So turns out 6 and 3 are the "same same" here...my bus didn't actually arrive to the Phuket bus station until almost 7pm. (see last blog entry for full story) by this point, however, I had bigger problems than running a few hours late.

See, as we were heading into town, the girl on front of me got a call from her friends warning her that she should not go to the beach because there was a tsunami warning! Apparently an 8.6 earthquake had hit Indonesia a few hours earlier and there was a tsunami warning in affect, complete with evacuations. This explained all the cars I saw lined on the side of the road, waiting to watch the tsunami from the hill top.

I was supposed to meet Peter at patong beach area (his flight from Bali was to have landed at 3pm) and wasn't sure how to get ahold of him or meet up. I asked a Thai guy in the bus with me if he could call our hotel to try to reach Peter for me.

When we reached the bus station, he tried calling for me but Boone at the hotel answered because it had been evacuated. The guy, Nas, walked around with me searching for internet and explaining my dilemma to various hop and hotel owners to help me. In the end, we found a hotel that let me use wifi, Peter was on so we finally got ahold of each other. The original plan was to meet at 3, it was now 7:30before we made contact with each other.

I waited at the "boss house hotel" and had drinks and chats with Nas until Peter showed up about an hour later. Nas is 22, works for the military and was as sweet as could be, making sure I was ok. He waited until Peter came and then left, but tuns out his mom had come to pick him up at the bus station and he sent her away so he could help me. He said he is thai, and I'm in his country so he wants to make sure thai people take care of me. What a nice guy.

Since we could not make it to the beach area, we stayed in Phuket and followed the news on the tsunami to figure out our plans for the next day. I was beat but glad everyone was safe.