I drop off my motorbike hire at 11am. An hour and half early. It's already too hot to think. It's also a long way back to the hotel. I know an air-conditioned cafe, 'Hot Breads', is close by. I shuffle round, order a large coffee and salsa bun. The large coffee is in fact a small cup. Forty-two rupees for the quick little breakfast. I rifle through The Hindu newspaper, checking the exchange rate, the weather guide and the Indian style cryptic crossword. The coffee makes me need to use the bathroom. I cross the black burnt road to where I can use the facilities at the International Guesthouse. It's a simple concrete building, painted white; clean, cheap and only 100 rupees for a single fan room. No view or cool breeze balcony I'm lucky to have at the Park Guest House down by the shore. We have grass lawn, palm trees, library and a canteen. Back at Hot Breads I order another coffee and another salsa bun. I struggle through the Economic Times crossword borrowed from the Daily Mail. Inside the India Express I fair better with the word puzzles. It's now one o'clock. I stagger through the blistering midday heat to the Focus bookshop. There is a young German couple camped out in the only fiction aisle; excaping the high outside heat. At 1:30pm the shop is closing for lunch. At the last minute the silent couple make room for me to find a good read. Later at the Park Guest House, after the searing midday return from my morning coffee and book shopping spree, I wash my clothes under the shower. I hang out yesterday's clothes on the balcony and let myself drip dry with the assistance of the hot and salty shoreline air. I sit down, pick up my new book and look out at the crashing ocean. Five months and five days ago, three, some says four, waves came thundering in. Many first hand Tsunami accounts have been recited to me, from old and new accquaintances. I hear the magnitude of the sea this very moment. I sense from everyone and within myself, a new awareness of its power. I see people all the time just staring out across the water. Through the palm trees I can see three small wooden plank fishing boats moored to the pier. They are bouncing mercilessly on the waves. From my third floor room I feel safe, I can taste the sea air, the surf smashes over and over again, day and night, loudly, against the black rock barricade...barely thirty yards away.