You could, if you wished, fly into Sri Lanka on a holiday, secrete yourself in the grounds of a lovely hotel in Colombo, such as the Mount Lavinia, with its "vast expanse of golden sandy beach, edged with frothy white lacing of waters . . .", relax into the pampering attentions of the gentle, softly spoken Sri Lankan staff and remain oblivious to the fact that 30,000 people have lost their lives here in recent days.
Only a small bin in the lobby for donated clothes suggests that all is not well in this luxurious world. But some of those around in their swimwear and dining in the hotel's fine terrace restaurant have ventured beyond.
Three Americans took a taxi downtown on Saturday to buy racks of new clothes and shoes to place in the bin.
Outside, the streets, buildings and cars are festooned with white flags and ribbons, the Buddhist and Hindu colour of condolence.
Roman Catholics have forgone the traditional black in solidarity. It is Sunday, a day of rest, and vans from local aid organisations are heading south, laden with young volunteers. The journey to Galle, which normally takes around 2½ hours, now takes four, due to diversions away from ruined bridges and into potholed minor roads hardly suitable for single lane traffic.
Along the devastated coastline, the clean-up is under way. The acrid smell of burning timber and rubbish fills the air. Rubble that only a week ago was family homes are now no more than piles of detritus, to be piled and burnt.
The Sri Lankan government has announced that henceforth no homes will be allowed on the beaches. One local man is sceptical. "Many times the government tried to change this but politics means that if you support the government politician, yours will be allowed to stay. If not, it will be torn down".
He gives the new edict six months. After all, the last tsunami was 2,000 years ago. As well as that, fishermen are loath to live away out of sight of their boats or to trek several kilometres inland after a tough day on the sea. In the meantime, they are doubly cursed. Those prepared to go to sea again are having difficulty selling their catch, because people are conscious that there are still bodies in the water.
Back on the road, armed air force and army men divert traffic while volunteers clear thick muck from the sewers. Small queues gather for injections from medics. A woman hangs out a line of washing among the muddy ruins of her home. The buckled railway line and obliterated railway station at Payagala (from which many office workers commuted) are testimony to the savage power of the ocean.
A baker points to his flattened building and shrugs : "I am alive. My family are alive. If you're alive, you can earn money." And small enterprise continues. A woman at a road-side stall uses a giant cleaver to chop the tops off juicy king coconuts and supplies a straw for a few rupees, adding that the tsunami is "the punishment of the gods . . . it is Karma".
Why the gods would punish one shoreline but not another 50 yards away, or save one child rather than another, or kill seven in one family and allow others to escape entirely is open to argument.
What did the softly spoken old woman in the Vijayananda Mawadha temple do in some other life to lose her beautiful young daughter and grand-daughter and be left with an apparently brain-damaged son-in-law? She clasps and smooths the colour photograph of a lovely, smiling family taken only two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, the throat-catching stench of burning rubble, rotting rubbish and God knows what else that lies beneath Galle's twisted and broken hulk invades every pore.
Nearly 5,000 Sri Lankans remain on the missing list.