My evacuation from Koh Tao

As some of you have heard, heavy rainfall and storm has hit southern Thailand the last few days. Koh Tao (and the nearby islands Koh Samui and Koh Panang) were not hit as extremely as some other Thai provinces, but the problem especially for Koh Tao has been that no boats could enter or leave Koh Tao for 4-5 days. Koh Samui has an airport, which has been closed for several days, but they plan to start flying to and from there again tomorrow. Koh Panang is only visited by many tourists around full-moon (since it is famous for its full moon parties). I tried heavy rain and flooding here before, so for me it was no big deal, even though some food shortages started to occur.

The serious situation on Koh Tao was not the rainfall or the storm, but rather the accumulating amount of tourists that needed to catch an airplane out of Thailand. People started missing out airplanes back home big time. Many people bought a new airplane ticket back home, just to find out a few days later that the boats were still not going (they promised every day that tomorrow they will go). And the number of people wanting to get out from Koh Tao then increased fast every day. And even if the normal boats could start again, it would still take several days or almost a week to 'empty' Koh Tao for desperate tourist wanting to go home. Suddenly around 1000+ tourist on Koh Tao wanted to get to Bangkok 'now' and the European, American and Australian embassies started taking action by pushing the Thai Government.

And the news about the situation for many torirsts started spreading on CNN and BBC World.

A few days ago, Thailand then introduced a national emergency situation, which then means that the military needs to take over (they anyway control this country ;o). And this situation was then used to show the Thai people as well as the rest of the world what they are capable of.

When I was still on Koh Tao two days ago rumours started spreading that there was a navy ship arriving to Koh Tao to 'rescue' the 1000 stranded tourists (and Thai people).
Yesterday morning I therefore went to the assumed place where this military action would be initiated. Not because I was desperate to get out, but since I stopped trusting that the normal boats making promises every day would never start servicing before I needed to leave Thailand on the 7-April.

When I arrived at Koh Tao resort there were around 500 people waiting for the navy ship already. The rumours said that the the pick up time was 5 o'clock in the morning, so many people went there in the middle of the night. I was lazy and not desperate and arrived there around 9 o'clock. And I know the focus that Thai people put on time accuracy ;o).

The evacuation was very well organised from the local Koh Tao initiatives, but there were two serious problems. The navy ship they sent to Koh tao was tremendously big, and could not get close to Koh Tao. So they had to send the 1000+ people out first on a very few long-tail boats with room for 5-6 people each. The people (and their luggage) would then be transferred to to one of the larger boats from one of the dive companies on Koh Tao. This larger boat would then be able to go to the navy ship.

The problems did not stop here. The 'large' diving boat was a dworf compared to the navy ship, so people needed to jump over two rubber boats (see photos). These two rubber boats were used as a buffer to avoid crashes. This needed to be done with 2 meter waves. And people then had to use a NET to climb up 10 meters to get onboard the huge navy ship. Clever? No...

You can imagine how my day yeaterday was passed. Me and around 1000 other people were waiting and waiting. My best guess is that they managed to get around 50 people on board the navy ship per hour using this method. The navy ship was supposed to leave Koh Tao at 5 AM in the morning and it ended up leaving at 10 o'clock in the evening. Leaving around 400 people behind which need to wait for another few days. These may now be the only tourists left on the otherwise deserted Koh Tao.

But what does a military do in a situation when their plans do not work out? Well, they had four helicopters onboard the ship, so they started creating a corridor between the navy ship and Koh Tao. The helicopters were initially planned only for pregnant women and children (who could not climb the 10 meter rope to the navy boat). Imagine how many tourists - especially female but not only - suddenly claimed that they were pregnant... I overheard quite a few especially German tourists saying that they were pregnant in English to the organisers and then in German to each other say that they just wanted to get onboard with a Helicopter....

However, since the tansfer by boat was proceeding extremely slow, they decided later to bring also 'normal' people via Helicopter to the navy ship. 10 persons in each helicopter (including luggage). The helicopters were landing on a school yard around 1 kilometre from the boat transfer place, and by pure luck I heard from some Thai people that they started to bring 'normal' people to the ship this way also. I managed to be one of the last to get onboard the navy ship with a helicopter.

Cool ;o). But landing a Helicopter in strong wind on a ship in high seas is not an easy task. But I survived ;o). And I avoided the boat trip and the climbing of the 10 meter net which other people told me was a nightmare.

So, now I have spent last night on the lower deck of a navy ship. They served food almost all the time, bringing in water bottles and they crew was extremely helpful. The ship was also full of quite a few mainly local Thai TV stations covering this evacuation (they also must have arrived to the ship with a helicopter I guess). I have been spotted on a national Thai TV channel already yesterday when waiting for the helicopter ;o).
However, I have been sleeping maximum 40 minutes last night on an iron surface covered sparsely with thin card boxes and similar. Next to a helicopter.

The ship decided to go to a navy base 200 kilometres from Bangkok, to a navy base called Sattahip (near Pattaya if people are familiar with Thailand). We arrived at around 7 o'clock this morning to the navy base, where they arranged music and a big welcome comittee of probably important navy officers. I just walked to the busses transferring people to Bangkok...

The transfer with police escort since the national media and TV stations were waiting for the 20 or more busses full of people 'saved from Koh Tao' in Bangkok. So the transfer was quite fast. The military really wanted to make a statement about their efficiency. So several times we had to wait for a bus that came a little bit behind (efficiency?).

Because of course all the busses should arrive together as a caravan to one of the top tourist places in Bangkok near Khaosan road. To give good video footage for the TV stations. Pathetic. I had plenty of opportunities to give interviews to journalists, but of course I decided to ignore the journalist and find a taxi. This place is not even covered by the sky trains, so the taxi ride from there to my hotel took almost longer than the transfer from Pattay to Bangkok.

Anyway, I am now safely back in Bangkok, and I managed to find a hotel room (I booked a hotel room 4 days ago, just to find out that the boat from Koh Tao was not going, and ending up paying one night for a 'no show').

But it has been some interesting 35 hours being 'evacuated' from Koh Tao ;o). I have tried first time flying helicopter, I have been (kind of) sleeping on an iron deck on a navy ship, and I have waited in rain for 7 hours. A lot of fun and a great experience to try. But too little sleep so please ignore spelling errors etc in this blog entry....

Todays photos shows the different elements of the evacuation ;o). In a more or less random order since ordering photos on Blogger is simply to painful... And I am tired. Good night....