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First-hand account from Pieter, a Kundalini Yoga Teacher in Thailand

Returned Monday afternoon from Phuket.

The number of bodies and missing seems to jump up exponentially every day, with ever new remote populous areas being discovered with no remaining life, and total devastation, like the report this morning of a helicopter flyby over an island off Sumatra that had formerly a population of 60,000, and now not a building remaining, or rubble, nor people, Or some 150,000 small fishing boats that had been out fishing off the coast of India that never returned.

In Thailand, Phuket, the first days 248 dead has risen now to over 4,500 with another 6,000 missing, mostly foreigners, Patong beach boardwalk several streets back destroyed as though someone had used cluster bombs up the whole length of the beach area, thousands estimated to be still below the rubble. Koh Lak, area, just above Phuket, utterly destroyed, the Sofitel nearly swept away, Phi Phi Island, every hotel and bungalow swept away. Last night the UN estimated over 150,000 dead throughout Asia with an ever greater number being discovered missing.

We flew down from Bangkok, Thai Airways (myself, Noi, and the 2 children, Saifa, our 4 years 9 months daughter, and Tawan, our 8 month son) on the 21st, Tuesday at 11 am, with the intention to return to Bangkok on the 26th, Sunday evening.

We stayed at the JW Marriott Phuket, which is around 20 minutes from the airport, located north central of the Island, 10 miles inland.

We had the same one bedroom beachfront suite as last year. From our location is a short walk out to the pool and behind the pool, the central part of the hotel with the lobby and main restaurants on the 2nd floor, and shops, a large pond with fire shoots on the ground floor.

Naturally, we had a good time. We visited Phuket Fantasy on Christmas Eve and Santa came on Christmas day in the afternoon. Everything idyllic.

As the trip before, the health club let me use one of their rooms to lead a Kundalini Yoga Sadhana for anyone that wanted to join up (room for 6 people, plus myself), an people, some who had been practicing yoga for many years, had the chance to experience for the first time in their lives the radiance of their life force emanating in and around their bodies and radiating through their minds, with just one or 2 classes, 2 hours from 6 to 8 am.

On our last day we were to leave the hotel around 4 in the afternoon for a 6 evening flight. So, rather than going swimming towards the end of the afternoon, as I did with Saifa each day, we were getting ready to go out around 10 am.

Saifa was at the sliding door glass windows, while I was finishing up some e-mails at the desk, when she called me to look at the boat. I went over and saw a 25 meter yacht coming across from the horizon being pushed by a large wave. The boat hit a sandbar - a submerged mountain of some type about 100 meters out, but the wave kept coming.

The private, secluded beachfront of the JW Marriott is relatively small, maybe around 10 meters of slightly sloping beach front that becomes a dune sloping up sharply at a 45 degree incline for another 30 to 40 meters. Then there's another 50 meters from the crest of that dune across flat sandy area with light vegetation to the pool area and maybe 60 to 70 meters to our patio and the sliding glass doors of our suite.

Most hotels along the coast of Phuket and Koh Lak and the small islands are right along the beach front, but due to some environmental regulation, the JW Marriott had to be set back this distance.

While watching the yacht, suddenly the water comes up over the steeply inclined dune and in a flash covers the ground between, hits the patio, but not enough to wet the top of the deck chairs, and just barely splashes against the sliding glass doors. Water seeps in. The force of the wave spent.

Within a few minutes, several security people are into the room checking that we're alright, and urging us to leave the room to go to the lobby, as they expect another wave front to hit at any time.

Saifa starts to cry that she loves the boat but the boat is dead, referring to the yacht floundering against the sandbar. I call it a sandbar, but it's really just a kind of an underwater hill, that slopes off sharply immediately after, with the space between that hill and the beachfront also being quite deep. The water in the cove out to the horizon from our vantage point is, on a typical day, as this day, quite flat, almost placid, except for an 8 to 10 foot solitary long wave that rises out of the deep every few minutes, that pounds the side of the yacht so that she nearly tips over each time. No action from the crew whatsoever. Finally, maybe 10 or 15 minutes later, we see the yacht trying to turn into the oncoming waves. Quite a struggle, as each time she's turned 30 or 40 degrees back out to sea, she's slammed again by the next wave. Finally, she's headed straight out, hits the oncoming wave head-on rises about 45 degrees and plunges down the other side, but somehow keeps going. We're trying to imagine what happened to the Captain, passengers and crew of the yacht. Maybe everyone was knocked out with the first wave, then someone awoke and decided to try to get out to sea...

Later we heard that more than 250 fishing and pleasure boats that were out at sea when the wave hit the coast never returned. One can only imaging the "fear of God" that must have entered into the people out on the yacht and all these missing ships and others that survived.

At the lobby most of the other guests, especially those on the ground floor, have gathered. The hotel staff security and management tell us that they are told that a second wave will hit.

We looked at the swimming pool from the balcony of the 2 restaurants. From the lobby, where the check in counters are also located, there's a long wide shallow pool situated in a way that you see the ocean blend with it off its far side. To each side of that pool, are the main restaurants, with another seafood restaurant out to one side of the swimming pool overlooking the 50 meters sandy area going out to the ocean.

