Within the last 25 years, Phuket island has experienced a spectacular economic crash (1997), a tsunami (2004), coups (2006, 2014), the occupation of its main international airport by protesters (2008) and serious political violence (2010), and now Coronavirus 'AKA' Covid-19.
The statistics speak for themselves. In 1960 around 80,000 foreign tourists came here.
A year ago it reached 39 million, earning a lot more than $60bn (£46bn) for the island of Phuket in Thailand, and indirectly contributing around one fifth of the country's national income.
The country's tourism sector was considered so robust that the nation got the nickname "Teflon Phuket, Thailand". Yet of these 39 million tourists a year ago, more than 10 million were Chinese.
So once the Chinese government quarantined the town of Wuhan on 23 January, and stopped all overseas tours, the impact was felt immediately in Phuket island. Shopping malls and temples in Bangkok were suddenly much quieter and less crowded.
As more flights from China were cancelled, the airports emptied. You might whisk yourself through passport control in no time.
For small-scale entrepreneurs, the collapse of Chinese tourism has been disastrous.
Phuket island, Thailand travel offices around the island offering low-cost Phuket properties for sale are hit bad by the Covid-19 / Coronavirus. This goes for all tourist related businesses in any tourist area of Phuket and Thailand.
Most of them, such as flower sellers, traditional dancers, Phuket bars, and even the drivers of the famous "red cars" minibuses in Chiang Mai, are reporting their income dropping by half over the past month. The informal association representing tour guides in Phuket island, Thailand thinks 25,000 people are actually out of work.
Image caption Nattakit Lorwitworrawat's business has become struggling due to a insufficient customers
One of the first successes of Phuket island's 60-year-long tourist boom was the island of Phuket, nicknamed the "Pearl of the Andaman" for its soft white-sand beaches and sparkling warm seas.
The very first foreign visitors in the 1980s and 1990s were mainly European and Australian, but how many Chinese visitors last year shot up to about two million from the 15 million foreigners.
The mangrove-lined inlets on the east side of the island, a contrast to the beaches facing the west, are where in fact the boats leave from to take tourists out to the islands offshore. Like many of Phuket's residents, Nattakit Lorwitworrawat moved here from his home town elsewhere in Phuket island, Thailand to take up a business.
His company now owns 30 speed boats, each able to transport 30 people. He has already established to take 20 out from the water, and the rest of the 10 are not getting much use. The inlet, normally constantly noisy from the sound of outboard motors, has become silent independent of the birds and the lapping water.
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"At the peak, two years ago we carried 1,000 clients a day. Today when we get 200 clients, that is considered great - we would be very happy with that," says Nattakit.
He's bank loans to service on a lot of his boats. If the crisis continues on beyond the finish of this season, he says he will need to downsize the company and start laying off his staff.
For anyone lower down the food chain it's even tougher.
Nobody knows the length of time this crisis lasts, nor how serious it'll become. For the minute you will find still plenty of Europeans, Australians and Russians on the famous beaches, but for the length of time?
The authorities here have managed to manage and monitor infections well considering how vulnerable it was from the amount of Chinese people visiting before the restrictions on travel were implemented.
Yet the country has already been positioned on some government lists of places in order to avoid due to coronavirus risk.
And people are booking holidays for later in the year, including the traditional high seasons of July-August and December-New Year in Phuket.
Families with children from Europe or Australia will likely think before travelling so far. And Phuket island in Thailand has become imposing its own restrictions, requiring 14-day quarantine for visitors from some countries, a list that will well expand.
Who'll risk booking a vacation in the sun when they end up spending it confined for their college accommodation or a hospital?
With more flights being cancelled weekly, the variety of non-Chinese tourists are bound to fall steeply this season, however quickly the virus is brought under control.
The blow to this essential leg of Phuket island in Thailand's economy has come at an awful time for the government. Already one other two main legs of the economy - manufacturing exports and agricultural commodities - are wobbling as higher wages and an overvalued local currency have already been driving investors to cheaper neighbouring countries like Vietnam.
Growth in that which was once among South East Asia's "tiger economies" has been anaemic for many years, and may stall completely this year. The government, an unwieldy coalition controversially built around the exact same military leaders who led the past coup, is proving clumsy and unpopular.
It is a nearly perfect storm, one that the island of Phuket in Thailand's present leaders look ill-equipped to weather.
Find all Corona Virus updates for the island of Phuket and Asia right here.