Life even as far north as Chiang Mai is strange after Sunday's string of disasters. Things seem to veer from hyper-consciousness of the destruction to a kind of surreal did-that-really-happen? kind of attitude.

One the one hand, locals and tourists are careening about town, hiring and riding motorbikes, snapping up fresh fruit, or frequenting their favourite som-tam seller.

On the other hand, overnight the city centre has been innundated by posters issued by the Thai Red Cross urgently soliciting blood donations. The fliers cover every available surface - telegraph poles, fences, doorways at the local 7-Eleven. The English ones are desperately seeking foreigners to donate blood as the Thai supplies are critically short of A and O blood types and RH-negative blood supplies, all of which occur infrequently in the Thai population.

The first person we saw this morning was a Thai volunteer bustling into our guesthouse, asking the proprietors to put up as many signs as possible.

The donation centre had a good turn-out this morning, despite the fact that the fliers had only been in circulation for a couple of hours at that stage.

Internet cafes seem fuller than usual, and everyone's inboxes are full of concerned inquiries.

We return to Bangkok tomorrow evening, and I'm not sure what the mood there will be. Maybe more of this same weird disjuncture between horror and lightness?

Seeing the pictures and the ever-mounting death toll is horrendous and still deeply shocking. Each day seems to bring new and horrific stories that beggar belief. The numbers alone are staggering; I cannot believe that the first news item I read on Sunday night quoted 9,000 fatalities - and I turned to Andrew in absolute incomprehension to relay this fact. That the same sources now quote 55,000+ dead is chilling in the extreme.