The swimming pool is maybe 100 meters or longer long, parallel with the ocean front, and 8 to 20 meters wide in various areas. There's a relatively shallow side towards the right facing the ocean with a concrete waterslide between. Our suite another 50 meters further to the right over a lawn with several flower beds and shrub areas. The deep side of the pool doesn't have the "protection" of the waterslide and is also surrounded by deck chairs, tables and umbrellas.

The wave, the Tsunami, that hit Phuket didn't reach the ground floor below the lobby. Probably our suite was the only one that was touched, but to give an idea of the force of the wave, the water came up and over the 30 meter 45 degree dune incline from the shore crossed the 60 to 70 meter stretch of underbrush and light thickets and splashed muck and debris up and over the waterslide leaving that side of the swimming pool murky, but the side of the pool that didn't have the waterside's protections was over half filled with mud and debris and all the deck chars, tables and umbrellas, like a mud bath. But that's as far as it reached.

Shortly after the electricity went out for about half an hour, until all the hotel's own generators could be started.

At the lobby, eventually, we were told to go back to our room and quickly pack as they expected another larger wave to come. So we went back and quickly packed, then parked ourselves on one of the many very spacious couches around the lobby, while the children took naps. I guess time flies when your stunned, or too numb to really know what has happened. The Marriott opened the two 2nd floor restaurants for free lunch and otherwise were so well organized, that, it seemed as though it was just another day at a resort.

Nevertheless, those who had their wits better about them, made decisions, where possible, to cancel their stays and try to get out of Phuket on any flight by any means, especially as the TV news stories started to come in of the beach front devastation and warnings of a follow-up wave expected to come with aftershocks..

The airport was flooded, so all flights were cancelled with a promise for an update by 6 pm. Many of the people staying at the hotel, arranged to cancel the balance of their stay and return to Bangkok or some of the other resort areas in Thailand and Asia not hit, or go home. There were people from Russia, the US, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Australia, the Middle East, South America, everywhere.

While the JW Marriott was not heavily hit, and in fact, working through the night, had the swimming pool pristine about the time we left the next day, and the areas out to the shoreline in the process of being cleaned up, the rest of the coastal areas of Phuket, many not having the protection of a sandbar and then a 45 degree 30 embankment from the shoreline, were wiped out. The wave came into the more sturdy villas and hotels along the shoreline and simply smashed through the doors and windows and kept on going through to the other side and beyond, picking up any and everything and any body along the way. All these will undoubtedly be repaired in the coming months, and 6 months from now, no one will notice the difference, but the many bungalows along the beach were simply washed away, demolished, as a wave, they estimate traveling up to 300 mph hit the coast with a relentless force.

An interesting aside regarding the many people that cancelled their stay at the JW Marriott, is that the disaster wasn't necessarily bad news for them, as there were so very many people in these sturdy villas and shoreline hotels that were now homeless and without lodging that, when I asked if I could stay on a few more days, I was told that they expected to fill up the hotel with those caught in the disaster needing places to stay. I heard that the 5 Hiltons in Phuket also came out nearly unscathed, though the Sofitel in Koh Lak, just above Phuket and many hotels in Krabi to the north again were devastated. A few of the islands near Phuket were also overrun with water. In the coming days, the Marriott set itself up as a clearing point for many now homeless people trying to get out on the next flights, as well as many of the international NGOs coming in to assist in the search and care for the missing and survivors. Since then, there has been a steady stream of Americans and Europeans and people from Russia and the Asian countries flying in to search for their lost relatives.

The reports of death that kept coming in and continue to mount even now, were based on actual body counts, with always double the estimates of missing. The day of the disaster, CNN estimated 4,500 deaths, the day after the body count reached 33,000 with an ever rising number estimated as missing continues to be double. Five days later it's at 150,000 and the estimates of the missing continue to rise beyond that.

In Phuket now, the body count the day after was over 1,000 with another over 1,000 unaccounted for. Now its 4,500, with another 6,000 missing.

In the last 6 years, I've stayed at Marriotts around 1,600 nights, and the Phuket stay turned out to be alright. We were lucky that I had to send off some last minute e-mails and did not head out to the pool at 10, as planned. There were a number of people around the pool, mostly staff and luckily, mostly on the shallow side, so that when the water hit there were only a few minor cuts and burses, nothing like what happened in other resort hotels, villas, homes and bungalows along the coast, not to mention some of the tourist shops and businesses along the boardwalks of several town, or the total rearrangement of the topography of many of the small islands off the coast.

The airport opened by 5 the same day with all flights resumed. As our flight was at 6, we missed out, and I didn't have the presence of mind to try to arrange a later flight until Noi put some pressure on me, as she became more and more frenetic that we try to get on some flight going out that night. I called my secretary, and she arranged the flight for the next day (Monday 11:20 am). The airport was packed, numerous people on standby for any flight out. That evening the Thai government announced that it would give free flights out for anyone stranded, as many of the tourists lost everything they had, cash, credit cards and identification, and free lodging was arranged for them once they'd reach Bangkok. Despite the Exodus, some tourists continue to fly in to the bookings they've made at the hotels that were not harmed or recovered quickly.

