On December 25th 2004, my wife and I went to India, to Madras. The idea was to meet some friends there and travel around in  Tamil Nadu. We spent the first night in Mamallapuram in a nice hotel. Our friends wanted us to sleep in one of the bungalows on the beach, but “unfortunately” they were all booked. We had to take a room a bit further from the beach in the main hotel building.

Since, as you know, I love photography, I wanted to wake up early the morning after to take a walk on the beach and photograph the fishermen. I set up my alarm clock.

The morning after the alarm clock didn’t work (it was still set on the European time) and I didn’t wake up. In the meanwhile the Tsunami happened. The water arrived just a few centimetres out of our room door. We had to leave the hotel for the night after.

The following image comes from the same trip and I took it (Kodak Tr-X 400 with a Nikon Fm2) in Trichy a few days after that lucky experience in Mamallapuram.