Word: phuket
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...huts - have unveiled deluxe accommodation in a bid for upmarket business. Their swish new resorts are helping Thailand generate much-needed buzz in the first peak season after the tsunami. Who knows? One of these up-and-coming towns might someday eclipse the jet set's favorite Thai isle, Phuket. On Koh Lanta Yai, Rawi Warin (rawiwarin.com) joins the burgeoning roster of five-star resorts like Pimalai and Costa Lanta. Standard rooms feature polished woods and Thai silks, while the suites will awe you with their soaring ceilings. The cliff-top pool affords the best view of Lanta's dramatic...
Alinda-Jane Hannah, a New Zealander living in Phuket, was nearly killed by the Dec. 26 tsunami. Driving along a road in the beachside town of Kamala, she and her 3-year-old daughter Nakita-Rose were almost washed away by the waves as they swamped the eastern coast of the island. A sharp intimation of mortality revisited Hannah last week when a loudspeaker in a nearby mosque woke her shortly before midnight, warning of another tsunami on the way. Hannah fled to higher ground, together with tens of thousands of other locals and tourists. Now, she says, after three...
...While Phuket trembled in fear, the small island of Nias, a surfing mecca off the western coast of Sumatra, was shaken to the ground by an earthquake that registered 8.7 on the Richter scale. Unlike the quake that struck in December, this one did not create a devastating tsunami. But in Nias, just 70 km from the epicenter, death and destruction were instantaneous. "Everything happened so fast," says Nasima Zai, 42, a shopkeeper in Gunung Sitoli, Nias' largest town. Nasima was in bed when her house started to shake. She woke her husband, grabbed their two young children, and tried...
...highlight the many attractions that were untouched or have already reopened, in hopes of dispelling the gruesome images of paradise lost. Both campaigns attempt to reassure their audience that it's not only O.K. to return?it's necessary. "I liken it to attending a charity ball," says Laguna Phuket's Batt. "You get to go to a place and feel good about...
...disaster tourists. We are not here to see the damaged buildings. We are here for the sun and the sea, but we are also here for the local people. They are so happy to see us. Our friends [in Holland] thought we were mad to come. They think Phuket is now in ruins. But it's not true...