Tsunami Alters Traveling Plans for Island Workers

Great Turtle Toys employees Jen Daniels (left) and Rheanne Suszek in front of the Ayutthaya temple ruins in Thailand.

By Ryan Schlehuber

In the aftermath of the December 26 tsunami in the Indian Ocean region that has killed at least 150,000 people, Mackinac Island received the good news that two of its seasonal workers, Rheanne Suszek and Jennifer Daniels, are safe and unharmed.

The two friends, both in their 20s and employees of Ben Nye’s Great Turtle Toys on Mackinac Island, traveled to Thailand December 7 and were planning to travel throughout Thailand and Indonesia. Miss Suszek is from Saginaw and Miss Daniels, originally from Swartz Creek, has been living year-around on Mackinac Island the past few years.

No one from Mackinac Island heard from either of the women until days after the disaster, when Miss Daniels e-mailed friends back home.

Both had different plans of travel, but compromised by first exploring northern Thailand and then going to Laos, east of Thailand, instead of heading to the beaches of southern Thailand, one of Miss Suszek’s initial traveling plans. They were both in central Laos the day the tsunami hit.

The west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the closest inhabited area to the epicenter of the earthquake, was devastated by the tsunami.

“It freaks me out to think that we could have been on one of those beaches,” wrote Miss Suszek in her e-mail. “It’s just dumb luck.”

The women heard about the disaster from some Australian tourists as they visited a night market in Luang Prabang, Laos.

“News takes on a whole different meaning when you are traveling and, in general, cut off from newspapers and CNN,” said Miss Suszek. “Even though it was very close, it felt very far away. It didn’t seem to affect either of our opinions or actions for the next several days.”

She said, however, the thought of the possibility of them being on the beaches when the tsunami hit overcame her at one point.

“I got sick to my stomach thinking about what it would have been like had we been there,” she said.

Both women continued their vacations, but instead of exploring Thailand and Malaysia, they traveled to Vietnam and Bali.

“If things clear up, we might go back to Indonesia, then back through Thailand, but everything is such a mess right now,” wrote Miss Suszek. “It’s really scary and frustrating because it’s so hard to get news here. We feel so cut off.”

Miss Daniels was to return in January. Miss Suszek planned to travel until March.