Southwest Thailand, home to the resort islands of Phuket and Phi Phi, has battled back from the devastation of 2004’s powerfully destructive tsunami.

Travel writer Beverly Beyette, who visited a year after the tsunami, returned again recently. Rebuilt and new hotels abound, and boats travel the Andaman coast, ferrying day-trippers to such destinations as Koh Khao Phing Kan, where, across an inlet, visitors can see the vertical little island of Koh Tapu, where Scaramanga, the villain in the 1974 James Bond film, “The Man With the Golden Gun,” hid his laser weapon.

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