When Mt Agung in Bali erupted late last month it stranded thousands of holidaymakers.
But for Whanganui's Anthony Edwards, an extra week at the popular tourist spot was an opportunity to get some valuable work experience.
The volcano erupted on the Indonesian island on November 25 just after Mr Edwards, an emergency management officer for the Whanganui District Council, arrived on holiday.
"As soon as it erupted I was thinking it would be a great experience to go in a see how they run the evacuations and a disaster," he said.
Mr Edwards was in Seminyak, about 80km from the mountain, and when its ash cloud began grounding flights he was delayed a further week.
"You wouldn't think anything was happening where the tourists were," Mr Edwards said.
"I think the main issue was the flight being cancelled and trying to get out because they had to get home. I think there's 70,000 tourists over there all trying to get home."
He contacted the Indonesian civil defence agency - National Board for Disaster Relief (BNPB) and told them who he was.
They responded the next day.
"[They said] come and meet the big boss, basically, and he'll show you how we run it here."
Mr Edwards met the deputy and national co-ordinator, the governor of the area, sat in on multi-agency briefings, was shown the welfare centres and technology they used to map the volcano.
"I was amazed. They just welcomed me with open arms and showed me all this information," Mr Edwards said.
"When we first got there they were having their briefing and they just invited me straight in. Didn't know what they were saying, but it was just good to see all the different agencies.
"I basically spent the whole the day with [the national co-ordinator]. We went through all their plans, all their hazards, where all the lahars were."
Mr Edwards said the early response focused on evacuating people.
"There were 63,000 currently evacuated from around the mountain and that was in a 10km radius."
More than 214 welfare centres had been set up "compared to the two we had during our 2015 flood".
Mr Edwards said the one difference between the Indonesian response and what would happen in New Zealand was the personnel they had available.
"Just their manpower and their resources... they can request 1000 Army officers just like that," he said.
They did use the same cellphone emergency alert which was trialled in New Zealand last month.
"But it's basically the same structure that we have here. Just on a much bigger scale.
"It's quite good to see we have the same structure so we could just go in to help [in other countries] and we'd know what was going on."
Mr Edwards said he would be catching up with the emergency manager at Ruapehu to share notes.