"I felt that there was something wrong the night before. The moon was very large, and unusually red. I was curious about this,” says Nikom “Tuk” Ploykhao, 28-year-old owner of the once-thriving Moon Bar, on Kamala Beach. Just 200 metres north of Tuk’s Moon Bar, Atikom Sopanun (“Eak”), of Freedom Bar, was overcome by a similar feeling while catering to his customers on Christmas night. Indeed, nothing could have prepared any Kamala Beach resident or shopowner for what they faced the following morning.
The popularity of Kamala Beach stems from the seaside beauty, friendly environment and family atmosphere. This peaceful retreat — away from the bargirls, bustling markets and fast-food chains of Patong, its neighbour just to the south — radiates a charm and character that proves irresistible to a certain tourist, enticing them back again and again.
Many attribute their lives today to international friendships founded on that very beach. Others are thankful for the kind-heartedness of those they fatefully encountered on Boxing Day morning, 2004. Twenty-seven-year-old Khun “Eak” is but one of those heroes. “Some of the foreigners had damaged feet from the first wave, so I carried them upstairs. I had about 20 people on the second floor of my house,” he says. For her part, Eak’s girlfriend, Khun Star, tells how a friend risked her own safety to awaken a regular European visitor from his beachfront bungalow to battle the mighty surges of water together.
Khun Tuk had stayed on the beach until 6am on 25 December 2005, before closing the Moon Bar and heading home. “My mum woke me at 9am,” he says. “The house had already tilted to one side. I couldn’t believe my eyes.” Within the hour, after being swept 200 metres from his demolished residence, Tuk was hoisted to safety by a Swedish couple.
Many heartening tales from that tragic morning still echo through the Kamala Beach area, but most astonishing is the support that has continued to come from foreign friends since. This assistance, combined with the determination and spirit of the locals to move on, rebuild and recover the livelihoods they lost so suddenly, is what will transform Kamala once again into the tranquil, pleasant place that it has always been.
Standing just metres from where his successful beachfront business was so abruptly destroyed, Eak says he has no doubt that his customers will return again. “People want to come back here and visit this place and its people again. … Now we are just waiting for the local government to remove the rubble so that we can rebuild our bar.”
Blocked from rebuilding on his previous land plot, and having received little recompense from government authorities, Eak and Star are now renting what remains of a small house, in the hope they’ll have their business rebuilt and running smoothly again by the coming high season.
By 27 February 2005, they had already declared their bar open for business again. The couple stood amid the rubble beside a single Esky, and five beach chairs and umbrellas were assembled on the sand in front of them. Scrawled across the front of this yellow box in red spray paint was their bars’ trademark name: FREEDOM.
One week later, their three-walled building was laden with twinkling fairy lights and makeshift shelves had been fitted for storage of extra stock. By 13 March 2005, they were operating from a brand-new portable drink stand. “We will begin rebuilding the shop in April,” Khun Eak says confidently. “The bar will be ready for visitors in September.”
A thirsty tourist steps around from the rubble behind them. He addresses Eak by name, cheerfully collects his drink and takes a seat on what remains of a concrete wall. Peter Schneider, a regular visitor to Kamala, says he had no hesitations about coming to Phuket this year. “I always return to this place. It’s beautiful. In ’89, the buffalo used to come down here and walk right along the beach. … But you can’t just come when the times are good.” Having enjoyed so many pleasant stays on Kamala Beach previously, Peter explains that he wanted to come back this year to see his friends — to see how they were, and to see if he could help.
Eak believes this mentality has helped many locals to recover some of their losses and begin working towards a profitable future again. “Many of our foreign friends contacted me when they heard what had happened,” he says.
Eak and Star have received about 100,000 baht from international cash transfers. Some foreigners returned to Phuket especially to visit and assist them. Eak explains that they wanted to make sure their money went directly into the rebuilding of lives and businesses in the area: “Some people bought umbrellas, tools for rebuilding and materials for the bar.” Others enclosed cash in envelopes, and gave them to visiting friends with instructions on where it was to be distributed.
Another tourist stops by for a drink. Christian Susitz of Austria says that, having been to Phuket about five times before, he saw no reason to travel elsewhere this year: “After the tsunami, it is another reason to come back and support the people and see if they are okay. It is not a reason to go to other destinations.”
Tuk also received very little financial support from the government, and is grateful for the generosity of his foreign friends, many of them regular Moon Bar clients. Having also lost his father, his home, his car and many other possessions in the tsunami, Tuk spent two months in a tent on the hillside with his mother and girlfriend, who were also homeless.
Jan Jacobs, a long-standing member of Tuk’s family and owner of Kamala Dreams Resort says, “We have decided not to sit around and wait [for government support]. We will help ourselves. Tuk also. All the old clients will be back for sure. All our old friends are waiting for us to reopen.”
Jan says many good people have returned to Kamala on vacation already. He cites their support as a significant factor in granting many tsunami victims the strength and support they needed to make a new start.
“People loved the Moon Bar,” says Jan. “Now they come with pockets full of money. They say to Tuk ‘Where is your house?’, and he replies, ‘Well, it used to be here.’” Jan points to the property where Tuk is overseeing the construction of his new, self-designed bar. The frustration, confusion and sorrow that loomed in his eyes in the wake of the tsunami is no longer evident. “I think many people who were here in December will come back,” Jan says.

