Sawatdee Kha

Thailand.
We just arrived from a 3-day trip to Thailand. The beaches were amazing. The water is a clear turquoise blue and as you look down into it, hundreds of colorful Nemo-like fish are dancing in the water. One of our side trips included a speedboat ride out to the Phi-Phi Islands. Some of the islands where we stopped are uninhabited and covered in rainforest.





One of our stops included a bay on an island called Monkey Bay. When told that we were stopping there I figured that the island had just been given that name due to the population of Monkeys in Asia. But as soon as the boat started approaching shore, I saw hundreds of small longtail monkeys running toward the boat and around the beach. The island is full of wild monkeys! The tour guide gave us watermelon to feed the Monkeys. I feed them but was a bit reluctant to get too close because they looked wild and while we were there several of them got into a fight.



The Phi-Phi Islands were the islands that were most severely hit by the Tsunami on December 2004. The tour guide told us that that morning he was on his way to take a group of tourist to the Phi-Phi Islands just like he was taking us. They had some mechanical troubles and were delayed by one hour. Because of that they were out on the ocean when the Tsunami hit and therefore were unaware of what was occurring. Upon arriving to the islands, they saw the catastrophy. He said that he got off the boat and tried to help as many people as he could but there were so many. One of the saddest parts was that our speedboat driver lost 5 family members in the Tsunami ( His parents, wife, and 2 children). His house was gone, his family was gone and he was left with nothing. The government gave him 5,000 Baht (150 US Dollars) as part of the Tsunami relief funds. Most of the aid that had come into Thailand had been siphoned by big political figures and not given to the people. The driver was not able to drive a boat for a year. Every time he was on a boat and saw a wave he gets very frightened. He moved to mainland Thailand until he was able to return to Phuket and resume his job. I still do not know how he can do it. It would be horrible to drive a speedboat for tourist trips to the same site where your family died.


The non-tourist parts are Thailand are very poor. Garbage on the streets, people squatting and eating on the streets, families living in huts. The street vendors are selling crickets, maggots and cockroaches to snack on.

It is easy to tell that Thailand has much poverty, drug trafficking and is tangled up in many sins. Please pray for this country. Khop Khun Kha.