Strolling along the beach in bikinis and sipping cocktails beside hotel pools, Western tourists on Malaysia's resort island of Penang were determined to get the most out of their holidays on Monday despite death and destruction wrought by tidal waves.

As thousands of distraught foreigners fled once-idyllic Asian coastal resorts from Sri Lanka to Thailand after tidal waves spawned by an earthquake off Indonesia killed 22,000 people, several tourists told AFP they had no intention of leaving Penang early.