Phuket - Sunday/Monday, Plane Crash

[Sunday Sept 16th]
Today turned out to be a tragic day, but it didn't start out that way...
We got up as usual and had our American Breakfast. Shortly after, us guys hit the pool and the ladies went for massage. There was a basket ball hoop and a basket ball at the pool. We began by playing some friendly Pool Horse. I was in the running for a while, holding my own, quite surprising since I never play BB. I fell apart at the end and the guys wrestled to the end with some long and tricky shots. We started playing a half court game, again it started out friendly. Then we turned it up a notch. We must've played for an hour. We came out with a few scratches and I took an elbow to the lips, nice an swollen ;) Soon enough our game was over. I think I need to get a basketball back home and try some real hoops! It could actually be fun ;)

We headed back to town for some food and shopping. We stopped at a little place for lunch. The amount of food on their menu was amazing, especially since they only had about 6 tables. Looking outside from the restaurant you could see a ton of wires hanging from the street poles. Amazing really. Could you imagine the wiring layout schematic? jeez, what a mess! Anyway, as we were waiting for our food it began to rain. Deluge would probably be more appropriate. Luckily we had taken on of the few tables inside. All the people sitting out side scrambled inside and too the last table. They had one of those pull down security doors like you'd find at the stores in the mall, they pulled that down 1/2 way to help keep the sideways rain from coming into the restaurant. The meal was fantastic, I had a Thai meal *very* similar to Cy's Asian Bistro back in Neenah. Fantastic meal. I have to get one of these Asian spoons, so nice. P.S. Check out the Pepsi logo...

After filling our bellies, we went shopping around more of the street market then headed to the big mall. We didn't have alot of time left before we were planning to head back to the hotel, grab our luggage, and head to the airport. I'll spare you most of the shopping stories but save a few. I met a real nice guy from India who was selling Oriental Rugs. I told him I didn't want to buy but he showed me his rugs, how to tell what quality they were, some of his life story, why he's there. He really wanted to hear what I thought of Thailand from an outsiders perspective. It was a good meeting. Another thing worth noting is the Aliens Vs. Predator store. This guy make these huge scuptures out of old chains, car parts, scrap metal etc. They are really well done, quite amazing. He did other sculptures too like Gremlins, Predator, Boba Fett, etc.

Well we caught our Tuk-Tuk back to the hotel. We got a ride to the Airport. It was about an hour ride. The driver, who didn't speak English well, had mentioned something about a plane crash. We didn't understand that he meant at our airport and a big crash. It became apparent as we got closer and closer to the airport that something major had happened. Ambulances kept passing us, police began to control traffic. It was getting crazy. We started getting quite nervous. We heard updates from the police directing traffic, many dead. Big crash. Just happened. Here we are at Phuket Airport, just a little over an hour after a large plane crashed, carrying over 130 people. In the end, the final death toll was 89. Such a terrible disaster. The plane was trying to land in heavy rain and it broke apart and then became engulfed in flames. Reading the papers afterward was terrible. Account from one of the survivors

Parinwit Chusaeng, seated in 20B, said she climbed over passengers engulfed in flames. “I stepped over them on the way out of the plane,” Ms. Parinwit told The Nation TV channel. “I was afraid that the airplane was going to explode.”

not very heroic stories...

Well it sounds quite trite of me to explain the ordeal we went through due to the crash. Makes me feel like I shouldn't even tell the story, since after all, we didn't experience anything as bad as the crash.

Well we were stuck at the airport, many of the counters had sign up stating that flights were canceled due to rain. I guess they didn't want to say, "The runway if full of debris and bodies, we can't fly our planes...". There was no flights anywhere, the nearest airport several hours drive. It was already 6pm before we managed to talk to a representative. Our airline didn't even have a check-in counter at the airport since it was such a small carrier. To put in perspective, we had to get back to Penang the next day. We had a big audit that next morning and 2 of the people traveling with us flew into Penang to support and that audit. The other 3 of us were key players in it as well. Not getting back was not a realistic option. As the night wore on the only option was to drive back. Phuket is a long ways away from Penang. Ironically both places being large islands off the Peninsula.

