Badly damaged buildings and battered palm trees show the tsunami's impact on Bang Tao beach, Phuket. Photograph: Apichart Weerawong/AP
Five weeks after the tsunami hit, parts of Thailand are finding that escaping the wave's immediate destruction has not been enough.
Areas of Phuket were hit badly, but the damage here was far less widespread than you would imagine from looking at a map. Just across from Banda Aceh on those terrifying infographics, it somehow escaped relatively unscathed – except that, for a people and economy relying massively on tourism, the trade has suddenly disappeared.
At Kata Thani Resort, on the Kata Noi beach, officials were today meeting dozens of journalists from the world's press to show that they were "100% ready" to welcome tourists back.
The hotel staff here remember the tsunami only as a strange high tide that flooded the pool and disrupted things for a day or two, despite the fact that the resort is only 15 minutes drive from Patong, where hotels are unlikley to reopen until May.
Guests were briefly evacuated before returning to help clear up, and some even stayed on. They included Imgard Palz, an elderly German Mrs Slocombe type who was wheeled out for the cameras. Apparently, she spends every winter here and wasn't going to budge once she'd been reassured that the pictures on TV weren't of the beach where she was staying. But when the Christmas week's holidaymakers - with the exception of Frau Palz - left, nobody came to replace them.
It is strange to attend a press conference on a paradise beach, and stranger still to see such gorgeous sands empty. Currently, in peak season, only 15% of the beds in Phuket are occupied. While things may start getting busier from next week, with British tour operators starting to send tourists back and an influx expected for the Chinese New Year, many of these beaches are now as pristine and secluded as they have been for decades.
Guardian Unlimited Travel editor Gwyn Topham is in Phuket, Thailand
