Jeanne and Paul are a wealthy couple who lost their son , Joshua , in the Boxing Day Christmas tsunami of 2004 . Six months later , having stayed over in Thailand , they view a film at an orphanage fund-raiser made by Kimberly Park , just back from the Andaman Coast , of Moken and Salone natives in the South Tanintharyi division . A restricted area only accessible by boats through a triad of Thakin Gao who has military ties that smuggles girls to bars in Myanmar . Jeanne sees a vague figure in the distance she believes to be Josh . Discouraged by Jeanne 's lead , Paul gives in to contacting the triad 's leader Thakin Gao and hiring one of his boats for an exorbitant ' one-time ' fee . At first taken to a false decoy in the Mergui Archipelago where male orphans , the females not present , cast balloons at night to ward of the vinyan spirits , the French couple is further misled , as indicated by pointing on a map , to an uninhabited island south of Macleod Island ( west of Zadetkale Island ) where , their resources depleted , find themselves equally lost in a region of lost male orphans
Boxing Day Christmas tsunami of 2004
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami
Vinyan