Monday Postcard Special

Before I start, thank you for all the messages I have received over the past days. I am just catching up and trying to reply to all of them. 

I have not written any Monday Postcard for a long time (which is truly a shame, I should start again) and when I was writing down the events of 28 March for myself, I thought it may also be interesting for you to read about them in the format of my Postcard.

Since Friday, the question everyone has been asking is: “Where were you when it happened?”. “It” referring to the earthquake on 28 March, which had its epicenter in Myanmar and also hit Bangkok.

Where was I? I was on the way to meeting a friend for afternoon tea at a hotel in the Chidlom area. I had really looked forward to it, as we had not seen each other in months. I took the BTS, the sky train, to Chidlom. It was an incredibly hot day, I walked to the BTS station in Phrom Phong and waited for the train. It took ages for one to come and when it arrived, it was completely full. For a second, I thought: “Maybe I wait for the next one,” but then I saw the tourists squeezing themselves into the crowd with their suitcases and thought: “If they fit in, so do I” and entered the train. I swiftly arrived at Chidlom station and went towards the exit towards Langsuan Road. “Be there in 5,” I texted, tapped out at the station and went towards the exit leading into Mercury City, a shopping centre connected to the walkway of the sky train. “I’m at the lobby, see you,” my friend texted back and I read it while entering the shopping centre. The sky train, as its name suggests runs “above” the city, hence, you usually enter on something like the third floor of the building. I passed by a Western tourist and entered the building. I do not remember if I was texting, I do not think so but I suddenly felt dizzy. I was swaying – a big sway to the left and then to the right. “Oof, I didn’t drink enough this morning,” I thought and kept walking. I turned left towards the escalator down and then I do not remember what happened first – the guy behind me trying to quickly overtake, or me “swaying” again while turning onto the escalator.

On the escalator, I looked down and suddenly realised that people were running towards the exit. My first thought was that there may be some Thai celebrity and they all wanted to chase them for a selfie – I am surprised that this was my first thought, that this “positive naivité” was the first thing coming to my mind. But then I realized that they did not run for a selfie. I started running as well. Somehow on autopilot I ran down the escalators – if I could, unfortunately the last one was blocked by people standing. I do not know why – maybe they had not realized what was going on yet, or maybe they physically could not walk down. (In any case, this is my reference to the beautiful Viennese saying “rechts stehen, links gehen” (stand right, walk left) which a “polite” Viennese granny will shout at you if you block the escalator. Please do one thing: if you really cannot run or walk down an escalator, stay at one side (the Viennese would prefer you to stand on the right) so that other people can pass by.

I saw that most people ran out of the main entrance, one lady to the side. I decided to follow her and ended up on Langsuan Road which connects the busy Sukhumvit Road and Lumphini Park. Outside. I just saw the crowds staring up to the sky. I ran to the other side of the road and turned around as I heard a loud cracking sound and people screaming “Ohhhhh”. There were cracks on the building, then the sound happened again. It sounded like gunshots, I decided to move away from the building. I did not know what was going on. Later on, I realized it was the cracking of glass windows, as I saw some shattered glass on the side of another building. Most people stood at one side of the road, stared up to the sky, or filmed for social media. I called my friend. Fortunately, he was very close. While I waited for him, I observed the crowds – hotel guests in robes, some barefoot, office workers and only then did I realized that Langsuan Road which is usually extremely busy was completely empty. The cars had stopped. What had happened? I noticed three men talking in sign language pointing at the buildings, I slowly had a feeling what may have happened and googled – Earthquake in Tibet I read (later on, I learned it was Myanmar). 

I looked up and saw a wannabe influencer film herself barefoot on the road, while the cars were slowly approaching. What was going on with people? Why did nobody move? My instinct told me to move towards the park, I somehow thought of 9/11 and remembered how the buildings collapsed. One of Bangkok’s biggest parks was probably the safest place. I tried to find out what happened but when I asked in Thai people did not really react – maybe they were all still in shock and usually, they do not expect foreigners to speak Thai. I went on and told every foreigner I saw to move away from the area. I probably looked like the people screaming “Godzilla” in the movie.

