OT: Thailand Pics and tsunami clothing drive

[Sharkey]

Hi folks,

 

My wife Beth and I were in Phuket Thailand in December. We came home a couple days before the tsunami. We were fortunate. Thousands were not.

 

We've posted some pictures from our trip (diving pix and pix of some elephants and mahoutes that lived at our hotel complex grounds) on our travel web site:

 

Travel web site including recent Thailand trip pics

 

 

We made friends with the local mahoutes and have been in contact with the hotel staff where we stayed. The good news is that when the tsunami hit, the mahouts were on the beach with one of the baby elephants. It saved a little girl's life by grabbing her out of the rushing water and putting her on its back. Because of this, they have received some great publicity and some donations from generous people.

 

However, one of the things the hotel staff are doing is trying to gather clothing for the locals. Many people lost everything they had. So my wife is doing a clothing drive to collect clothes that the hotel will distribute to their staff, family, and others on the island of Phuket. She is collecting the clothes in our basement and will ship them off using FEDEX.

 

Phuket is very tropical so they mostly need summer type clothes (shorts, light pants, jeans, short sleeve shirts, lightweight long-sleeve shirts, unused underwear). They need small to medium adult sizes as most people are short and thin. They also need all sizes of kids clothing.

 

If you are interested in helping to donate clothes, PM me and I'll give you our mailing address.

 

In the meantime, here's a couple pictures:

 

 

 

[Bonds25]

 

If you are interested in helping to donate clothes, PM me and I'll give you our mailing address.

 

Are you taking cash (or Paypal) donations too, or just clothes?

[metropoliscomics]

Where did you stay in Phuket?

VZ

[Sharkey]

 

If you are interested in helping to donate clothes, PM me and I'll give you our mailing address.

 

Are you taking cash (or Paypal) donations too, or just clothes?

 

Just clothes. These clothes are going right to the hotel we stayed at for 4 nights in Dec, and which we also stayed at earlier this year, which is the Sheraton Laguna Grand on Bang Tao Beach. The property itself had minor damage compared to other places, but many of the staff and relatives of staff lost a lot. They are going to distribute the clothing to their staff and staff's families and friends whose possessions were lost or ruined by the tsunami.

 

We also spent one night in Patong Beach at the Holiday Inn but don't have any contacts there. The people we have spoken to said that it was damaged pretty badly as Patong Beach got hit hard.

[Sharkey]

Also, if you are interested in paypal donations, I do have a colleague who is in Thailand right now trying to do something directly. You can read about it here:

 

 

 

Previous post about tsunami relief effort by a colleague.

 

 

Many thanks for your interest!