Goodbye Kamala

As part of my ongoing "farewell tour" of Phuket, I checked out Kamala Beach on Saturday. Kamala had always had a special place in my heart; I stayed at a small, family-run hotel of stilted bungalows there during my first two visits to the island, back in 2002. Sections of the Thai mainland, as well as numerous tiny islands in the Andaman Sea (not to mention Banda Aceh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and elsewhere) were hit harder by the 2004 tsunami, but Kamala sustained more damage than any other town on Phuket.

It had been more than a year since I'd checked Kamala's recovery, but the town has obviously been busy in that time. Inland sections showed considerable development, mostly in the form of residential construction (some of it upscale). The main street was always decidedly commercial, but is now more thickly-settled than I remember. At the time of my first visit, the beachfront was quiet and unpretentious. The tsunami wiped most of it away, but the area has rebounded bigger and "better". My beloved hotel has been replaced by an enormous four- or five-star resort. I remember a dispute regarding "encroachment" on public lands ensnared several of the businesses in Kamala immediately after the tsunami; the government wanted to rezone much of the beachfront, but the "little guys" -- the moms and pops, the fishermen, and others -- feared a land-grab orchestrated behind the scenes by big property developers. I'd like to think there was an amicable, or at least fair, ending, but it would be the first among the land disputes one often hears about here anecdotally.

An enormous man-made, concrete-reinforced canal (100-feet across at its widest point and about half as deep) will go a long way towards protecting much of the town in the event of another killer wave. An adjacent memorial honors the tsunmi victims, but what was once an unpretentious public park, where kids would gather in the early evening for pick-up games of soccer and where public concerts were occasionally performed in a small gazebo, now seemed to shout at me to keep off the grass and be on my way. I cruised the beach road but was repelled by noxious pop music played at obscene volumes by a couple of the new bars and cafes. One man's nostalgia is another's bad memory, and far be it from me to begrudge a town's "progress" but Kamala has suddenly become my least favorite part of the island.

Further north, Surin Beach offered a refreshing contrast. Development has been booming here for years, but in the form of high-end condos and the like. Touristy glitz is nonexistent and the beach and adjacent grassy park were like what I remembered of Kamala.

Nearby Laemsing Beach is still a jewel, provided you keep your back to the row of decrepit, open-air restaurants and a litter-strewn section where the beach meets gnarled roots and branches at the foot of a steep hill. I have high hopes that there will always be a few parts of Phuket that survive. Areas like Laemsing are so steep and rocky that they might actually be development-proof.

The weather continues to be beautiful. Apart from a three-day stretch last month when I wondered if I would see the sun again, the start of the "rainy" season continues to be mostly clear. The sea is rough, however, and standing in just shin-deep water at Laemsing was enough to feel the violent pull of the undertow. Monsoon activity elsewhere in the region makes for treacherous swimming here, in fact swimming is currently prohibited at most (if not all) of Phuket's beaches, but not everyone heeds the warnings.