Postcard from Hong Kong

By Mark Stamper

11 Aug 2005

Sri Lanka, December 2004

I finished work with Swiss Re on the 16th, and after the de rigeur farewell dim sum for lunch with my Cantonese colleagues, and farewell beers for dinner with my Australian and British colleagues, we flew to Sri Lanka on the Friday for 2 weeks of exploring the country and relaxing, before starting my job with AXA in the New Year. Our first night was in Colombo, and we stayed in the wonderfully colonial-yet-slightly-dilapidated Galle Face Hotel. Various British PMs and celebrities have stayed there, and we had a pleasant few drinks on the terrace, watching a local wedding with traditional Sri Lankan music. Bryan Adams' "Summer of 69" got the most people on the dance floor.

The next day we hired a driver to take us up into the hills to stay in Kandy for 3 nights. This isn't as flash as it seems, about US$40 for a 3-hour drive. I think it was only 120kms, if that, but the roads and driving has to be experienced to be fully understood. The best way to get around is by using a driver, as local knowledge of the roads is needed. It is not exactly dangerous, especially if you have ever travelled by taxi in China, say, but the roads are all painfully narrow and congested, so expertise with the horn and overtaking in the face of oncoming traffic are essential skills. Kandy is lovely, but not what I expected. It is quite small, but bustling, interesting and dusty (well, that applies to much of Sri Lanka). The town is built around the picturesque man-made lake, and is surrounded by lush green hills. We stayed in a place called Helga's Folly, which is surreal - incredibly garish and over the top, yet despite this it manages to be homely and relaxing. Good food, too. We took in the Temple of the Tooth - one of the Buddha's, allegedly, but disappointingly you don't get to see the tooth itself - some Kandyan dancing, the nearby elephant orphanage, ayurvedic massage, and a run around the lake (marathon training, but damn it was hot). We also went to the British Garrison cemetery, slightly morbid but the caretaker was full of fascinating tales about how they had all died and how the cemetery had been restored. Most had died of malaria before the disease was understood, but a couple had been trampled by elephants. There was also the grave of a James Urquhart who died age 33, and I used to row with a James Urquhart, and he must be 33 about now.... An ancestor, James?

We then got a driver to take us to Yala on the south east coast, a national park with elephants and around 30 leopards. The journey there was an unbelievable 7 hours for hardly any distance, but again, winding, slow roads. The hotel was great - our room looked out onto the beach, and from the restaurant terrace you looked out over a lake and could watch wild pigs coming to drink. The pool had the same view and it really was very special. We did 2 game drives per day, 6am and 4pm, and spent the rest of the time reading, swimming or sleeping. The park and wildlife is not as big or diverse as those in Africa, but there is still the thrill of seeing the unexpected. We saw plenty of elephants, and they are always marvellous, plus water buffalo, antelope, big monitor lizards, mongoose, loads of rare birds, monkeys, and a black bear and cub. The bear was quite small, which made the cub about the cutest animal I have seen, but unfortunately you were not allowed to take them home with you. Sadly we did not see any leopards, but we did see a lynx / cougar 'prism' (?) cat which is apparently more unusual, and was stunning, relaxing in the late afternoon sun.

One evening at dinner there was a bit of a commotion and everyone wandered round the back into the carpark - and there was a big elephant investigating the kitchen. Now I have heard all sorts of stories from South Africa about how dangerous elephants can be, so I ensured Alice was always between me and the elephant. After all, you don't have to outrun the elephant, you only have to outrun your wife, right? There were 2 puppies at the hotel, delightful little things that we had been playing with, and one of the puppies decided to find out what the elephant was doing... it got quite close before the elephant realised it was there, at which point the elephant trumpeted and charged the puppy. Unfortunately the puppy was just in front of us, cue mad panic among hotel guests. And where had Alice gone suddenly? Who was I going to hide behind? I later discovered she had dodged behind a tree, crafty. Luckily it was only a mock charge, but having an elephant charge at you at close range is pretty damn scary. But it does aid wine consumption later on in the evening, so probably good for business.

