What Is It Like to Experience a 7.7 Magnitude Earthquake?
The closer
that I knew we were to landing in Thailand, the more and more I began craving Thai food,
for me, the tastiest food on the planet. I had even started dreaming of it.
Coming up to our two months in, my Dad was coming to the end of his two-month
trip and he was flying home from Bangkok, so it worked perfectly to meet and
explore for two days.
He arranged for us to stay at his favourite hotel in
Bangkok, the elegant yet affordable Atlanta Hotel – a German hotel built in 1952
still boasting a timeless interior; it felt like you had travelled back in time
walking it's stylish hallways, dining at the chic restaurant and investigating
the graceful library (and usefully for me, the writers corner). It claims to
have the oldest swimming pool in Bangkok.
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| The Atlanta Hotel, Bangkok |
The food capital of the world
The first thing I did when I woke up was to search for the best Thai green curry in Bangkok – my favourite dish of any cuisine. The first blog I came across, written by total foodie Mark Weins, who happens to have Thai family, explained that there is a real local’s spot that specialises in one set menu per day and on Thursdays it was green curry day. |
| Slow-cooked beef green curry, Bangkok |
Just by chance, in the mammoth city of
Bangkok, we were only staying one block away and the day was Thursday. I guess
it was our lucky day.
We went for lunch and ordered the set menu and stir-fried
morning glory – Thailand's best side dish (in my opinion) of stir-fried greens
in oyster sauce, chilli and garlic. This was joined by the slow-cooked beef
green curry, crispy pork salad, coconut rice, papaya salad and endless refills
of iced peach tea. I was salivating the second the noticeable smells of Thai
cooking hit my nose and my word, it did not disappoint.
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| Post-lunch pic, Bangkok |
Off we went
to the river to enjoy a cold beer before our quest for more food began. Next
stop, Chinatown. I last visited Chinatown eight years ago with my good friend
Harry and despite my memory being slightly hazy, I vividly recall us wandering
down the luminous street in awe whilst profusely sweating out of every pore,
unable to combat the sheer humidity of Bangkok. Thankfully, this time Kea and I
were much more seasoned.
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| Chinatown, Bangkok |
Last time,
Harry and I found a superb small joint spilling out onto the street that was selling
noodle soup so spicy that it almost blew our heads off. This time, and noticing
that it was ten times as busy, we decided to do similar and sit down at a
restaurant with the small plastic stools and tables so synonymous with Southeast Asia scattered across the street. We trusted the locals and chose the
busiest spot as they always know best. Once again, our taste buds were transported to flavour heaven as a sizzling tom yum hot pot arrived alongside grilled jumbo prawns, filled gyozas and stir-fried
noodles. Our meal was preceded by a couple of cold beers at the famous Shanghai Hotel whilst we watched the world go by - a must if visiting Bangkok.
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| Hot pot heaven, Chinatown, Bangkok |
All in all, one of the best and most
memorable days of my life. Hooking up with your old man half the world away
after two months of travelling and doing my favourite thing in the world in eating
good food with good people, whilst greeted by the special atmosphere of one of
the best cities on the planet, will never get old. It was almost too good to be
true. We were reminded less than 24 hours later to cherish these days as much
as possible.
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| Food, beer and family in Chinatown, Bangkok |
The day our world was shaken
Before I continue and tell you my
story, I’d like to take a moment to pause. I fully understand and
appreciate that thousands of others were and still are in a much worse
situation than I and my family. I take a moment to
send my prayers and thoughts to those seriously affected and those who
devastatingly lost their lives in the Myanmar Earthquake.
Earthquakes are one of those things that you only see in the movies or on the news. Being from the UK, a country that very rarely sees any natural disasters, you just never assume you’d ever experience something like that. But here we are and thankfully here I am to tell you our story.
Continuing on from the wonderful culinary tour of the day before, the three of us spent the late morning/lunchtime at a street food market just around the corner from where we were staying. I think between us, we tried about eight different dishes; Kea got to try a prawn pad thai which she had been craving for so long.
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| Pad Thai delight, Bangkok |
We had carried on from the day before,
nothing could go wrong and our spirits were sky
high. We’d finished eating, bought my mum, brother and sister a gift from the clothes
stall at the market and headed towards Lumphini Park to walk off lunch. After
that, we’d planned to go and grab a coffee at the Empire Tower before waving my Dad off to catch his flight back home that evening – the Empire Tower being one of the tallest buildings in Bangkok.
Walking down an inconspicuous street, guided by Google maps, we reached a spot by a restaurant opposite a lot with an Irish bar. Kea, whilst listening to my Dad talk, had begun feeling dizzy. She said she thought she might’ve caught a quick-hitting case of food poisoning. Unable to cope any longer, she grabbed my arm and said she was not feeling well. I took her down from the slanted pavement onto the flat road before she said, “Do you guys not feel this too?”