Khun Tuk (above) oversees the rebuilding of his ever-popular Moon Bar. Having spent two months in a tent, this Kamala resident is now renting a new place in town and is back on
the road to recovery.

Khun Surin Sikkapan (“Nong”) of Kamala Beach’s Bob’s Bar is also full of confidence, and currently doing everything he can to see his business up and running again. This has been the objective since Nong’s first visit to the beach on Boxing Day afternoon. “I went to the beach at about 1 or 2 o’clock in the afternoon. I thought my bar would be okay, because I had locked it all up and secured everything that morning,” he says, laughing at his own naivety.
Small pieces of fluorescent concrete that once formed the walls of his reggae bar now lie scattered by the beach, the only evidence of his business. Still, it took just one week for Nong to return to his plot of land prepared to rebuild. “My bar is gone,” he said, just days after the tsunami. “But I will go back there. I will have my bar again.”
Nong soon learned, when the authorities came in, that it wasn’t going to be so straightforward. Many people in his situation were simply told to stop rebuilding and given no assistance or directions as to how and where they could re-establish their businesses. Nong says that an order to “wait” was issued, leaving many residents frustrated for months while the question of “How long?” remained unanswered.
Nong moved back from the beach, borrowed some money from his family and rented a place where he could re-establish Bob’s Bar. He says the general feeling in the area now is just to rebuild, and explains that not many people have hope, or are expecting the government to come in and help any more. “I cannot wait,” he says. “I don’t know if or when we might get assistance, so I just help myself.” He has a lot of confidence in his bar, the name and the reggae style that so many clients have enjoyed for five years, and he hopes that, by September, he can maintain his business again so that he and his staff can “survive and provide for their families”.
“The hardest thing at the moment is the budget,” Nong says. “If I run out of money, I will just have to keep some savings, open the bar as it is, and slowly work towards making it what I want it to be.” He’s currently doing everything on his own to rebuild the bar. “Someone else will have to do the roof, and some of the building in the kitchen, but I am in no rush right now. I will take it slowly, and save money where I can.”
As he speaks, another truckload of building materials veers off the main road towards Kamala’s beachside residences. The sound of pounding hammers and the hum of the electric saws echo through the air. By the beach, Eak and Star sit by their drink stand chatting with tourists. And, just a few hundred metres away, Tuk and Jan’s family are busy restoring their properties in order to serve and spend time with their friends in this special seaside environment once more.

Kamala locals band together (opposite page),
to help in the restoration of their beloved seaside village.