After Yala we headed up the coast to Unawatuna - it is on the west coast just below Galle. We were actually a bit annoyed with our room and hotel at first, it was right next to reception so a bit noisy. Still, we had some friends from Hong Kong arriving late on Christmas Eve and then 2 more from the UK on Boxing Day morning, so we thought we'd stay put to start with. Christmas Day was good fun - we hit the beach for a while and generally had a lazy day. Most of the hotels and restaurants in Unawatuna are right on the beach, and while it felt a little bit busy, it was still a great spot. There were a couple of dive operators so we arranged to dive later in the week. In the evening we went in to Galle for a meal, then it was back to Unawatuna to sit on the beach and drink beer with the waves lapping at our feet. There was a full moon and the tide was right up at the edge of the restaurants, so you did literally have to lift you feet every now and then when a wave came in. Helen and Alice then left Richard & I to it, and we had a bit of a late one in the end.

Which was lucky, as we were distinctly slow in surfacing the next morning. I got into the pool at about 9am as a hangover cure, and was just towelling myself down as I had seen Arjen and Juliette (Richard's sister) arrive. Richard was still in bed. At this point things started to go wrong. The manager rushed past me saying one of the hotels had fallen into the sea... what? I assumed it was because they were so close to the sea that the foundations had given way or something. There was a bit of laughing and people started towards the beach to investigate, but the laughing rapidly changed to screaming and panic as people rushed up towards the hotel and away from the beach. The manager went past me again, saying very big waves, 60 foot waves, were coming, and we should get to the top of the hotel. We were on a slight rise and there was a hill at the back, with the beach a hundred metres or so away through the trees. I called for Alice who was at breakfast, while Helen tried to wake Richard up (no easy task given our efforts the night before). This was all in maybe the first minute. Then the noise started, and it is hard to describe - there was just this enormous roaring, a big wave breaking, but it didn't stop, it just went on and got louder and closer, then we saw the water through the trees. It wasn't a wave by then, just a mass of water, and it came up the drive of the hotel but stopped just at the steps, a few metres from our room. No-one knew what the hell was going on and everyone was scared and confused. The water then gradually receded, and already you could hear screams and imagine the devastation.

But it wasn't obvious what it was - the day was totally clear, no wind, blue skies. Rumours then started to spread, there has been an earthquake in Indonesia (but that is thousands of miles away!), 9 on the Richter scale, but the phones and electricity were down so there were lots of Chinese whispers. Someone said they had felt an earth tremor earlier that morning. To start with no-one knew what to do, should we try to get out, stay where we are, can we help anyone? Then there was a phase of people acting like headless chickens and doing stuff but haphazardly. You didn't know if there was another wave coming or what. Finally one guy, Tarquin, started to get people organised - he kept a clear head and was pretty impressive, despite one of his children being very ill and his wife Tine being very worried. He called for a doctor or anyone with medical training, so Alice and I spoke up. God, we were the only ones with any medical knowledge (via our diving training), I guess then we realised what a disaster it was and maybe what we would have to do. I'm glad we started to do stuff - it took away the unknown and gave us something to focus on.

We left the hotel to see what we could do - the water had left behind total carnage, and you couldn't recognise the landscape outside at all. The road had gone, buildings had gone, just what the hell had happened? Some people were bringing up a couple of Sri Lankans who were hurt, so we got them lain down to see what we could do. The woman wasn't breathing so we tried CPR - Alice giving commands and pumping, me giving rescue breaths, but as soon as we started it was obvious we were too late. As I breathed in her lungs were just mush, foam coming out, it just wasn't like the movies. Tarquin got a bit of t-shirt to put over her mouth, thinking about disease I guess, but we were on autopilot by then. Alice was crying but we carried on, eventually giving up and it felt like a terrible failure, with a small crowd around, all in shock. By then there was already another body next to us with more being brought up. Tarquin covered her face and we went back to the hotel. There were lots of people arriving by then, in various states of dress, with cuts, bruises, broken arms and legs.

The strange thing was that they were all walking wounded, there were no life-threatening injuries, even with people who were carried up. I guess you either survived or you didn't. All this time there were rumours about another wave, and not many people were behaving rationally. We started patching people up as best we could, the hotel had a small medical kit and we got everyone to go to their rooms and get what they had. Some of the injuries already seemed infected, the water must have been filthy with the sewers, mud and god knows what else, and people had been wandering around mostly barefoot. Many people had been on the beach and they were arriving in just their swimming things, with their hotels having been washed away. Others had been asleep or having breakfast. One guy from a group of 5 backpackers was in just his boxer shorts, "but it's ok, they were clean on this morning". They were a great group, chirpy humour despite what was happening. One of them woke up that morning to discover himself up to his neck in water in his room, and his friends had to break through the roof to get him out. 2 of them were still in the same clothes from the night before, "yeah, well, we thought we would get really pissed, then sleep in our clothes, just so we were ready in the morning, in case there was, like, a tsunami or something". Good planning.

