Our last day in Sri Lanka before travelling overnight to the Maldives (quite excited about that). Nice and relaxed after doing very little, our friend Nimal bought us fresh coconuts to quench our thirst and we drank from these on the beach as the sun set. He climbed his own palm tree to get the coconuts and cut a little hole in the top of each with a penknife, from which we could sup at the delicious nectar with a straw.

This beach, like many on this stretch of coast, was washed away by the Tsunami, wrecking the hotel and village behind it and devastating the lives of the villagers. The sand here now was pumped from offshore by a dredger to bolster the coastline against what can be a very turbulent Indian Ocean.

Nimal is a fisherman who lost his father, house, his boat and thus livelihood to the disaster. He got emergency aid directly after the Tsunami but nothing since and his life is a real struggle to support his family daily on what to us would be loose change down the back of the sofa.

It's a strange cultural interface in the hotel, with fat western tourists having their every whim catered for by poor local people (who seem universally beautifully smiling and friendly). But the simple truth is, they need our money, so I urge anybody who is thinking about it to go and have a great holiday and be generous - it will make a difference.