In Padang, West Sumatra
HERE are some rules when sleeping in an earthquake-prone area:
- Don't sleep naked. Or in some undergarments that will embarrass you if you're seen in public wearing them. This is because, when the earth suddenly trembles, there won't be time for to put on 'proper' clothes before running out.
- Sleep with your most important documents on your person or in a bag close to you. You don't want to grope in the dark looking for your passport, flight ticket or cash when you should be running out the door.
- Sleep with your shoes on, or beside your bed with toes pointing towards the exit for easy flight.
- Try to minimise the locks on your door. You don't want to be trying to unlock that door chain with shaky hands on shaky grounds.
- If you are on a high floor and the ground moves, run UP the staircase, not down. This will reduce your chance of being pancaked by the collapsed building. And for goodness sakes, don't take the lift!
These simple instructions were advice offered by friends and by people living in West Sumatra, one of the most quake-prone of Indonesia's 33 provinces.
The advice made sense and I have repeated these instructions in my mind nightly as I go about the rituals before retiring for the night.
Before taking a bath, I arranged my things to exit at the slightest tremor. Call me a coward, but my shoes are arranged outside the loo door.
I have been very lucky.
I arrived in Padang, the West Sumatra capital on Saturday, three days after the huge quake described by locals as the strongest to hit them in their lifetime.
The biggest hotels in town had collapsed or were badly damaged - Ambacang, Bumi Minang, Mariani and Rocky Plaza. Yet, another reporter and myself managed to find a room at a two-storey family run hotel.
Many other reporters had to bunk in tents of rescue teams, or in sleeping bags on the floor of the Governor's residence, the noisy epicentre of rescue operations.
In this hotel that both of us are staying in, the full-length windows of the rooms on the upper floor have a long shared balcony linked to the staircase.
And I got another lucky 'break' - literally.
Our room had full length windows which had been shattered by the quake.
When showing the room, the bellboy told us: 'To keep the aircon in, just pull the curtains together, sir.'
Of course, with no glass to keep out the noise, we could hear loud relief vehicles passing by in front of the room, all through the night.
But I thought of it this way: If there is another quake, I could just pull the curtains aside, run onto the balcony and jump down to the carpark below.
It might sound like paranoia, but we were frightened like everyone else because a major quake is often followed by several aftershocks.
Needless to say, we took the room.