All of a sudden my world turned upside down,
literally. My mind wasn’t coping with the movements of my body. My breathing shortened and
I gasped for air but my head was
spinning uncontrollably. Reflecting on this moment, both my Dad and I initially
thought that there might have been a gas leak from the restaurant next to us,
or worse, some sort of nerve agent. It was only until I turned
around that I knew what was really going on. Seeing a skyscraper wobbling back
and forth as if it were a dandelion blowing in the soft breeze is a picture that I will never forget.
Run
It was that moment when my fight or flight kicked in,
not knowing the magnitude of what was happening or what might come next. As
people started to see what I saw, panic set in and screams of confusion rang
around. I grabbed my Dad and Kea and shouted to run as fast as we could away
from the swaying skyscrapers. In hindsight, buildings don’t collapse like dominoes
but in moments like that, you don’t think rationally. A man asked me what was
happening as we began running, to which I replied, ‘Earthquake, run.’ The four
of us took off in flip flops and shorts, Kea a long skirt, hardly the attire needed to make
a quick getaway.
I’ll never forget turning around and seeing those closest to
me running for their lives, a memory that does not get easier no matter how many times I
replay it in my mind. In those moments, you weirdly do not think of yourself
but of those who mean the most to you.
We reached a corner of a street and paused to regain our breath and try to make some sort of understanding of what was happening. An Italian man standing outside of his restaurant had seen the news before it had reached us and told us that an Earthquake had hit the neighbouring country of Myanmar and that it was likely that we had either felt its initial shock or an aftershock. We decided to carry on to Lumphini Park to find a safe haven in open space but in doing so we had to go back on ourselves towards the swaying skyscrapers before turning in to the park. It was a tough decision but in the end the correct one.
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| Crowds gather in Lumphini Park after feeling an Earthquake tremor, Bangkok |
Kea and my Dad bravely walked as quickly
as they could in the 34-degree heat, at times almost breaking down in a
combination of stress and exhaustion. We made it to the park and could finally
breathe some sort of relief. We stayed there for a couple of hours, rang home
and checked the news for updates.
A difficult goodbye
After some time and without feeling any more
aftershocks, we had to leave so my Dad could get his bags from the hotel and head to the airport. We couldn’t let him go alone. Although, we had to walk
back up the street past the skyscrapers and the area where we had just
experienced something we’d never experienced before. It was unpleasant but we
soldiered through and eventually got back to our hotel.
My Dad’s flight was still going ahead but Bangkok had reached gridlock as unbeknownst to us at the time, a skyscraper under construction had collapsed and many other buildings had experienced damage. Tearfully, we had to say goodbye, still not knowing for certain what was to happen to us in the next few hours, if not days. One of the toughest things I’ve had to live through.
We tried to eat something for dinner but I couldn’t. We tried to sleep but we couldn’t. The next day, we had a flight scheduled to Chiang Mai early in the morning, which when it came around provided us again with a small relief. Similarly to sea legs, Kea and I both thought we were experiencing the wobbles throughout the night. We placed a water bottle on the drawers in our room so that if we felt any sort of wobble, we could look at our water and if it was still, it was our mind playing tricks on us.
The aftermath
Similarly, my Dad was so deep in conversation with Kea that his mind
must’ve been occupied, too. It was only once Kea said those chilling words, “Do
you not feel this too?”, that everything changed. Our bodies noticed the
earth moving beneath us at several metres per second but our minds were unable
to comprehend the force of what Mother Nature was doing to us. It was then,
seeing the swaying buildings, that it quickly made sense.
But then, why did Bangkok feel the earthquake some 800 kilometres from the epicentre in Mandalay? Why did Pai and Chiang Mai, which is closer to the epicentre, not feel it as much? In doing some research after the ordeal had ended, being so keen to learn more about what we had just experienced and why, we read that Bangkok is built on soft clay and marshland. Sometimes when it rains so heavily, the city can sink below sea level. So imagine a city sitting on top of a big plate of jelly and a huge shock passes through it. It will wobble. Bangkok felt that wobble. Whereas northern cities built on hard rock managed the energy and the vibrations more effectively.
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| A fallen wooden building, Pai |
Call it bad luck, call it fate or call it a
coincidence – that’s up to you. We were in Bangkok for just two days, my Dad his
last, and we experienced Myanmar’s most devastating earthquake for over 100
years and the most noticeable earthquake tremor that Bangkok had experienced in over 70 years. It’s almost incomprehensible.
This is a trip of a lifetime, one that I wouldn’t trade for anything. A priceless opportunity and a chance to learn from cultures that for our ancestors was never possible and still for so many people is not possible. Not for one second did I think that we would be running for what we thought was our lives. Not for one second did I genuinely consider that this might be my time up. Not for one second did I ever imagine that I would experience a natural disaster. But I did. We did. And we were the lucky ones who lived to tell this tale.
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