Having double-checked that the key card was in my left pocket, I gently shut the door to my room. As I descended the few steps that led to the hotel lobby, my Brazilian Havaianas flapped annoyingly like fish out of water. The man behind the check-in desk nodded his head politely, mouthing what probably was “sa-wa-dee-krup”, which is Thai for “hello”. A rush of hot and moistened air welcomed me as I stepped outside. I lowered my shades and began to wonder whether I had put on enough sunscreen to withstand the vicious UV rays from the blazing sun.
The pink figure walks around the room persistently. I tense my arm, and find my sweaty hands gripping hard on the soft cotton blanket. Gently tilting my head, I see yellow and green blobs extending over a brown container. I watch it slowly darken again as a faint smell of what I thought seemed like boiled cabbage approaches me steadily.
It was nearly January, yet the temperatures were as high as thirty-eight degrees. Phuket never fails to surprise tourists like me with its remarkable resorts and never ending heat wave. I gingerly followed my instinct and headed towards where I thought the beach was. Souvenir shop owners poked their heads out of the entrance and waved postcards, traditional Buddha statues, t-shirts and fake Ray-bans at every foreign passerby, me included.
“Hello handsome. You want Rayban? I give you Rayban. Cheap Rayban. 500 baht. Deal?”
Time ticked by, and the beach was nowhere to be seen. The sun and heat were now toasting me, and it was only wise to seek shelter in a mall, where the air conditioning is on 24/7. I approached what looked like a help desk and queued up behind a French couple. It did not take long before it was my turn. After several attempts at explaining that I wanted to get to the beach, I decided to take the free tourist map laid out with the other holiday brochures. After a joyous little reunion with the English language, I sighed disappointedly. The beach was only a hundred metres from the hotel, and yet I managed to drift in the opposite direction. Aggravated by the meaningless detour, I unwillingly stepped out of the cool air conditioning and into the fiery sunshine again.
The woman dressed in baby pink had just patiently fed me spoonfuls of tasteless stuff when I felt ill again and had thrown up somewhere on that hospital bed. Now the air smelled foul and more strangers joined the woman in pink to clean up the mess I made. I look at them apologetically and murmured “sorry”.
To my surprise, the beach stretched out for kilometres, and people crouched and were picking up something that was flapping around…ah, a fish out of water.
My feet kicked into the soft blanket and I groaned in agony as the pain of tearing raw flesh shot up through the receptors cells. The nurse rushed over to me, pointing her skinny fingers towards my legs and then shaking her head disapprovingly. She walked out of the room at a brisk pace and back with some painkillers.
“What an enormous tide,” I thought to myself, standing there stupefied by the sight. I frowned in disbelief as the long horizon started to darken, literally out of the “blue”. I squinted my eyes, only to see that the dark line was drawing closer and closer, clearer and clearer. The dark malicious waters of a monstrous wave advanced as everyone began screaming in horror.
