Surfing on a Tsunami

A Tsunami was the last thing we were expecting it to be. Act of God, said the Indians. Just plain wierd, said the tourists. It's funny how the nearer you get to something the less the news seems to get around.

First, the beach was just bonkers. One minute, people were sunbathing all over it and playing frisbee, the next minute they were knee deep in water and running for the hills. Varkala is on a cliff, so the tsunami didn't actually get any further than the beach, despite the fact that it had allegedly travelled at nearly the speed of sound. It also wasn't very big, not at all in a Hollywood blockbuster way, so there were just lots of Indians standing on the cliff looking at it in puzzlement, scratching their stubbly chins and talking about whether they had, or hadn't ever seen anything like it before. There were whirlpools, real ones with hollow bits in the middle, and a lot of churning going on under the surface, but luckily everyone managed to scramble onto the beach, leaving behind floating furniture, umbrellas and beach towels.

It seemed like much bigger news at the time that all the restaurants had decided to go on strike and stop serving beer in protest against the police, who had arrested a bar owner the night before for not having a license. Their being closed meant no-one had access to internet, telephones or TV, so we were all pretty much in the dark about what was going on. How very India.

It wasn't until about 7pm when they decided to call it off that we saw all the devastation on the telly. We seem to have been in the only village on the coast of Kerala that didn't get a bashing. Most scarily, we were on a houseboat in the backwaters just the day before, which wouldn't have been half so serene if we'd been surfing upstream on a Tsunami. Now the backwaters are sloshed all over the front, and there are boats, cars and trees washed up everywhere. Just a few miles up the beach there is mayhem and devastation, and lots of fisherman as well as tourists have been reported missing. There's a worry that there will be an outbreak of cholera or other water-borne diseases, and whether the nearby nuclear plant has leaked any horrible stuff. We've thought about getting outta here, but Varkala seems the safest place right now.

Anyhow, our next stop is supposed to be Sri Lanka, but we're not sure if the airport will be open or whether it's a safe place to visit, what with diseases kicking off and transport being most likely up the spout. The next stop after that is going to be Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong... In short, all the places that are affected. We will probably press on and just avoid the coastal regions. But haven't decided yet.