[Nicke]

And everybody who was here when it happened has stories to tell. Or high-water marks to point to. And, seemingly, a need to talk about it.

A waiter at the Amanpuri demonstrates with a spoon lightly shaking on a coffee saucer how the earthquake that launched the tsunami was felt in Phuket. Two hours later, when the waters quickly receded from Pansea Beach, the staff made the connection—and quickly herded everyone off the beach.

Another waiter tells how his fisherman father—"an old man" (he was 55)—survived by climbing a tree, while two, less agile friends next to him drowned.

A van driver, pointing out a gutted building on the beach road in Patong Beach, says something in Thai. I recognize only the Thai words for "21"—but before my friends can translate, I know this was the site of the basement supermarket where 21 died.

At Kamala Beach, one of the two hardest-hit beaches (with Patong) on Phuket, I talk with Puk Wilaiporn, a young woman who runs the Kamala Coffee House. It stands alone now, rebuilt and shiny, waiting for the tourists to come back. She tells how she got 20,000 baht (about $530) from the government; foreigners helped out too. On this beach, 38 villagers and foreigners died. Four of Puk's family were among them. She tells me all this, through a translator, while the Thai smile—which can mean so many things—never leaves her face.

Across the street are a handful of tourists for whom this is their winter home. They are from Sweden—which lost more citizens in the tsunami than any other foreign country. Nonetheless, one man says, "The Swedish people will come back." He declines to give his name, shrugging in explanation toward a Thai woman less than half his age.

I pay a visit, as a journalist not a tourist, to Site II—the tsunami morgue for Phuket, just a mile from the airport. Police Col. Somchai Ratanaarpa explains the process. One set of colored forms goes to relatives of the missing; it is returned with fingerprints, dental records—anything to help in identification, even hair from a comb. Another set of forms in a different color is used by the technicians who compile X-rays, fingerprints, DNA samples and any other identifying details from the body.

A hundred feet in front of me, next to a big red Coca-Cola tent, are piles of empty coffins. A hundred feet to the side are two refrigerator containers, their coolers quietly humming in the tropical heat. Inside are 48 bodies. With my translator, we walk past them to a temporary memorial wall, with flags and names of the three-dozen-or-so countries that lost citizens in Thailand. A handful of Westerners are milling around here; I don't know if they're friends of the victims or just tourists, and I don't ask. A permanent memorial at a less gruesome site is in the works.

The next day we drive across the causeway to the mainland and Khao Lak. As the road climbs a hill into Khao Lak National Park, we are surrounded by lush greenery. As the road begins to descend again, we stop at an open-air restaurant/bar for our first view of Khao Lak beach. Perhaps 20 other tourists—some Thai, some foreigners—are there, taking pictures of the empty beach, far below and sprawling off into the distance for miles.

There's a sign by the cash register: "Tsunami DVDs 300 baht." The proprietor of the restaurant, Anukul Chareonkul, started taping after he noticed the water receding to "where I'd never seen the sand" and filmed continuously for 36 minutes. It is, we discover later when playing it, very amateurish—yet it's also amazingly riveting. At first on the video it's just the vanished ocean you notice; then in the distance you see something on the horizon, rolling toward the beach. It seems to take forever to realize what is coming, then Anukul sets the camera down, and you hear him frantically phoning friends and family to warn them, interspersed with cries—in English—of "Run! Run! Run!" to any tourists below. After the waves hit, there's no more beach, no more people. The water churns around in the bay, finally receding with floating islands of debris—and bodies.

Anukul's sister lost two children; their remains haven't been found.

We drive down to a resort area and roadside town that has all but disappeared. Almost everything is gone—either swept away by the tsunami or cleared off by the dozens and dozens of bulldozers that have been brought in. Only the shells of a few sturdier buildings remain. A Thai navy boat—flying a new flag—sits upright almost a mile inland. Some crushed vehicles—you often can't tell if they were cars or vans—lie about, waiting to be removed. There are pits still filled with water—and, maybe, bodies.

And the beach—we drive right up to it in several places. It's so clean, so gentle looking. Khao Lak beach couldn't have been lovelier. Or deadlier.

But Khao Lak is not Patong or Kamala, and certainly not Karon or Krabi. Those beaches and their towns are alive, their scars disappearing fast. All they need are some tourists to come, enjoy themselves and watch the Thais be their remarkable selves.

Randy Curwen is the Tribune's Travel editor.