At this stage, we started to hear that there was some area along the west coast that had suffered even more than Phuket. There were daily trucks going up and down the coast to send volunteers from Phuket up to the Phang Nga province to help and back in the evening. It was about 130 Kms north of Phuket around the coastal town of Khao Lak. Not willing to bother with the regular truck schedules to and from there, Dr Matic and I decided to rent some motorbikes and reach the place by ourselves, thus having more freedom to move where needed and not having to coma back to Phuket every night.
Arriving in the Khao Lak region has been like falling one step further into destruction and death. Almost nothing was left of any building closer than 600m from the coast and more in some places. The dust, the heat and the smell of death made it even more unbearable. In fact, due to the extent of the destruction there, the need was more for cranes and diggers than man power. But this is from where we got to our final destination. The place I am talking about is the open air temple morgue of Wat Yan Yao in Takuapa, some 30 kilometers further to the north.