In Bangkok, we heard that the 9 Richter scale earthquake that was at the epicenter behind the Tsunami was so strong that it rocked the tall buildings in Bangkok, and that our apartment building of 40 stories was evacuated for several hours, while we were gone.

A couple of reporters called to get my story. It's nothing like the stories of many other foreigners. Of the people that died from the Tsunami in Phuket, 70% were foreign tourists on holidays for Christmas. The King's autistic grandchild of his eldest daughter that moved to San Diego, was also out jet-skiing and lost at sea, his body recovered just a couple of days ago.

Thailand has never had a catastrophe like this. Thai TV has many more stories and videos and images than what can be seen on CNN. from the very graphic, to the horrific to the heart wrenching.

On CNN, even before the body count across Asia was called at 4,500, reporters described it as a "Disaster of Biblical Proportions" In business contracts, it's called an "Act of God" allowing agreements to be cancelled without penalty on both sides, whether it involves a hotel stay, a flight cancellation or a shipment of goods and services. Last night, as the death toll rose over 150,000, again, the same descriptions were used by reporters on CNN.

When the reporters asked me what I thought was the lesson, at first I was going to give a trite response, "always stay at a Marriott hotel." But actually, until the reality of what has really happened began to set in, watching CNN, which is really all we get in viable international news of this type (apart from BBC, which also focuses on other scheduled programming, or the Thai channels, with the ever expanding pictures of sheer devastation, anguish, tragedy and sorrow with struggle to survive and cope, that the real message is that we really have witnessed an "Act of God" and that act seems to be speaking to the world in a "Biblical" way. This "way" has always been a quite simple message, which is that, while throughout life we focus on one melodrama or another, or on something we fear, such as terrorism, religious zealotry, and how that will be harm civilization, or on environmental problems or political problems, or we get caught up in our pursuits, goals and dreams, and in that process of loosing ourselves in our passions for these images, we forget the One that has brought the universe into existence, who sustains it for a time and dissolves it, while providing us with the sense of being and identity in the form of our sense of "I" and the light of awareness, which are really and always the emanation of the God, Being and Consciousness. So, maybe, as we have not been able to hear the inner voice, we have the voice of God speaking through the power of nature with such a force greater than the calamities we perpetuate on ourselves and each other that we might remember really Who the Author of the Creation is, reflect inward, and remember the source of the "I" and "Light" through which we build our identities.

What's amazing about events described as an "Act of God" is that while so many manmade events of destructive around the world bring hatred, anger, animosity, vengeance, aggressive and vicious behavior retribution, and "Act of God" as in this case it is bringing the world together in a heartfelt outpouring to help, heal, care, protect, save lives, give. So many stories here is Thailand of people going out of their way to go to the areas of destruction and help with money, blankets, and whatever assistance they're capable of, and we see the same stories repeated from the smallest individual acts of help to the massive organizations to help from companies, corporations, religious and private charities and governments, all coming together for the common good, without seeking return or reward. When one contrasts the Media's News: the ongoing world problems of terrorism, war, political divisiveness with the massive efforts related to the Tsunami of pure acts of giving, helping and prayer for the people that died, were left behind and totally displaced - the reactions to the Act of God bring out only the very best and purest most virtuous in humanity.

Anyway, lucky or blessed, I'm alright and my family is alright.

Pieter
www.kundalini-matashakti.com/radiant

This letter sent by Amanda Margolies from Cold Spring New York

This is from my colleague,Yogini, to add perspective to the Tsunami.

: In a little moment, Mother Nature extends her force of destruction that is beyond comprehension. Creation and destruction to Mother Nature are like a breath, with change happening. For us as humans to know that life is like a lamp that can be snuffed out in seconds and to feel so many lives just taken back by Mother Nature is to ask the deeper question: Where is God in all this?

Imagine taking a deep breath and going beyond the forces of creation and destruction and entering into the realms of the eternal where there is blissful void and pure light of the absolute. It is here that we see all Life on this planet as One.

It is through these hard reminders sent by the dynamic ever-changing energies that we are forced to utilize our intellects to ask more of wisdom.

The wisdom of how we could be the part of Oneness as representing all the living as we extend our giving to the enormous pains and sufferings in a large part of the world.

The wisdom to know how easily life can be snuffed out and how we take each joyful day for granted in the luxury of our environment we are in.

The wisdom to search for the more permanent realm within us that can transcend the constant certainty of death after birth; a greater reality that is sustained by the divine union - protecting and guiding us.

For those through the process of sudden death, intellect does not hold the answer. For those in the throes of pain having lost their loved ones, only wisdom can be the source of comfort. For the rest of us, it is on the intellectual level that we are reminded of the wisdom.

This wisdom is in extending ourselves to those effected by the disaster to bring into motion the energies of Oneness, with each of us, the representation of all the living.

A voluntary relief doctor in Sri Lanka was commenting yesterday, "First there were these destructive waves coming to our shores, and now we can see waves of human kindness and love come to reach us!"

The Divine, God, as we call the Absolute is perfect and the nature of this perfection is Wisdom in our Oneness.