Print   Close

In the Wake of the Great Tsunami
Why travel to South Asia should remain on your list

By Patrick Totty

In the wake of the great tsunami of December 26, 2004, it is only human nature that many travelers who have ever considered visiting one of the coastal areas of the Indian Ocean are now having grave second thoughts.

The near ubiquity of the video camera and the swiftness of satellite telecommunications allowed us all to see in heartbreaking detail the devastating effects of the Indonesian earthquake that set an entire ocean in destructive motion. With an abundance of images to our imaginations, it has been easy to conjure images of thousands of miles of coastline and even entire nations wrecked and horribly damaged.

But we are more than our fears, doubts and imaginations stoked by disaster. All of us who travel have spent many hours over maps, planning trips and anticipating the lay of the land. In the wake of the tsunami, now is a good time to sit down with a map of South Asia and the Indian Ocean and begin calmly examining what really happened there on Dec. 26. In doing so, we might realize that this vast region is not something we should dismiss from our travel plans.

Indonesia – This island country’s westernmost province of Aceh bore the brunt of the tsunami’s destruction since it was so close to the epicenter of the underwater 9.0 quake. But much further east, the classic travel destinations of Java and Bali suffered very little from the temblor and tsunami. Sumatra’s vast mass acted as a shield for the Indonesian archipelago, forcing the tsunami west across the Indian Ocean.

Aceh itself has never been a popular or significant travel destination. An Islamo-fascist rebel movement has plagued the province for several years, discouraging most travelers. But most of the rest of Indonesia, a vast nation that spans 3,000 miles, is undamaged and as welcoming as ever.

Singapore – The great city-state on the Strait of Malacca was protected by Sumatra’s bulk and was undamaged.

Malaysia suffered tsunami-related 68 deaths, but relatively little other ill effect from the tsunami.

Thailand – While Phuket and other resorts along the west coast of Thailand’s Isthmus of Kra were extensively and dramatically damaged, the country’s Gulf of Thailand resorts on the east side of the isthmus and around the Bight of Bangkok, such as Pattaya, were unscathed. There remain hundreds of miles of beautiful undamaged beaches and destinations in the France-sized country.

Sri Lanka – There is no downplaying the tsunami’s disastrous effect on the east coast of this fabled isle: at least 30,000 people died. But almost all of Sri Lanka’s west coast, including the country’s capital of Colombo, was not touched by the great wave. Inland travel destinations, such as Kandy in the hill county, were too high and too far inland to have suffered any damage.

India – The subcontinent’s vast coastline was slammed hard in the east. But its enticing west coast destinations of Mumbai (Bombay) and the charming garden state of Kerala simply were not affected.

Kenya and East Africa – East Africans reported unusually high tides and big waves in the aftermath of the Dec. 26 quake, but fortunately had enough time to warn off tourists in the coastal areas and prepare for the tsunami. Some fishing boats were destroyed by the rough waters, but East Africa came away with surprisingly little damage and no known fatalities.

What now?

Our cataloguing of South Asian locales that weren’t damaged by the tsunami isn’t an exercise in Pollyanna-ism. We know there’s simply no way around the fact that a massively traumatic thing happened along a coastline populated by hundreds of millions of people. 

But, as our publisher Sheri Leigh mentions elsewhere in this issue, one tonic that will do much to help this region is the dollars, euros and empathy that North American and European travelers can bring to South Asia. Once our visceral reactions to the disaster fade away, we are left with the fact that this vast region is so much more than the sum of its parts that were deluged.

Take out that atlas tonight and look at the littoral of the Indian Ocean. Even the greatest tsunami in human memory, shocked into existence by one of the greatest earthquakes, could not touch or damage thousands of miles of beckoning, beautiful shores – themselves the gates to great travel experiences inland.