As my afternoon ferry from Phuket approaches Thailand's Phi Phi Island, Tonsai Bay's pier hums with life. Hotel touts greet the arrivals: small groups of Western backpackers, and older tourists pulling heavier trolley-style suitcases. An old woman peddles guava, pineapple and watermelon. Labourers unload beer and bottled water from the colourfully emblazoned Hippies Phi Phi Cargo Boat. Scuba diving shops' brightly painted boats bob gently in the mountain-rimmed bay's placid waters. The contrast with the grim desolation I saw here in the days just after the December 26 tsunami moves me nearly to tears.
Of all Thailand's battered holiday destinations, tiny Phi Phi Island, the backpackers' and scuba divers' Mecca, was one of the hardest hit. Its specÂtacular double-crescent beach was pummelled from two directions; people fleeing the tsunami waves that pounded Tonsai Bay were then swallÂowed by the wall of water from Lo Dalam Bay. More than 700 people are known to have perished on the island; 500 more are still recorded missing.
