Time Out in Thailand - Flash Flood on Koh Chang

We've been travelling for six months now, moving, for the most part, every few days, sometimes stopping for a week and European currencies are so strong against our Canadian 'peso' that we need a time out to relax, regroup and get back in balance.  What better country than Thailand to find one place and chill for 4-and-a-half months before moving on to the New Zealand leg of our journey.

Well, that was the plan.

It started out smoothly with the obtaining of a 60-day Thai visitor's visa at the Thai consulate in Glasgow.

The island Koh Chang (AKA Elephant Island) is to be it.  Three years ago visiting Thailand we met people who raved about it.

Koh Chang is the third-largest island of Thailand after Phuket and Koh Samui, but not nearly as developed for the tourist trade as those islands, and is the largest of the eastern islands.  As part of Mu Ko Chang Nation Park, it retains much of its remote and rugged nature.

There are jungle-covered mountain peaks, waterfalls to hike, healthy coral reefs to snorkel and white sand beaches with expansive bays.  We choose to stay at the north end of Klong Prao, the longest beach on the island.  This beach is cut in three by estuaries of the Klong Prao River.

Our time here is to be mid-September to the end of January.  We know that the rainy season is from May to October, but tourism still promotes travel here during that time as the rain is not constant, its warm and of course, there are fewer people.  That works for us.

A studio house on the side of the river is booked through Airbnb.  Our host offers to pick us up at the Bangkok airport to drive us back to the island, and best of all, a scooter is included in the house rental, it will be ready for us by the end of the week.

Its sunset as we ride the ferry from the mainland to Koh Chang.

Views from the ferry:

Our very kind host offers to pick us up the next morning with his truck so that we can stock up on groceries and big supplies that would be a challenge even with the scooter.  In the grocery store, he is invaluable explaining some of the foods that we are not familiar with.  We explore a couple of different stores to get an idea of what is in each.

Once the chores are done we have some time to explore.  

There are 6 or 8 villas on the property where we are.  Here is a view behind our place, where someone has set up a nice little space to sit by the river and the next photo is a building behind and across the river from us.

Near the top of the drive to the property is an empty field and we see an elephant munching away.  Walking into town this sign stands out as one we don't normally see:

A little research tells us that there are no indigenous elephants on Koh Chang.  The elephant meaning to the name of the island refers to its shape.  Regardless there are six elephant "camps" on the island, including one right on the highway through Klong Prao.  All but one camp provides for riding elephants.  There is no room on this blog to explore the ethics related to having elephants in captivity, to riding them, to working them or to providing sanctuary for them.  Each person needs to do their own research and decide what is best for the elephant.  It's a touchy subject here.

As we walk past their stalls, this elephant reaches out to Paul, wanting some contact:

Time to explore the beach at Klong Prao (known as Chai Chet) which is a short walk from our Airbnb.  We are almost alone on this wide, sweeping beach where the warm and gentle sea rolls quietly in.

Here is where the river meets the sea.  It's calm enough that a couple of businesses upriver rent stand up paddleboards and/or kayaks.

Walking about we see many lovely flowers and butterflies as big as the palm of your hand.  So much colour compared to where we are in Mexico.  Lots of orchids simply stuck in some earth in an empty coconut shell and hung on a tree, blooming away.

On the third day, we are there the rains start.  Rain like we have never experienced in our lives and on the fifth day there is a flash flood that rips through the property we are on and other parts of Klong Prao, taking out bridges and people losing boats, scooters and cars to the raging waters.  Huge debris flowing by the house.  Ferries to the island are cancelled for a while due to high seas

It all happened incredibly fast.  We could watch the water rising, so ran out to move the scooter to high ground, then to tie down the owner's boats as he was off-island on business.  By the time we were finished the rushing waters were well above our knees.  So much debris continued to rush past.  The gas and oil floating in the water removed the nail polish from my toenails when we were out rescuing machines.

Water, electricity, sewer and WiFi became non-existent, even cell services were sketchy. The water rose to about waist-level before it peaked in a couple of short hours.  It rose so quickly that a neighbour who was home did not get to her car in time to move it and it was flooded.  Once it got to the waist-level, it was too dangerous to go out in the powerful current.

Looking up the drive

Across from us the roof protecting these boats collapses

The river and lagoon at the end of the property merge into one mass body of water

Almost as quickly as the water rose and did its damage, it began to recede leaving behind garbage, mud, a strong sewer smell and who knows what else.

The last flood here was five years ago but apparently, this was much worse.  The Airbnb house was built up about 5 feet off the ground, so water never came into the house.  The next day the landlord fetched us and took us to a resort as the house was not habitable without services, although electricity was quickly restored.

The rain continued to pour down.  People trying to move along the highway:

We were worried that we would have to be evacuated from the Ramayana resort as waters were rising there too.  Meanwhile, our Airbnb host moves his family off the island for their safety.  

I think I figured out how to share a video posted on Koh Chang Talk and taken on Sept 15, high water day on the main road near Chai Chet.  Credit to Janthawang Supat:

Flood Waters

We decided that we really needed to leave this situation but as a guest of Airbnb its not that easy.  To break a contract with a host, especially on a long term rental can be quite costly unless you have approval from Airbnb to do so.  The problem is that their service centre is not easy to reach and when you do reach them, the wheels turn slowly.  It's really necessary to get your case moved up to the supervisor level before any decisions can be made.  It took many phone calls and emails to get their attention that this was an urgent situation and on the third day after high water, they terminated our contract so that we were reimbursed for time not spent at the home.  This meant that we could leave on the fourth day after high water.  

The people on Koh Chang must be used to pulling together to help themselves.  Within two days of the flood, all kinds of volunteers were organized to clean up the town and beaches, while others had started a soup kitchen for those rendered homeless and were handing out free flip flops as a start to getting back to normal.  Still, others were raising money to help those who lost homes and businesses.

Part of the bridge in Klong Prao was washed out as was a section of road south of us between Lonely Beach and Bailan.  Work started on bridge repair within a day.  It was truly amazing.

Destruction in town was very evident.  Numerous families lost everything as they had a business out front and lived behind the business.

Garbage and debris was everywhere

 ... as was standing water.  Perfect conditions for mosquito-borne illness down the road.

We were anxious while awaiting a decision from Airbnb as the predictions were for more flooding in a few days.

In some ways we are sorry to leave as we've not had a chance to explore this lovely island that we've heard so much about; and friends from Vancouver were planning to come here in January to join us for a while.  There were many things to consider, not the least of which was all the supplies we had just purchased for a four-month stay, including a chair for the host's deck, none of which we could bring with us.

This post from the Koh Chang Talk FB page gives an idea of how many volunteers and tons of trash were removed from just one beach.  The resorts on the beach provided shelter for the volunteers as some had no homes to go to and some came from away.

A combi got us off the island to Bangkok. On the journey, we chatted with the fellow beside us who lives just south of Lonely Beach below Klong Prao Beach.  He's an American who retired to the island a few years ago and has found his Shangrila.  He loves his life on the island.  

From Bangkok, we head to Hua Hin which is basically across the water (Gulf of Thailand) from Koh Chang.  Here we hope to find some sun peaking through the end of the rainy season and to explore a place we haven't been.

The next post will be as we leave Thailand, so far we are enjoying Hua Hin.