I finally found my friend and he also thought Lumphini Park was the safest bet. I called my husband who was also near the park and then I called my mother (well, first my father who usually picks up his phone while my mum cannot find hers; but on that day, she picked up first). “Do not freak out, there was an earthquake, if you read something in the news, I am safe, I am heading to a big park and will keep you posted.” I am glad I called her immediately as soon the network would stop working, phone or online calls did not go through, and then my family would only see the events on the news without knowing what happened to me. The lack of phone reception was a bit of a blessing in disguise – I could not check online what happened, therefore, I did not know about the magnitude of the earthquake until about an hour later and what happened all around Bangkok.

When we entered the park, it did not really feel like a natural disaster just happened. There were more people than usual but the park staff was still watering the flowers, trimming bushes, the lizards roamed around. We decided to buy some water and walked towards the main entrance at the other side of Lumphini Park. You could definitely tell that this was not a normal day over there. Everyone tried to buy water from a vendor. Despite the crowds, people queued up without making a fuss. We started to chat with a young girl who had won a TikTok challenge and had waited to perform on stage. I saw that the line got more chaotic the lower the water supply of the small vendor got. My friend and I did not even need to talk, we moved on. I took the girl at the hand and said, “Follow me, otherwise you won’t get any water.” I tried to get the attention of the vendor who was extremely busy and trying to stay calm in the chaos. My friend was the tallest, hence, we decided that I would take the water bottles and he paid the vendor. We paid him 120 Baht for eight bottles and as one was only eight Baht, the vendor was worried and even tried to give back the correct change for everyone. But we were all just happy to have water. After all, we had no idea what would happen and how long we would be at the park. 

The earthquake happened at around 13.20, it must have been an hour afterwards. We walked towards a spot in the shade. I had brought some Lindt chocolate and some Austrian chocolate (Mozartkugeln) for my friend which was about to melt in the 36-degree-heat. We laid out a small picnic – the chocolates, some fruit my friend had carried and water. A Thai family joined us at the table and we started chatting. I think they were happy and surprised at the same time when they saw us – an Austrian and an Australian – speaking to them in Thai. We shared the chocolates and made fun about the Austrian-Australian friendship and the lack of kangaroos in one country. The family lived in one of the outer districts of Bangkok, the son went to school somewhere else. By then, we finally managed to find out more information and learned about the epicentre in Myanmar. After some time, the family made their way. “Auf Wiedersehen,” the son said. and we were wondering what to do, it must have been around 2.30 p,. My friend had to walk towards Saphan Khwai, which was the opposite direction. We tried to find the best strategy given the heat and decided we would make our own way back. At 3 pm, I met my husband at the new connecting highline of Lumphini Park and Benjakiti Park. I hugged my friend and tears were pouring down our faces – I think this was the first moment we somehow realized what had happened.

I have walked a lot in Bangkok in the past – actually with exactly the friend I met that day. We had explored various areas of Bangkok on foot and I had done the walk through the parks before the high lane was built. It is not very far but it was a very hot day and there are no trees along the high line. It was an exceptionally beautiful day and there were almost no clouds in the sky. Did I mentioned the 36 degrees before?

