Day 44 - Monday, March 28 - Ko Lanta

TODAY I SURVIVED A TSUNAMI WARNING!

With no motorbike (I very easily could have gotten it back but decided against it) and nothing planned for the day, I decided to spend the day at Miami enjoying my last day in Paradise.

As I've said numerous times, if I had all the time in the world, I could certainly get even more comfortable than I already am (Natalie comfortable) and stay here for another month but I successfully changed my return date to LA to April 17th and as much as I want to stay, I do want to experience other parts of Thailand.

I swam, tried out my new snorkel, relaxed on the porch, read some of my book, and worked up an appetite for a noodle soup with chicken from Miami's kitchen. Back on my porch, I was soon visited by Katie who informed me that Happy Hour was starting soon and it was going to be a special one for my going away celebration. WAS IT EVER! She had cheese and crackers, fresh watermelon and pineapple, and some little pieces of fried chicken that were purchased in our little town by this nice old lady who can fry a mean chicken. Natalie came to join us with the Row 4/5 cats of Miami and a good time was had by all. We were soon joined by Tome, our new neighbor who is traveling alone after her friend ran out of money and had to go back to London earlier than planned.

Katie, Dave, and I had a farewell dinner at Otto's and talked about meeting in Ko Pha Ngan in the next few weeks. It's time they started to motivate and I'm thinking KPN may be their next stop. Back at Miami, we went for a nightcap at Mong's Bar, hung out with some fellow travellers and I said my goodbyes to my Paradise one last time. As I said when I left Lanta the first time, I'll look back on Miami and the friends I made with great fondness and will certainly never forget one minute of it.

I got to my room, packed and tucked myself in at about 12:40A. It was only 20 minutes later that I heard a knock on my door. I thought I was dreaming so I didn't answer but then the knock came again. It was Katie with some interesting news. "TSUNAMI WARNING", she said. She came in and told me of an 8.2 earthquake in Sumatra that could have similar effects as the December 26th events that rocked this part of the world. I knew there was no way we were going to have a repeat of the last disaster but nonetheless, I got up, got dressed and walked outside where I was met by our row of bungalows being ordered around by Dave, who was in slight crisis mode and the evacuation began. Within 5 minutes, all of Miami was awake and loaded into trucks and we were brought to higher ground. We were at Sunshine Hill, a restaurant that I passed numerous times on my bike rides, and the highest point on Lanta. As we were driving, we realized the entire island of travellers and locals had all packed small bags of essentials and were fleeing as we were. It was surreal, to say the least, and I was exhausted and could only look at my watch every few minutes knowing I was to get up soon for my ferry to Krabi. If Dave wasn't so insistant, I would have stayed right in my bungalow and gone back to bed hoping when I woke up, my floor was dry and I was still among the living.

At 3AM, they made an announcement in Tinglish that the government said it was safe and "no wave coming".

I hopped in the first truck back to Miami, got into bed, and knew 6:10A, the time that was set on my alarm clock, was rapidly approaching.