Tsunami country

So, we got to Ko Lanata right at the end of the season after a bit of an arduous journey... However, the island is beautiful and the places that were still open did really great food. The main village on Ko Lanta is a great place with lots of cool little shops with so much stuff I want to buy...

I would like to come back in in the peak season at some point, when there is more open and the seas are less rough, but I am glad we made it this time too.

Of course, Ko Lanta was our first venture into Tsunami country. It wasn't hit as badly as other places when the tsunami struck, but it was still pretty bad. Loss of life, bad injuries, loss of homes and businesses.

Where we stayed, at Time for Lime, a few of the bungalows were destroyed and the cook school and garden completely devestated. You wouldn't know it now, but on other parts of the beach and the wider island you can still see both rebuilding and ominous empty spaces. However, there are even more stark reminders of what happened 18 months ago.

Having hired a jeep we went to book ferry tickets to Phuket. We arrived at the little port and were approached by an official looking man with a folder. 'Can we book tickets here?' 'Yes, yes. Yes, yes'.

The man flips open his folder which is full of pictures. Our first instinct is that this is a tout for island hoppping as we have been approached in this way before. But no, we look more closely at the pictures and they are of the immediate aftermath of the Tsunami. People with really bad injuries.

The man points to a guy in the picture with an ambulance uniform on and then to his own ambulance uniform. Then he touches my arm and says 'Farang' (white person) and points to a picture of a guy who is, at the very least, very badly injured. Possibly even dead. 'Farang' he says again.

I can't look and he flips over more pages of injured people - possibly even the dead. So we make a move to leave. And he flips to a final page in his book with shows how much of a donation he is looking for for ongoing help.

But how do you say the following in Thai?

• I care, I really really do.
• I know - we raised quite a bit of money for the tsunami relief fund last year.
• What organisation are you with?
• How much of the money goes to people who really need it?
• Please - stop showing me pictures of dead people.

It's tough. They do still need help out here. Huge numbers of the people out here who were injured still need treatment. Many, many of those who lost their homes still live in poor conditions. But, is that the right approach? He was the first of many guys we saw that day, two of whom tried to show us the pictures whilst we were having lunch.

In Phuket there is also a lot of evidence of fund raising for the victims of the Tsunami. It's different though. T-shirts, books, collection boxes. But most of all, no pictures of dead people.