December 26th, 2004 left a very unpleasant memory in the history of Thailand, is the key to this. On that very day, my friend had managed to persuade another mutual acquaintance of ours to accompany him on another excursion, in this case to the island of Phuket. Shortly after the Christian holiday of Christmas, the two travelled there, charged with positive emotions and anticipation for their upcoming exploits. I wished them an pleasant flight, lots of steamy photos, and many interesting and memorable experiences to have to tell. On that same day, many of you may recall that various parts of Thailand, and especially Phuket, were hit by one of the most ferocious tsunamis in the history of the world. When the news of this came out in the news media, I immediately started ringing the phones of my friends, wanting to know if they were safe and sound and what was happening to them? I remember that there was no connection, and mobile providers worldwide could not secure a connection to that part of our planet because of the millions of calls from people whose loved ones were in Thailand at the time. I immediately contacted the relatives of my two friends, and they also had no contact for a long time and what was happening to them. It was only a few days later that they found out they were fine and had been uniquely lucky. On their way to Thailand, the airline they were travelling on had to stop for a technical reason to refuel and, within that time difference, their flight was delayed and the tsunami, which was of monstrous proportions, took tens of thousands of lives, both local and tourist.
From that point, I really start paying serious attention to Thailand. Yes, for a very unpleasant reason for many people, but this story provoked me to look for info about everything that happens there. And past the tsunami, I learned enough about the beauty, history and culture of this little piece of paradise. It made me start in my thoughts the process of considering the idea of visiting. Interestingly, my first visit to Thailand happened a full seven years later, in 2011. But not only did it come to fruition, but it also turned into more regular visits.
A year earlier, in 2010, the planning and looking around for bargain airfares began. It turned out that the first and most important step was to find a ticket that was within one's pocket. Then the motivation of getting a good deal starts to grow at a tremendous rate and when one gets his or her reserved seat on board the plane, then plans for everything else are easier and more enjoyable. With another friend of mine, who was the second person to try and succeed far quicker in convincing me over the years to visit Thailand, we bought our tickets and started the big read on the internet of information about the destination so that we would be as prepared as possible for what was in store and enjoy our trip to the fullest. We organized everything on our own without using a travel agency. We hadn't left yet, and the first fun moment came. I confess that the 2004 tsunami incident was still shaking me violently and I had some residual apprehension. To that end, we began our search for a hotel with the idea of it being somewhere high up in the mountains in Patong, Phuket's top spot for revelry.