the second trip, we stopped off at Ton Prai waterfall, which is about about 30km south of Nanthong beach in Khao Lak where we stayed, or 30km north of Sarasin bridge which joins Phuket island to the mainland. It's then another 6km down a small side road which gets narrower and more jungly as you approach the hills. It was clearly signposted, easy to find. We had stopped last year one time, but on a rainy day and we did not fancy a walk in the jungle! This time the sky was blue with some fluffy cotton wool clouds floating around. We stopped at the entrance / visitors center where you have to pay an entry fee, currently 100 Baht for a tourist, cheaper for Thai people. My wife negotiated a group price for 6 of us :)



There are some clean toilets at the entrance. Nowhere to buy a drink, though .. we should have stopped at a 7-11 or local store to get a few bottles of water along the way. Hot day, walking in the jungle, need drinks! There's a sign at the visitors center explaining that it's a 650m walk to reach Ton Prai waterfall. There's another sign too ... Conserve nature. Do not leave anything here. Good. And then a wonderful mis-spelling or mistranslation ... Accept your Footprint. Should say "Except" but actually turns into a Buddhist concept. Accept your footprint. I like it!



The walk to the waterfall was quite easy, the path is well made, up and downhill sections mostly have steps rather than rough ground, not too many loose stones, it was no bother for my parents who are not as young as they used to be :) The walk is very jungly and I do like a bit of jungle in small doses, though prefer sweeping views. Big rainforest trees with buttress roots are a favourite of mine. The roots are mostly above ground because rainforest soil has most of it's nutrients near the surface, and buttress roots are there to soak up all the goodness!



And here's Mum and Dad enjoying a jungle walk!



Now, there are quite a lot of waterfalls in and around Phuket (see Waterfalls in Phuket), and most are pretty small. The main attraction is the jungle ambience, and maybe a chance to jump in and cool off! I had heard that Ton Prai was worth a visit, and .. yes, it is! Even though we visited at the end of a very dry season, there was still plenty of water. Here's the first sight of Ton Prai at the end of the path ...



Yeh, it's not huge, but I like the water tumbling down the rocks. I guess after some rain it would look better. There's a shallow pool under the falls - often falls have deep pools but since the water is not falling vertically, it's not created a deep pool. My boy was straight in to check it out!



Is it cold? Well, let's say it's "refreshing"! And even a little jungle walk can make you sweat a little. So I jumped in too for a splash with the kids. It was easy enough to go and sit right under the waterfall. Would that be possible in rainy season? Not sure. Here's me enjoying a free shower ...



We're thinking of a little trip to Khao Lak sometime in the low season, so will check out Ton Prai again, as well as a return visit to Sri Phang Nga national park north of Khao Lak which features several waterfalls, including Tamnang which is quite impressive. Ton Prai deserves another look, and is easy enough to visit on the way to Khao Lak or on the way home.

Here's some more of that jungle :)



Next few blog posts will also feature the Khao Lak area. We took a speedboat day trip to Koh Tachai island, we visited a couple of tsunami memorials and really enjoyed a couple of easy relaxing days staying at a small resort by the sea. With low season prices, hotels in Khao Lak are a bargain for half the year! Only trouble is that Khao Lak gets very quiet and a lot of things close up. We'll see later this year!


Ton Prai Waterfall - Location Map


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