Nothing had prepared me to even remotely comprehend what happened on December 26, 2004. That day, I was standing in a rice field near my Bali home with my son, Richard. The day before we had spent a lovely Christmas opening gifts. At that moment, a text message arrived from Andrew Marshall , close friend and writer in Bangkok: "John, did you hear a giant wave hit Phuket?" I was dumbstruck and began calling the photo editor of Time Magazine in Hong Kong, Lisa Botos. It was Boxing Day and most were enjoying time with their families, not glued to news broadcasts. Within a few minutes a picture began to emerge - a major natural disaster had occurred. Not only was Thailand affected, so was the country where I live, Indonesia. I found myself flying to Phuket (at the time Aceh was off limits to foreign journalist), but en route diverted to an equal disaster 2,000 miles west in Sri Lanka, and one week later coming back to Indonesia to document the horrors of Aceh. Each day throughout the first week of 2005, I couldn't remotely digest what was I was seeing: the affects of a 100-foot wave crushing cities. Entire villages were wiped out in seconds leaving over 175,000 people dead in Sumatra alone.
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