Tuesday 29 March 2011

Samui update, can things get much worse?

Samui update, can things get much worse?

A good question, the airport is still closed, a plane took off from Bangkok but aborted the landing on Samui and turned around to Bangkok again. The ferries did also not run today!

The results of a couple of days being battered by rain are being shown in the next pictures;

This big rock was the overhang rock on the road between Chaweng and Lamai near 'The Cliff' restaurant. A landslide took care of this. There were already plans to dynamite the rock overhang, well, nature took care of that, now the question is 'what's next'? Shove it int he ocean? Blow it to pieces?

Road damage in Nathon, as it looks lie, next to the pier in Nathon.

The lake road Chaweng, completely flooded (photo by James Lemon)

The monkey road in Bophud (photo by Thea Sonnekus)

Centara in Chaweng, beach road, where it always hits the jackpot, near Zico's! About 1 meter, all natural waterways are being blocked by Centara's walls!

It's sad to see what happened to Samui the last couple of days but unfortunately a lot of the problems could have been prevented if not all beach road property had been build block solid with walls, preventing the natural way from finding it's way to the ocean.

I do hope that the mayor is able and capable of dealing with this situation and can come up with some ideas to prevent unnecessary flooding.

The rain was out of season and extreme, so not all is controllable, but at least work on the well known problem areas!
The general consensus is that the current floods are worse than last November and even worse than 2005, when as a result of the bad floods, a good drainage system was installed.

To all my readers, during the the last November floods, my page views sky rocketed, if just all of you that ask for advice or visit my blog, book their hotel rooms through my Samui hotel recommendation or my Thailand hotel recommendation blogs, I will be a very happy camper!

I do appreciate the visits that get me some beer money, they are still few though in comparison to the amount of visitors that come and have a look at Samui in distress!

Keep posted, more updates are likely to come. Hopefully the predictions will come through and come the weekend, the sun will be out again!

I just wonder how long it will take to clean up all the mess that nature has created, a bit more than a week this time around I'm afraid!

Camille

16 comments:

Monique said...

Sodeju, heeft die rots 't begeven?! Dat wordt nog een heel gedoe om daar van af te komen! Bij jullie ziet het er trouwens erger uit dan bij ons. Vanmorgen foto's gaan maken, maar vlak voor Nathon was de ringroad verdwenen ;) Wij houden 't gelukkig droog en jullie? Groetjes, Monique

Camille said...

Hoi Monique,

Ja, dat wordt nog een hele klus om die weg te krijgen! Hahaha!!

Ben zelf op Koh Lanta, gelukkig is alles goed met de familie!!

Groeten en hou je taai,
Camille

Anonymous said...

Hello Camille,

I just stumbled across your blog about a month ago and since then have been reading it frequently.

It's very saddening to see all of the destruction caused from the flooding. You stated that this time is much worse than recent ones and you think the clean-up will take signficant time.

My girlfriend and I are supposed to arrive April 10th. If roads are severely damaged, will it even be possible to get around the island?

Keep up the good work...thanks.

Blaine

Camille said...

Hi Blaine,

By the 10th April I would expect the majority of the damage to be dealt with and I would expect that it will be possible to go around again.

Anonymous said...

Hi Camille,

my girlfriend is somewhere on the island but I can reach her for two days due to the communication problems, internet and all, I have no clue on the situation so is everything under control or should I be worried?

Tnx

Franjo
Croatia

Angela said...

Camille~

Be safe! That is some really bad flooding. Hoping you an your wife's family are all fine.

Good luck with getting things to change, someday hopefully they will learn.

Ilya said...

Hey Camille!

Very nice blog, though I should have discovered it a bit earlier... We supposed to be on Samui yesterday, but well you know the story... Now I have a question to you, hope you don't mind. If we re-book our flights for today (30) or for tomorrow (31) will it be still safe/worth it to come on the island? We booked accomodation on Chaweng beach, as far as I'm concerned it's pretty stuffed... :( We stuck at Krabi, it's been pooring there too and we had no power last night. Cheers

Camille said...

Hi Franjo,

I would imagine that she's ok, there are many electricity cuts and cell phones batteries may be dead by now.

Camille said...

Hi Angela,

Thanks for the support, much appreciated and hopefully somebody will wake up indeed!

Camille said...

Hi Ilya,

Right now Krabi will be better than Samui. The island is a 'disaster area' right now and it will take at least a week to clean everything up.

I would look into other destinations for the time being.

amanda said...

Thx for all info
Amanda (South Africa)
Booked for 16 April in Samui

Camille said...

Amanda,

You should be fine, weather should be sunny, hopefully all clean up work (almost) done.

Maria said...

Hello and thank you for your blog with all the info. I am getting married on the 10th of April and we are due to arrive at Koh Samui on the 14th for a week staying at the Pavilion Samui Boutique Resort. We are very concerned about the current floods. What would you advise? we cannot change our plans unless the situation is deemed unsafe by the authorities. Thank you Maria

Camille said...

Hi Maria,

In two weeks time a lot of clean up and repair work can be done. I don't know of any damage to the Pavillion but providing they're fine they will make sure that you will have a great day and event!

Maria said...

Thank you so much Camille. We hope that everything will be ok. The travel agent says that unless the authorities in Koh Samui say that it is not safe to travel there we have to go or pay extra to change destinations.
Regards
Maria

Camille said...

Hi Maria,

Hope everything will work out for you.