Danger zone

The east coast of Sri Lanka was badly ravaged by 3 decades of civil war, and as recently as four years ago it was not an easy place to visit. Perhaps a little crassly, the guide book describes it as ‘Baghdad-on-sea'.

Whilst Kate was doing a meditation course in Kandy, I took Max to Trincomolee with our friends Libby and Rosie. After 6 weeks in Sri Lanka, we had found the beach we had been looking for. Beautiful, golden sand, tranquil water, and ramshackle accommodation amongst the palms- perfect.

Having endured 7 hours of hot and dusty travel, with Max rampaging throughout the trains, we sat, begrimed, clasping cold beers, toasting our good luck. What could be better?

Rosie went to order some lunch and came back, menu in hand, looking a little hesitant. We voiced our worst fears: no food?

“Um, all the guys working here are watching the TV. There’s been an earthquake 5 minutes ago in Indonesia. There might be a tsunami coming.”

We clustered round the TV, watching 3 men in a news studio speak in Sinhalese. By way of graphics, one man would tilt his ipad to the camera.

“…something something something 8.9 Richter scale something something tsunami something something Sri Lanka tsunami something something…”

We laughed nervously, keenly eyeing the staff for signs of concern. The manager assured us that if the wave came we’d be okay: “We have a big rock.” We were quick to seize any positive indicators.

The news reporters looked grave, the mobile phone signal was intermittent, people started hurrying a bit. We ordered rice. Then the manager calmly told us to pack our bags.

We gulped our beers, gathered the bags we hadn’t actually unpacked yet anyway, and minutes later a 16-seater van barrelled onto the sand, the tubby driver awash with sweat. All the westerners in the area crammed themselves into the van with all our cumbersome luggage. Some were looking a bit edgy, others traded a little gallows humour.

I asked the manager why he wasn’t getting in, and he explained that the last time there had been a tsunami alert, they’d been looted once they left. He said they would follow on as soon as they had packed up the valuables. We watched this act of guest-house martyrdom grimly from the van window.

In the style of a TV drama with too few actors, the van driver turned out to be Sonju, the TukTuk driver who had driven us from the train station 30 minutes previously. He careered wildly through lanes and alleys, blasting the horn, bellowing on his mobile. Max, in the front seat, was chuffed to bits with all this excitement. We passed groups of people scuttling hurriedly away from the coast with a selection of their belongings. Two men were carrying a fridge. Incongruously, some people were continuing with construction work, chatting, some even walking back to the beach.

It reminded me of my last visit to Sri Lanka, in 2004, when the last tsunami struck our beach and we were evacuated. I thought I wouldn’t share these thoughts just yet.

Sonju ground to a halt in an alley that was so narrow that the doors could only open on one side. “This is my house. This is safe here.” The mostly British van contingent glanced anxiously around. We weren’t really very far from the beach, and at no particular elevation. All the buildings had the hallmarks of recent construction, conceivably less than 8 years old. In amongst the Sinhalese writing on the walls, the numerals 2004 were the only ones I could make out.

We wondered if there wasn’t somewhere a little further away. Sonju mopped his face. “Yes, Okay, we go to my other house.” How lucky we were to be evacuated by a man with a huge van and several inland properties. Libby immediately promoted him to the position of ‘Chief Evacuation Officer’.

Sonju’s other house turned out, to everyone’s relief, to be on a hill. For some reason this seemed already to be a general mustering point for evacuated non-locals, and more arrived in due course, lending the place the look of an affluent refugee camp. Ergonomic backpacks and iphones everywhere. 

Sri Lankan hospitality is such that, even though a repeat of the natural disaster that destroyed a massive part of their county seemed imminent, drinks, food and shelter were provided to the gathering of wealthy westerners.

Max, meanwhile was entertained by a squad of children and a limitless heap of toy vehicles. I could see him chalking this day up as one of the best of his young life.

Just then, a lorry appeared, the back doors opened, and the staff from the guesthouse tumbled out, holding crates of beer, music playing. A carnival atmosphere settled upon the scene. An emergency bakery van pulled up, and before long everyone was brandishing a pastry in one hand and a drink in the other.

Anxiety has a way of diminishing with time, beer and inactivity, and so once the locals announced the all-clear, people headed back the guesthouses. I decided to stay the night in a place in town with Max. I reckoned the threat of tsunami was minimal, but felt sure that Kate would shrug off her meditative calm and give me a sound thrashing for taking her firstborn child back to sleep in a room 30metres from the sea, hours after a tsunami scare.

The next morning, paradise resumed. The locals were joking about the evacuation, Max was chuckling about ‘the salami’, and asking when we were going back to the house with all the toys. We were eating fruit salad under the coconut trees. Again, what could be better? Just then, the scene was shattered by an enormous cracking sound. We sprung up to see a huge coconut tree break in the middle, for no apparent reason, and fall onto a set of sun-loungers, where the local dive instructor was lying, half asleep. Miraculously, the man rolled out of way a fraction of a second before he was to be crushed under the weight of falling timber. To his credit, the chap was particularly sanguine: gamely posing for photos a few minutes later, drinking from the same coconuts that might have brained him. We noted that he had lost a few fingers in a previous accident and decided he might be worth keeping a safe distance from. Local women were quick on the scene, grinning and gathering the coconuts. “Bounty hunters,” Rosie observed dryly.

Max capered about on the fallen tree, reporting the events loudly. One of the staff casually suggested we keep Max away from the tree top, as there was a ‘giant centipede’ in there. ‘What next?’ we asked ourselves. That was answered when a petulant dog bit Max in the leg and drew a little blood.

Kate arrived later that day, fresh from a few days’ meditation. I courageously played down the many hazards of single-parenthood I’d withstood over the previous 48 hours. We had survived, and we were on the beach, altogether. So...What could be better? Rosie went to get some cold beer, but came back empty-handed, once again looking apprehensive. Not another tsunami, surely? Worse, in fact. To our horror, since it was the Tamil and Sinhalese new year, there was no alcohol to buy, anywhere. We were reeling, trying to comprehend the concept of a ‘dry new year’. We mooched about a bit, in dismay, muttering gloomily, until we noticed two huge speakers had been set up in front of our huts. How odd. Minutes later, we were slinging back local liquor, dancing to an impromptu rave. Nothing accentuates a celebration better than boozy pyrotechnics, of course. ‘Look, Max, this man’s lighting some fireworks…’ this was the last thing I said before a cluster of bangers exploded in our faces, and I ran, panicked and deaf, with Max in my arms, to hose off what I assumed was smouldering shrapnel on his tender skin. Retrospectively, perhaps a tad dramatic, but, given the recent run of events, nothing seemed out of the question. Not for the first time, I thought to myself that we’ll be lucky to get out of this trip alive.