I am still on Sri Lanka and at Lunch time the message on the wire came: Earth quake in the indian ocean.

The locals well remembered the Tsunami in 2004 but this time things would probably have turned out very differently as the warning came early and people, kind of,  knew what to do. Everyone was informed in time and people now knew where to go and how high up one needed to be. Sri Lanka might seem far away from the Indonesian coast; but the further away, the higher the wave, they say.

We calculated the time and packed all necessary gadgets such as computer, portable modem, the cell phones (6 in total), a knife, the money,  a book, the diary and passports. Some time between 4 and 6pm a possible wave could strike. Anything up to 8 meter, which would of course ruin the little beach resort where we are staying. We decided to go to a temple, located a bit higher in land.

However, there was still some time to go, at least 2-3 hours. There was time to store up on fruits, ginger beer and water. Seems like the locals had a similar idea in mind and the line in front of the liquor store was long and people fought their way to the front as the storage of hard liquor got smaller and smaller.

We saw a chance to try the local drink Arrack (for me as a Swede only familiar by the ,way more common, chocolaty “Arrack-balls”). Desinfection might also come handy, in case something do really happen.

Emergency Packing

Matthias is calming people down as the rumor about a 4 meter wave in Indonesia is starting to spread among the tourists in our hide away on the hill.