From one tragedy...

So this is Khao Lak. A paradise that has been turned to hell. Luckily, time and effort have healed many of the physical scars upon the land.

Here, there are more than 30km of golden beaches fringed by palms. You can lie for hours on a stretch away from the bungalows and resorts and see no one but the occasional shrimp collectors or Thai children walking past in the surf.

At the Bang Sak, the beach stretches in a giant crescent. There are no tourists here. Only the sound of the waves. In a few weeks time, as the monsoon finishes shedding the last of its downpours, the sea will become glass-like and silent.

During th heaviest parts of the monsoon, the waves are Hawaiian in their magnitude. A stirring reminder of the tsunami on December 24, 2004.

Here, the was the greatest tragedy for Thailand. Thousands died. Maybe 8,000 along this coastline known as Khao Lak. 60% were foreigners and the rest were mainly those Thai's working in the resorts or as fishermen or the children playing on the beach.

As a result, there are fewer English speakers here. Fewer children. But also many orphans. There are people still afraid of the sea. People unable to make a living.

The social problems are too complex to explain here. But the story of the Moken people illustrates just how tough life can be even while the resorts continue to be rebuilt in the hope foreigners will come back to this palm-fringed destination.

The Moken people are sea gypsies but this community have been living on land in Khao Lak for more than 100 years.

The tsunami killed 40 villagers from the 50 families living there. It destryed their simple bamboo huts and killed their animals. They were simple people - living off the fish the men caught, their pigs and chickens and sharing the leftovers. They were a self-sustaining community.

Now many men are too afraid to fish, or are dead, or were too late putting thier name down for a replacement boat. Even if they do fish, the migratory patterns of the fish have changed and there are fewer to be caught. Of those that are, they are sold and no longer shared. But with fewer tourists, the restaurants do not pay as well as before.

A well-meaning NGO rebuilt homes for the community - plus an extra 20 families who muscled in and decided they wanted new homes. They are not Mokens or even from the area.

The NGO built large, solid homes on stilts which are close together. The people love their sturdiness. But because they are so close, the people can no longer keep animals there - it would smell too bad.

So they have lost their means of survival. On top of this, they cannot get jobs in resorts (no tourists -little English spoken) or in construction (little pay - too many Burmese taking jobs).

And in addition, the tsunami brought their land to the attention of the provincial government who decided it was prime real estate. They said the Moken could live on the land - but must pay rent and move after five years.

Rean Kratalay, a 67-year-old tsunami widow, said she has to pay 300baht rent a month and 400baht in electricity a month depsite using very little. For people with no source of money and who have to feed themselves too - it is impossible.

I visited this village and several others which have been rebuilt or are in the process. I saw the handiwork of women who sew and weave items for tourists to make ends meet, and Thaikea - a furniture project - where villagers craft stunning items from wood of fishing boats broken in the tragedy.

But it is still a beautiful place and the people are desperate for tourists to come back. Taxi drivers, shop keepers, restaurant owners, guesthouses and hotels, laundry women and street vendors all depend on that income.

And why wouldn't you go? There are miles of golden sands. Stunning hotels and cheap beaches. And world-class diving just 60km away in the Similan Islands...

Sadly it was time to say goodbye to the people of Khao Lak (who have been the most artless and wonderfully friendly I have met so far) and to the volunteers at Tsunami Volunteer Centre who took me under their wing and invited me to their Monday party.

I boarded a bus for Bangkok for a 13-hour ride and made it to the capital at 5.30am (an hour late). I had a quick whizz across town to the new airport and boarded an hour-long flight to Phnom Pehn - the capital of Cambodia.

Just hours later, I arrived at Okay guesthouse and found myself a nice room, a cup of coffee with condensed milk (soooo good) and then was whizzed to the S-21 (tuol Sleng) musuem by moto-taxi.

I was driven by the friendly Peter - who now thinks I need him whenever I step out of the door.

The museum is the former prison of the Khmer Rouge. It is a former school that was converted into cells and torture chambers. Pictures line the wall of the victims and perpertrators. Stories are told about this all-too-recent history.

It was just two years before I was born that the regime was halted. It was many years before they found peace here.

The scenes were horrifying. The torture instruments, cruelty, senseless waste... It is thought up to three million Cambodians were killed in the four years Khmer Rouge were in power. Just four years and many were starved and overworked to death. More were killed for their education.

At the museum I met a Canadian couple and Australian guy and we took a tuk tuk to the Killing Fields.

15km out of Phnom Pehn - on a very bumpy dirt track - this is the place the victims of S-21 were taken to die. There are 129 mass graves here - 43 have not yet been opened.

The 17,000 inmates of S-21 were killed here - most blugeoned to death to save on expensive bullets. There is a memorial of 17 storeys of stacked skulls.

A tree against which babies were swung. Numerous holes where bodies had been discovered - eyes blindfolded, arms tied.

It is a place of such horror - almost too much to take in - surrounded by peaceful fields and waterways. The setting makes it all the more poignant.

Our guide seemed almost angry at us as we walked around. He had escaped from Phnom Pehn in the early years of the regime - his father was not so lucky.

He worked in a camp until in 1980, he came to keep the site of the killing fields secure. He says the stench was unbearable. He said ghosts haunted the place.

We left with a feeling of disbelief and also unease that we were intruding on the death place of Cambodians.

On the bumpy road back, we stopped at a shop - shack you would probably think of it - for a real street lunch of some unidentifiable meat in some unidentifiable sauce with rice. Nice though.

Then it was on to the overpriced and overly dull National Musuem. If I have learned one thing from this - it is that I don't like these kind of rigid places. I like to see statues at temples or in the place they were intended. I don't like to see them behind glass. Particuarly when the signs aren't the best andt hey look like many other hundreds of statues I have seen in the last four months.

We walked down to the riverside and bought a beer from a street vendor and sat on the banks and talked for a while. Steve bought a cooked snake and we all tasted some (too many bones, skin too chewy) and then we wandered to find some real food.

We found it in the market place - more unidentifiable meat and sauce and a beer - all for less than 50p.

Tomorrow there are more sights to see and places to wander. It is very different to Thailand - far poorer for a start.

But I like to see the cyclos - the bicycles with a chair infront, hear the chatter of the moto and tuk tuk drivers, the friendly advice of people, to see the large wheeled bicycles ridden by elegant men, and wander past the colonial French-style buildings.

Yet every face hides a story. Everyone over a certain age has a black reminder of Khmer Rouge. Even the naked children playing at the side of the street have grown up in a country tainted by that period.

There are too many beggars missing limbs and asking for food. Too many people grateful for your offcast food. Too many children wandering selling items or holding outstretched palms... Thailand was easy compared to this. But Cambodia may turn out to be more rewarding.