Another commotion, and an old Sri Lankan lady is brought up on a surfboard. Her arm is in a rudimentary splint, and she is covered in mud and leaves. It turns out she is English under the mud, was swept away and is concerned about her husband, Gordon. She is 82 and called Pamela. Someone says her husband is ok but at another hotel. Juliette does a great job talking to her and calming her down, then cleaning her up. Alice re-splints the arm and puts a proper bandage on. All this time I am dealing with people's nasty cuts as Alice is not a fan of blood, though we are mainly a team helping each other as to be honest with some of the injuries we are way out of our depth. A Croatian guy appears, limping, and he has awful cuts on his legs. I clean and dress them as best I can but they are black and very deep, and he says he has been looking for his friends. He is in shock and weak, so we put him in our bed to rest. He is called Zvonimir but we call him Z.

Another woman is brought up, Patricia, and from a distance it looks like she has something stuck to her face. When she gets closer it is actually her cheek hanging off, a massive deep cut and it is just a big flap. One of the Sri Lankans had put leaves and mud in the wound, which might have been ok in normal circumstances, but now with the state of the mud and water was potentially very dangerous. I start to clean it out and it is pretty grim, actually removing twigs from someone's face, not something I expected to be doing on holiday. I am quite aggressive with the antiseptic but the shock means she hardly flinches, and surprisingly little blood until it starts to get clean, so the leaves probably did their job to some extent. She really needs quite a few stitches though, not sure how to handle it. One of the backpackers has some steri-strips, so that is what we use. They are great things - go out and buy some now. With Alice holding her face together I apply the strips, and they seem to work well, apart from near her mouth where every movement reopens the wound. So I order her to not speak and to only drink via a straw - her husband is delighted and she chuckles despite herself.

There were many other minor injuries, cuts on feet being the most common. The Sri Lankans were amazing and kept going out and bringing back more tourists to be patched up. The hotel staff, despite in most instances not knowing what had happened to their own families, kept looking after people and were quite inspirational. I would dress a Sri Lankan's wound on his foot, and tell him not to go back into the mud as it would get infected, he would nod and agree, then immediately go out and see how else he could help people. I have no idea how many wounds we dressed - for some like Z and Patricia it was an ongoing job as they were quite severe and our medical stuff wasn't really up to the job to start with. For others it was as much about reassuring them as helping them medically. One guy came and asked me what he should do as he had bruised his toe, I mean honestly. Some people did nothing at all and just tried to ignore it, others were plain stupid - it was obvious the water supply would soon dry up and yet people were washing their muddy socks under a running tap. The pool was a bit of a god-send as it hadn't been touched, so could be used for washing, and later the water was used to cook with (the hotel had gas bottles so managed to feed everyone).

The backpackers at one stage had a big discussion about whether they should go back and try to find their stuff, but given there were so many rumours about more waves everyone was very nervous. They did eventually, though. Then after about 3 hours there was lots of shouting and more panic - another wave was coming. People were shouting from the top of the hotel "it's real this time, we can see it, run!". We grabbed the medical stuff and directed the injured up to the back of the hotel - I woke Z and he hobbled up with me. I was going up the stairs when Alice said we should rescue valuables, passport etc, so I start to head back. She then says, "oh, and get the fish book". At a time like this you want me to rescue a fish identification book? Several of the kids were crying and very scared (ditto the adults) but she then used the fish book to calm them down (the kids that is), talking them through unusual fish and showing them pictures - clever.

The second wave came up to exactly the same point as the first - I suspect it wasn't quite as powerful but got as far due to the first one sweeping so much away. I remember standing halfway up the steps at the back of the hotel, with Alice shouting for me, looking out at the water and hearing it coming and just thinking, "what the hell is going on here?". It was only then that we looked at Z's ankle properly and realised he had broken it - but he had been walking on it for quite a while. No wonder he was a bit pale and shaky. The water then receded much like before, and again there were people caught in it. The backpackers got caught again, but again survived ok, and rescued some of their stuff. One of their laptops was even ok - I guess backpacking has changed a little from when I staggered around Europe trying to survive on 10 quid a day eh? Talking of technology, thank god for mobile phones. We managed to get text messages out to tell our families we were ok, and we got more information from them about what was going on (via the BBC of course) than we could find out on the ground. For example, advice on whether to stay or go, what was happening with rescue efforts and so on. Some of the early news reports were sadly laughable though, things like 10 Britons dead seemed ridiculous when there were more than that within 200 metres of our hotel.

