Tsunami - 10 weeks on: Healing the scars of the tsunami

A circle of flowers forms a memorial to those killed on December 26 in Khao Lak by the waves which caused devastation across the region. Picture / Brett Phibbs

On the road to Khao Lak, right before 30km of coastal wasteland, there is a little seafood restaurant perched high on a hill.

It has an arresting view of the sea and beaches below.

A DVD is on sale here. It is 36 minutes long and about 10 copies a day are sold to Thais and tourists who stop by.

For 300 baht (about $10.60) you can watch the waves of December 26 come crashing in, consuming everything on shore and beyond in their indiscriminate, indifferent way.

The rest of the drive to Khao Lak will show you the impact. The town, once packed with hotels, restaurants and shops, has been flattened.

Since the tsunami, vast areas of this holiday haven have been cleared of rubble. It is as if a vacuum cleaner has sucked everything away.

Some solid concrete buildings have survived here and there are people inside, repainting, redecorating, trying to salvage what is left of their lives.

The hilltop restaurant got a call from Phuket that a tsunami was on its way to Khao Lak.

People yelled down below to the beaches peppered with sun worshippers and swimmers. You can hear yelling on the DVD, "run, run", and Thai words so different yet so obviously issued by the panic-stricken.

After a time the yelling stops and the picture pans around the sea, now littered with the bobbing remains of buildings and bodies.

There was little else they could do at the restaurant except capture the scenes. Now, there is not much business around and there is a demand for such footage.

Into this restaurant, where a group of Americans quietly eat lunch, walk two Australians.

Judene Wallace and Anton Reynolds go to the side and gaze down at a solitary white figure shaking himself off after a swim in the now peaceful ocean.

They find the DVD disquieting, but they have no problem with the swimmer on the beach.

The Queenslanders were down there when the tsunami struck, escaping by riding hell for leather on their motorbikes to outrun the waves.

They are back to try to bring some closure to what happened here on Boxing Day.

They recall how they were sitting on the beachfront when they saw the tide go out.

"Luckily we had a couple of motorbikes and we jumped on them with a couple of friends and got the hell out of there," said Mr Reynolds.

Their escape route was not simple - they had to drive parallel to the beach to come out and made it with just a minute to spare.

They spent the night at a waterfall in the hills and came down the next day. They were fed by locals and given water and coffee. "They were amazing," said Mr Reynolds.

On their return, they have driven up the coast and are astonished there is absolutely nothing left.

"It's hard coming back. Closure, yeah, just to see what happened and how the Thai people are going, because they were great. They really helped us," said Ms Wallace.

They said it paid not to dwell on how lucky they were.

Mr Reynolds said more than a dozen staff at their hotel died. He does not think any of the other tourists survived.

Asked what he thinks of the solitary swimmer, he says great. "A huge part of the economy here is derived from tourism, so all of these people's livelihoods depend on it."

"Exactly," says Ms Wallace. "Come and help and go swimming, buy a Coke or a lemonade."

The couple saw the people in the water but say they don't see them now in their heads when they look.

"The day I got back I just forced myself into the ocean and swam as deep as I could for as long as I could," said Mr Reynolds.

Ms Wallace agreed: "You've got to do that, otherwise you live in fear."

For them, the words of local people are comforting. Said Mr Reynolds: " A Thai man said we've crossed the line of death and we're going to have a long life now."