Before the tsunami hit, Koh Phi Phi had been the crown jewel of the Thai islands. Today the island is a shadow of its former self. It has been almost four months since that fateful day and while there has obviously been a great deal of clean up completed, there is an overwhelming amount of clean up still to be done.

There is rubble, debris and trash around every corner. Many bulding are mangled shells and in many cases they have all together disappeared.

Even so business are open (and charging pre-tsunami prices which I find baffeling) and tourism has resumed. A majority of the people who visit are here to volunteer so there si a nice community feeling to the island and the Thai inhabitants are very grateful and friendly.

I was lucky to have befriended a woman who had worked here last fall and when she stopped to say hi to all of her old friends (all of whom, amazingly were alive) they told her their personal tsunami story. People seem very willing to talk about it.

I have been here for four days and have only succeeded in volunteering for half a day. The first day I relaxed after a long trip. The second day, I discovered was the weekly day off and today the monsoon season officially began.

Yesterday, I helped sift debris out of sand at the site of what will be the memorial park. It was hard work. Today I was supposed to join the snorkeling team to help clean the ocean. Koh Phi Phi was very unique in that the big wave came from the west acrros a narrow part of the island and swept everything imaginable that came into its path into the bay on the east side.

The clean –up is being spearheaded by two grass roots organizations. One is called HI (Help International) Phi Phi for the land clean up and the other is called Adventure Divers for the ocean clean up. Hi Phi Phi pays the locals 300 Baht a day for clean up so that they have a job and can take back their island at the same time. Adventure Divers provides 2 meals a day and will pay for your accommodation if you volunteer for a week (which I would like to do b/c it is expensive here, but the monsoon may prevent that from happening)

There has been a surprising lack of international aid organizations or government involvement. After the tsunami the government gave each person a mere $50 with which to restart their lives. From what I am told, after initial evacuation, it was Phi Phi inhabitants and volunteers who recovered all of the bodies and got them to the pier. Only at that point did the military transport them to the main land (where they rotted in buildings for lack of refrigeration).

There are a lot of politics about how the rebuilding should go, but there are months of clean up ahead before rebuilding is even possible. It is really a shame that more money and attention has not been given to what was once Thailand’s marquee island.