Gordon was brought in that afternoon, and he was shaken but remarkably ok for an 83 year old who has been swept away by a tsunami. For the rest of the day we alternated between dressing wounds, donating clothing to people, sitting down talking about what was happening and what we would do. Helen was pregnant and was quite keen to get out - her and Richard also knew Sri Lanka well and reckoned if we could get inland it would be ok and that we could get transport and somewhere to stay. In fact we contacted the place we were due to stay next and the owner said if we could get to him he could take us early. It got dark at about 6 or 7pm, and with no electricity there wasn't much to do but sleep. Actually, no, we were knackered, drained, and needed a beer. Throughout the day I had been aware of people drinking to help cope with the situation, but thought that beer and medicine wasn't a good mix, so I was really looking forward to a beer to help me relax. But the bloody backpackers had finished off all the hotel's stocks! Now that was a disaster, until we remembered the fridge in our room. There were just 2 beers left, so Alice and I sat and drank them and reflected on the day. You could hear the sounds of grief from outside the hotel, wailing and crying. Gordon stayed in our room that night, and as an 83 year old  he had to make plenty of "nocturnal visits", and I had to show him the way to the loo as it was pitch black. He kept apologising for waking us, but neither of us slept a wink anyway, our stomachs and minds were churning, going over the day's events and wondering what we would do the next day. People were camped all over the hotel wherever they could find space. There was one room that had a couple's stuff in, but unfortunately they must have been at the beach as they never did return so their room was used by a group of people. At about 3am on one of Gordon's toilet trips I noticed that his head wound was bleeding, so we lit candles and cleaned, dressed, and bandaged it. At about 4.30am we felt an earth tremor, which is extraordinary if you think just how far Indonesia is from Sri Lanka, but fortunately there were no further waves the next day.

We got up early, checked on the wounded, then Alice, Tarquin and I went for a wander to see if we could get out. The place had been totally destroyed. It was hard to fathom, Unawatuna is on the west coast so should have been protected with the earthquake happening in Indonesia, to the east, but the wave went around the south west corner of Sri Lanka and wreaked havoc almost as far north as Colombo. Most of the restaurants and hotels that were on the beach just weren't there anymore, and people were wandering around in a daze, looking for their families or possessions. There were lots of lost-looking dogs about, and a strangely serene cow. We later found out that at Yala (south east and hence would have been hit by a bigger wave) they had not discovered any dead animals at all, and it is thought that they had a sixth sense of the approaching danger. Our hotel at Yala was totally destroyed however. The road in Unawatuna was not really recognizable, and we had to clamber over rubble and uprooted trees, but eventually we got to the main Galle Road. It was fairly clear where we were, and there was the odd car and van about, so we went back to get our stuff. We met 2 doctors who were at another hotel so we got them to come and check out the rabble we had patched up, then said our farewells, donated more clothing, then dragged our remaining stuff to the main road where we flagged down a van and pleaded for a lift. Not only did they give us a lift which took them about 3 hours, they refused any money and were generally incredibly kind. So that is it. We stayed at the villa in the hills for 2 days, just keeping our heads down and trying to be normal. The whole country was in grief - white flags signifying a death in the family were everywhere, and there were piles of bodies at medical centres. As we were leaving Unawatuna we saw a British couple asking if they could bury their son with a Sri Lankan family's children as there was nowhere else... it was just an awful time. It was only on getting to the airport, seeing CNN and the scale of the thing that we really realised how lucky we were to have escaped unscathed.

On the plane on the way back we saw a Hong Kong newspaper, and it had photos of people being evacuated from our hotel, including Patricia who still had the steri-strips in place! We also heard that Pamela and Gordon were airlifted out by helicopter, which would have been a walk in the park for that tough old couple. Tarquin and Tine have since helped set up and are trustees of a charity, Friends of Unawatuna (www.friendsofunawatuna.org.uk), started to take aid directly to the Sri Lankan people who were so selfless and kind, and to help in the rebuilding of the town in the longer term.

My abiding memory of Sri Lanka is of the friendly and brave people, and we will be going back there this Christmas to spend a few tourist dollars and to help the town recover - it needs tourists desperately. Hopefully we will also be able to go back to Yala and see those elusive leopards, though I'll be slightly more wary of elephants this time. Oh, and from now on we'll be taking a decent first aid kit whenever we travel, including steri-strips of course.