I knew about a nice café on the other side of Benjakiti Park (Invisible Coffee Room, it deserves the advertising, as it has some of the best coffee in town); this was our first destination. When we walked through Benjakiti Park there were hundreds of people, some with their pets. Everyone was waiting, as we still did not know what would happen. I think most people, especially those living in the outer districts of the city, were worried if they would even make it home that night. (Many people ended up sleeping at the parks that night and I saw restaurants, yoga studios, shops and other places posting on Instagram that people could stay overnight.) People were still coming into Benjakiti Park – and the scenes were also typical of Thailand. For example, there was a lady pushing an elderly lady in a wheel chair and both were laughing. Only in Thailand can people stay so chill and still smile and laugh in such a situation. At the café, I realized that I had not eaten anything since breakfast (apart from half a mandarin and some chocolate), I was not hungry at all but I knew I needed some fuel and demolished a brownie. With an iced latte in hand, we made our way towards our home base and reached our street at about 5 pm. We stopped at a 7/11 convenience store to buy water, snacks and some supplies, as we did not know if and when we could enter our building. The 7/11 again gave the feeling of “the world is going down but we are all calm”. The line was long but nobody complained. 

When we reached our building, everyone was sitting in the lobby or somewhere outside. We had to wait until the lifts and the building were cleared. Everybody was in this strange mood – on the one hand half in shock, on the other extremely chatty. I met so many people that day who I had never seen before, or, I had seen them but we never talked and we actually made plans and met some of the people later that weekend. We also got some pizza for everyone. Most people had forgotten to eat and the staff of the building was so worried about doing their job that food was the last thing on their minds. I finally managed to call my parents in Austria. I also gave a brief interview for the Austrian radio (if you speak German, you can listen to it here or read about it here). The cell reception was (almost) back and I also found out later that in most of Bangkok it actually had worked the whole day. It must have been the crowds in and around Lumphini Park who all tried to call at the same time and crashed the network. I still was texting with my friend making sure he was OK on his walk. 

At 11 pm we were finally allowed to head upstairs – we were all nervous about the state of the apartments. And while there were some damages like cracks in the walls or problems with the air-condition, the weirdest thing was that nothing had really moved. If I had not known about the earthquake, I would not have been able to tell when entering the rooms. Everything was in its place. You would think that an earthquake of that magnitude (in the area around Lumphini Park it was about 5 on the Richter Scale), which makes buildings sway multiple times, would have broken glass, or would have made things fall out of the closets and cabinets or would move books and picture frames. Nothing. The only thing which had moved was a shaving cannister and a toothbrush which fell into the sink, that was it.

The Saturday after the earthquake was strange. We felt drained, exhausted, we had not really slept as we kept waking up checking if the building was moving. Well, if I am being honest, I did sleep and I did not think about that but even in my dream I kept going through the events. Until today, I have not figured out how long the earthquake in Bangkok actually was – we assume it was first 30 seconds, then a 20-second-break, then another 20 seconds. I remember one earthquake in Europe which only lasted a few seconds but the shaking felt much, much longer, even though it was significantly less than the one in Bangkok. But somehow, this one in Bangkok felt much shorter for me. Maybe because I was closer to the ground? People who were on higher floors said it was really bad and they felt it lasted for ages. At the time, the experience of the earthquake itself was not the main issue for me, as I did not know it was one. I had never felt that swaying movement before, earthquakes in Europe feel more like continuous shaking. But Bangkok is a very loud city by nature, maybe there was some shaking and we did not notice it because we thought it was a nearby train or construction site. I was more worried about a panic or that something else was going on.

And speaking about trains: I was glad that I had squeezed into the BTS because I do not know what happened on the next train – if it stopped and people were able to get outside. I am not sure, what my experience would have been if I had been trapped in an overcrowded train, or how the trains moved during the earthquake. 

Today (Monday), some buildings were evacuated again. I was near one government building in Lak Si which was evacuated. Again, I was checking the exits, thinking about the fastest way to escape if something happened. I guess, it will take a few days until everyone has calmed down. 

Apart from being glad that we were lucky, I learned a lot, firstly about myself; how important it is to trust your gut instinct and to always have an idea of what is going on around you. And I learned to see the positive in people. In times like today, it is easy to think that everyone has bad intentions. But when it comes down to it, people are good. I saw much more positive things than negative ones – even if it was just a smile or asking how you are. This is something we should all keep in mind.