The document discusses the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, noting that the author was in Phuket, Thailand just two weeks before the tsunami hit. The author would often go running on the beach in the morning, the same time the tsunami struck, so they would have been swept away. The hotel the author stayed at was destroyed by the tsunami waves. When the author returned the following year, they saw that the tourist areas had been quickly rebuilt, though it likely took longer for local civilians to become reestablished after the disaster.