Reconstructed Railway Station |
There are
no beaches or many tourist attractions in Jaffna and unless you are
anthropologically inclined about the war and the history, you can skip Jaffna
from your itinerary. The Jaffna Tamil is no way to close to Tamil spoken in
India, still they will understand if you speak Tamil to them. They use red rice
mostly to make dosa, idiyappam. Jaffna is peculiar for its educated,
hard-working population. After graduation, most of them migrate to Australia or
Europe for better prospects. British Council and many UN-funded NGOs are
active. You can exchange your INR to LKR at Jaffna. 1INR=2.25LKR. This part is not as prosperous as rest of the country.
First
class train to Jaffna from Anuradhapura starts at 9:15am, (LKR1000 per head)
reaches Jaffna by 12:15pm. The route is scenic and goes through Vavuniya,
Mankulam (famous from the movie Kannathil Muthamittal). The Vanni forest area
which isolates Jaffna from rest of Sri Lanka is dense. We stayed two nights at
Theresa Inn (Tel: 2228615, 071856 5375, LKR2000 without air-con) next to
British Council on Racca Road. Owner Joseph is helpful and he will pick you
from the railway station. He has a tuk-tuk for hire and two wheelers for rent.
There are many other lodges around the railway station and getting a room with
air-con is ideal unless you are counting your pennies, Jaffna is very hot and
humid.
Abandoned house at Punguditivu |
We met a
local who volunteered with International Red Cross during the war time, despite
he had many options to take refuge in foreign countries. He had unbiased views
and stories were really gripping about the 30 years without electricity and
access to the outer world. Point Pedro is tip of Sri Lanka on the east side,
though the beach here is not really accessible or clean. The buses (No.
750/751, LKR70, 45min)to Pedro Point can be picked up from the bus stand near
Nallur Kovil. Nallur Bhavan is a good vegetarian restaurant which is close to
Nallur Kovil. If this is closed, you can have a meal at the small tea-shop
opposite to Morgan's on the same road. Other attractions in the town include
Public Library, Dutch Fort. There is a good movie theater at Kargill Square and
when we visited, there was an international film festival going on.
KKD ferry to Delft, Nagadeepa |
There are
a few islands which are scattered around Jaffna. To go to any of these, you can
catch a bus from the town bus station to Kurikkaduvan known as KKD (LKR 50,
2hrs) via the causeways crossing Valalai, Pungudithivu, Kayts. The first boat
to Delft (named after a place in Netherlands) is at 8:30am which returns at
1:30pm. There are frequent boats to Nagadeepa- famous for the Hindu temple and
brand-new Buddhist temple. On your way to KKD, you will see many abandoned
houses presumably war-torn. Some of the boats are really old, and the boat we
were riding broke down in the middle of the ocean. Another bigger boat towed us
to the port after floating around in the waves for some time.
Jaffna peninsula will continue its social-geographical isolation, unless government does some active integration of this ethnic society to the mainstream. As of now, there are no govt. jobs for Jaffna Tamils. Language is a barrier, but no big deal compared to India. English will be a bridge for bridging the gap between social isolation. Hope there will be more people speaking English in this touristy friendly.
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