I'll try to make a really really long story short, we got a Van to take us from the airport to a bus terminal about 1 hour away. We were dropped of there. This is a bus station in the middle of no where. We didn't get a chance to eat any food since lunch so we were getting hungry. None of the signage at the terminal was in English and it was clear that the other people waiting found it quite peculiar that 7 Americans would be taking the Buses. The locals take the buses because they are so much more economical than airfare. They're not used to 'tourists' taking the buses.

Jeff and I went on a hunt for food. We found a small little hawker stand that could make us some chicken rice and pork rice. We intended to order just the pork rice but got some chicken rice too. This is notable because chicken is a lot easier to not cook at the right temperature to kill any nasties on it... While they were cooking, I simply ignored the cock roaches scurrying through the kitchen area and open food areas... We got some Cokes and chips and were on our way.
Back in the waiting area we divyed up the food. The girls were smart and didn't eat the meat rice. I braved one of the Chicken Rices. (I should note that a week later I got very sick..., thats a whole nuther story!). We had these BBQ SpareRibs chips that I though would just be BBQ Chips, nope, actually tasted like spare ribs. Yeech, not good on a potato chip! The things you come across in Thailand.

Well about 9pm we all got on board our bus. I thought it looked pretty deluxe on the outside. The inside was not. We all huddled up as the bus was plum full, and hit the road. I wish I could say it was a nice, uneventful, 12 hour ride but nope... The bus didn't have a bathroom. We two stops along the way, back alleys to let everyone off and use the bathrooms. I thought the bathrooms in Penang were bad... These, not so good. The neighborhoods reminded me of Tijuana Mexico, but worse. Very run down, dirty, delapatated. Every single one.

While we were riding most of us on the right side of the bus (thats me, Jeff, and Marcie) couldn't sleep. We kept getting wet. Couldn't figure that out for a while. Turns out the duct above me which was the A/C duct, it had terrible condensation problems and drip, drip, drip. Right on me and my chair. I was getting soaked all night. Kinda like Chinese water torture. My seat was just underneath the drain, but the seal was busted so when we made stops or turns alot of water went rolling into the drain but most just landed on me, my seat, or luggage. Fantastic! So I got to be up, looking out at the country side allnight. Watching the towns go by. Thailand is a very poor country. Very interesting place to cruise through during the middle of the night

At one point I got very scared. You see I've been told to avoid the Malaysian/Thailand border because there is some non-peaceful strife going on between some factions. Not a great place for tourists. We were in the middle of now where, middle of the night, pitch black and there was a bus stopped ahead of us at a curve in the road. There was alot of cover on each side of the road and due to the trees and poor visibility due to the rain, the bus driver stopped behind the bus and didn't try and overtake the bus for quite some time. This was the perfect ambush setting in so many movies. Stop a bus of travelers and rob them. Well nothing happened, most everyone was a sleep and didn't notice but I sure was scared.

We eventually made it to a bus terminal near the Thai/Malaysian border. From there we got into another Van and road to the border. Crossing the borders was exciting. Full of paperwork and bribes, for both borders! Quite different...

The rest of the trip was uneventful. We made it back to Penang at about noon. After a quick shower and change of cloths, I was going to head to get a bite to eat but got a call from work. There had been a change in plans. The auditors decided to audit my project... Time to head into work... Food will have to wait. Boy, that was on the fly...

Exciting to the end. Here the week before there was Earthquakes in Indonesia, a few days later we flew to an island that was right in Tsunami Territory. Then after that risk, a plane crashes and we make a crazy overnight trek through the back countryside of Thailand to get back to Penang 17 hours later... Whew, we made it.

Hey, whats next? ;)