I say boom boom boom and everybody say weehoo

Like Bali in Indonesia, Phuket is a tropical island that once relied on farming and fishing but now has one main industry - tourism. The authority cut its forecast for visitors to Thailand this year to 12 million from 13.5 million, a major blow considering that tourism produces about 6 percent of the country's gross domestic product. The tsunami destroyed about 40 percent of the 53,000 hotel rooms in six southern provinces, according to the Tourism Authority. The numbers rose in February, to 37,813, still far below the 114,903 in 2004. International arrivals at the Phuket airport fell to 13,042 in January from 111,609 in January 2004, immigration figures show. Before the tsunami, she said, about 300,000 tourists visited Phuket each month, both from within Thailand and abroad. Hotels that had been booked to capacity for January were able to fill just 7 to 10 percent of their rooms, Suwalai Pinpradub, director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand in Phuket, said in a telephone interview.

But 150 yards farther up, even the next day, you wouldn't have known anything happened.'ДЄll that is missing now, people on Phuket say, is the tourists. Patong Beach is the main tourist trap, and the wave hit everything along the shorefront road. 'At its worst, it was 90 percent operational. Hand, a Phuket resident who is associate editor of Asia-Pacific Tropical Homes magazine, said in late March. 'It's 99 percent operational now,' Simon J. But Phuket today is almost as good as new. Nevertheless, seismologists say the fault line that caused the original earthquake is still active and it is impossible to predict whether and when further shocks might follow or whether they might cause tsunami waves.ДЄlong the main shopping streets, a few workers still hammer and drill, and some vendors hang their wares in front of damaged shops. An aftershock on March 28 caused a brief scare among those who felt it, but hotels, restaurants, businesses and cruise operators say it has had virtually no long-term impact on bookings and arrivals. Nearly four months after giant waves swept more than 5,300 people to their deaths along the country's southern coast, the island of Phuket - the crown jewel of Thailand's beach resorts - has patched and pasted itself together. The peanut sellers, the manicurists, the boy with his book of temporary tattoos and the man who balances a basket of fruit on his head all take their usual places along the beach.ДЄnd then, to the soft caress of the surf, they wait.ДЄs the day grows hot enough for mad dogs and Western beachgoers, a few vacationers arrive, by ones, by twos, taking their places here and there along the empty rows of lounge chairs and unopened umbrellas. Jet Ski operators gather by their polished machines. Masseuses spread their straw mats under the palm trees. Vendors arrive with their ice-cold water, coconuts and soft drinks. EVERY morning as the sky brightens over the Andaman Sea, workers in Phuket, Thailand, set out perfect lines of white plastic lounge chairs along the soft sand, punctuated by furled umbrellas ready to be opened as the sun begins to burn.

I say boom boom boom and everybody say weehoo