Mount Lavinia was the first stop on our quick-fire tour of the South-Western Sri Lankan coastline; we had three days before my friends and I performed at the ISTA theatre festival at Overseas School of Colombo, and we wanted to make the most of it!

The five-star resort was among the first areas of the damaged coastline to be repaired after the 2004 tsunami. In fact, most of Sri Lanka’s top resorts were rebuilt within 3-4 months after the devastating tsunami – strange to us when we saw later that there were still many civilian settlements that had not been restored to their original state yet. The luxury oozed from its marble reception, ensuite rooms and a private beach that was simply divine. Being students, the 5-star rates were way out of our league (even in Sri Lankan currency) so we sneaked the 10 of us into two double rooms for the night. Sleeping bags and rolled up towel-pillows served us well that night…

Watching the sun set over the beautiful beach was amazing, especially for my friend Thom who had never seen the sea before – as we hit the sand for the first time, he stripped and ran into the sea crying out in a way that I can only describe as “tarzanian” :) We all joined him and dipped ourselves into the cooling water as the sun headed south.

That night, we indulged in the huge buffet of traditional Sri Lankan cuisine and watched a performance of Sri Lankan classical dance. Unfortunately the spicey food sent me through the roof, but on the other hand, the fruit laid out for desert was absolutely gorgeous!

The only thing that made me take a moment to realise that this place had been utterly submerged during the tsunami, was when I took a wander to find a toilet and ended up in the old hotel ballroom. The floor was riddled with pieces of wood, and the massive mirror that covered one of the walls was cracked and shattered in places. I felt as though I had stepped into a memory of the past, a space in time that no longer existed for the tourists enjoying their stay at the remade Mount Lavinia.

An hour down the coastline, however, proved that local people were still living through the hardship of post-tsunami damages. Ruined houses crumbled as the messages pleading for help and aid that were scrawled on the remaining walls were unanswered. Make-shift housing resembled a wooden frame reinforces and waterproofed with tarpaulin, hardly a step up from the shacks that most locals called home. We were faced with the stark reality of the split in Sri Lankan wealth between the extremely rich – Mount Lavinia style living – and the extremely poor.

We took a pit stop at a village along the coastal road near Moratuwa on the way to our next destination, Hikaduwwa beach. We were travelling by van after deciding that the train was unlikely to get us to Hikaduwwa in good time. However, the train station was an experience in itself. The departure board was literally that: a wooden board with the place names elegantly carved upon it in the Sinhalese, and the trains looked as though they’d been in service since the railways were established in the late 1800s! To us they were (like the ballroom) a ghost from the past, fascinating in their simplicity and antique appearance, reminding us that transport here was as it was meant to be: a means of getting from A to B.

We finally understood the concept of “Sri Lankan time” when we realised that the Hikaduwwa train, due at 12pm, was not going to be arriving for some time yet. We waited around for an hour and a half, and then finally decided that, like the Sri Lankan people’s laid-back sense of time (concerts there that are set to start at 8pm don’t kick off til around10 – one of the many wonderful anecdotes from our co-traveller and ex-Sri Lankan resident, Petia), the trains would also be running a little late. Luckily Petia had contacts and within half an hour our new friend Cham had arrived with an air-conditioned van – a welcome offer after the sweltering heat of noon in an open-air train station!

Anyway, as I was saying, we took a pit stop at Moratuwa on the way to Hikaduwwa.

The village was perched on Moratuwa beach and bore the marks of tsunami devastation like other parts of the coastline we had passed along the way. A panoramic view of the sea confronted us as we stepped out of the van and we were utterly overwhelmed. We had spent three weeks prior to coming intensively researching the events of the tsunami, reading survivor stories, tracking the politics, trying to penetrate the experience for our performance at the festival. But being faced with the infinite sea, and the image of an immense wave bearing down on us, was the first time that we understood a fraction of the reality of “tsunami”. We were hit with the reminder of our mortality, and how we take so much for granted. It was in ever sense of the word, a life-changing moment.

Even more phenomenal was the temple which also stood upon the beach. As the tsunami crashed upon this portion of coastline, while everything around it was pummelled to the ground, this temple remained standing and, on the whole, unscathed. We removed our shoes as a sign of respect, covered out bare shoulders, and ducked inside. There were coloured statues, candles burning and paintings on each of the walls and ceiling; the only sign that the temple had been completely submerged were the vague salt-lines that ran along the painted ceiling. It was, truly, a miracle.