Phuket's resurrection: the gayest beach town in Asia brushes itself off after last year's devastating tsunami

In the Paradise Complex, the main concentration of gay venues, things continue to pick up. And with more gay tourists, the boys are gradually returning. Club Tangmo has acquired new stallions in its stable of go-go boys, now numbering over 60 of all shapes and sizes.

On my last day in Phuket, Ulf Mikaelsson, owner of the gay guesthouse Connect, took me on the back of his motorcycle for a ride over the hills into town to show me around the island, noting parks and discos popular with local gays--and the world-class Bangkok Phuket Hospital, which offers everything from Botox to braces to sex-change operations for only a fraction of what such services would cost in the West.

"Many annual gay visitors will realm," muses Mikaelsson hopefully. "They know there is no reason to stay away, but new arrivals may not understand that the island paradise known the world over is alive--and kicking its high heels."

Haber is a journalist who lives in Asia.

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