Day 27 – Koh Tao – Monday March 28th 2011
At 8:30 we were woken up by girls shouting in the room next door. We heard every word they said. “The boats have been cancelled. No more boats for at least 2 days.”
So it seems we are stranded here for the time being. Luckily we found somewhere cheap to stay whilst we wait out this storm. We have a couple of weeks until we fly out of Singapore, so hopefully we can get out by then.
The thought of getting on another boat is turning my stomach. At the moment I’m happy to just sit tight and wait.
We had no electricity all day, as the generators were being switched off to conserve fuel. The water was also switched off to avoid contamination from the floods.
Most of the shops were closed, except a small swedish shop, which was selling snacks by candlelight.
Flood spreading
The flood water had now spread from the main road, and there was now 8-10 inches flowing down our road. We had to walk barefoot, to stop our flip-flops being washed away.
We could see that Porto Bello was one of the few restaurants with lights on, so we would be eating there again. Pete went out to take some photos and stopped by Porto Bello to ask about the floods. He said that this weather is worse than they had in the monsoon, and the worse summer rain for over 9 years.
People expect things to start back up in two or three days, but I’m sure they are just making that up. There doesn’t seem to be any real forecast about this.
A local phrase we hear a lot here is, “tomorrow is better….. maybe,” which I suppose is optimistic.
Tsunami
We don’t know if the Japanese Tsunami has played a part in this crazy weather. Some people are convinced it did.
It’s strange to be stranded in something like this. It’s normally the sort of thing that you see on the news.
Local houses are being washed away. We overheard a local talking about a rock that smashed through his house. He was asleep and luckily got out before his house collapsed. He did have a black eye.
We moved our backpacks into the wardrobe as we noticed a damp patch appearing on the ceiling. We later booked an extra two nights, as we can’t really go anywhere. The weather is about 25°C so at least it isn’t cold.