Speechless, we drove down to the bay area, passing a bank that had been looted in the days following the tsunami. Enson had heard that around $40,000 was stolen. RIFT Platinum I thought to myself how insignificant that seems right now. Houses in this area were still standing, but all the contents were washed away. People were lost, a bank's money seemed petty.

The houses and fish markets in the bay area were jaw dropping. A truck was sticking out of a what was left of a post office. A car was stuck in a second-story window.rift gold Only a few structures were still standing and nothing was inside. Piles and piles of people's belongings were strewn all through the area and photos, records and clothes could be found hundreds of meters away from the houses in the fish markets. Every time I saw a shoe I thought I was looking at a foot.

When I was young, I lived on a farm in rural Australia. I know the smell of a dead animal. I've also lived in a fishing town. I know the smell of dead fish. The smell in the bay area was the pungent smell of tsunami victims. With a mask it was bearable, but the thought of the source of the stench wrenched my insides. RIFT Platinum The streets were clear of visible bodies, but the debris was piled high. There was certainly bodies in there.

Enson was constantly staring off into the bay. After an hour there, he finally he snapped himself out of it saying, "When I was here a couple weeks ago, bodies were filling with gas and popping up in the water. I can't stop looking for them."

Dump trucks were gathering the remains of the destroyed buildings of Miyako and taking them to the wharf where four excavators were working on a pile of rubble that was at least five stories high in some places and was as big as a city block. It was only the tip of the iceberg. A large percentage of Miyako would be added to that mound in the coming months.

I had thought Miyako was bad, but the neighboring fishing village of Taro was in a different league entirely.

We drove through 20 minutes of tunnels and breathtaking beauty before eventually coming into a clearing where Enson said, "This is Taro."

"Where?" I replied.

He showed me the GPS. Taro, a town of 5,000 had occupied this sandy, barren plain. There was literally nothing there.

We continued driving and went to the Taro docks. There were two buildings left in this whole town. A hotel and some sort of building on the waterfront.Rift Gold I guessed it was a fishing building of some sort but there was no way to tell.

The hotel showed the height of the tsunami as the bottom three stories were completely demolished and the fourth story was covered in debris. A tire was lodged in a balcony window railing around 100 feet high.

Aside from that hotel, there was nothing recognizable. No way to tell where buildings were. No concrete foundations. No iron beams. Just sand from the tsunami and small mounds of cloth, wood and metal. We saw one TV. Five thousand people had lived there, and we saw only one TV.

Beyond sadness. Beyond pity, frustration or a feeling of helplessness. A city completely gone. I had thought that the footage and photos I had seen prior to coming here was just showing select parts of the city and that perhaps it was not that bad. But it was all gone. Nothing left. It was impossible to comprehend and beyond the scope of human emotion.

Two things struck me.

Firstly, there was no one there. Miyako had a few military personal around but not a huge presence. Taro had a sole woman picking through the rubble, looking for photos or valuables to take to a nearby city hall. We wanted to talk to her but could think of nothing to say.

Secondly, there was no smell of death and it seemed strange how little debris there was in Taro. Looking out into the ocean I saw why that was though, as large concrete blocks from the two 50-foot seawall were floating among pieces of Taro. The seawall that failed to save Taro. The iron gates remained, but the walls were bobbing up and down in the water.

Seagulls were circling the around the wreckage floating in the bay. It was a grim thought. but I couldn't help but know that the seagulls were smelling all-too-familiar smell that we could not.

As we were leaving the town Enson said,"I can tell we are in different places right now. I could see that they had cleared a bit of the rubble. That was a positive for me." I thought out loud that there were no positives in this situation. There was nothing positive to take away from that scene.

We drove the rest of the way in silence. I tried to sleep in the car but .Taro was gone. I grew up in a town very much like that.

Despite the devastation that we witnessed today, we have heard stories of much worse. Tomorrow, we head south to Rikuzentakata and Kesennuma. Two larger cities that were unbelievably hit harder than Taro.