One dusty trip to Jaffna

 I woke up early Friday morning, and set out on a trip to the most northern part of the country, Jaffna.  It is also the area that had been most heavily affected by the destruction of the war.  I packed up my things and caught a local bus to Jaffna.  This sounds like an easy thing to do, but it is not when you have a large back pack that needs to be squeezed behind bus seats on a bus.  I was told the trip would take me 3 hours by bus on a bumpy and dusty road; not too bad considering it only cost 180rupees, which is about $1.50).  The bus was full, but at least everyone had seats.  I had sat beside a young mother and her 1.5 year old son.  For most of the trip he stuffed cookies into his mouth and starred at me with his giant brown eyes.  It was very cute. 

I was peacefully enjoying the scenery when the bus was stopped at a military check point, at the Jaffna border.  There were very stern looking military men walking around with machine guns and a large tent was being used as a passport and identification check point.  The check point was in the middle of nowhere; open dusty fields, a few trees spotted along the horizon, and nothing but a dusty red road ahead of us.    At the check point I was singled out and told to get off the bus; the bus driver said “You. Come. Now”.     I was escorted off the bus and handed to the military check point officer.   They asked for my passport.  Of course, I had packed the photocopy I was carrying with me at the bottom of my backpack.  I climbed back onto the bus and pried my bag out from behind the seats I had shoved it under (not easy, considering I had pushed and kicked the bag under the seats with all might earlier that morning).  Then I had to unpack the entire contents of my bag in front of the whole bus of onlookers.  I did not have my passport with me, only a copy as the passport office in Columbo required the original, in order to extend my visa.  There were lots of questions about why I did not have my passport with me, but fortunately for me they could not be bothered with trying to speak English.  There were some big sighs of frustration, but they took a copy of my photocopy and wrote some things down into an ancient-looking book.  I was rushed back onto the bus and we took off.  Fun and games of traveling in a postwar country.

On lookers of the baptism ceremony at Naguleswaram Kovil, a Hindu temple

I arrived in Jaffna just before noon.  I stepped off the bus at a “bus station”, and had to orient myself. I say “bus station” in quotations, because it was basically an abandoned parking lot with a makeshift shelter in one corner which was providing shade for those waiting.  A few trishaws (tuk tuks) were waiting around, so I approached them.  As soon as they saw a white person they all ran around, trying to find the one guy who could speak English.  I was dropped off at my hotel, and I showered the dirt off from the trip.  My face was so dirty I thought I was tanned, but no!  It was dust from the road.  My white towel was brown.  All the open windows and the dusty roads had left their mark. 

The remains of a home in Jaffna; deserted and left to ruin

With the assistance of the hotel manager I hired a trishaw and went to Casuarina beach.  I was told by the guys in Vavuniya it is the best beach in the area. The beach was quite a distance away so this gave me the opportunity to see the sights of the town and the country side of Jaffna.  The town is a bustling district with people everywhere. Outside of the main city center the terrain is very open and flat, with grassy fields and farming land shaded by a few palm trees.  Cows were in the city centers but also sitting or walking along the sides of the country roads, stray dogs wandered around, and goats were busy eating whatever foliage they could find.  It is a peninsula so it possesses a lot of coastal territory with not much for cows or goats to eat.  We passed a dump yard, and it was heavily populated with dogs, goats, and cows looking for things to eat.   As my crazy driver speed along the narrow roads, I hung on to the seat of the trishaw and noted the eerie landscape of bombed out buildings, both abandoned and inhabited.  In the past few years more and more tourist have been attracted to Jaffna, but it still remains a very untourististic place due to its location and history in the war.

The struggles overwhelmed Jaffna in the 1980s, and for two decades this city was a no-go war zone.  Variously besieged by Tamil guerrillas, SLA (Sri Lankan Army) troops and a so-called peacekeeping force, the city lost almost half of its population to emigration.  In 1990 the LTTE ordered Jaffna’s few remaining Sinhalese and all Muslim residents to leave.  Eventually the SLA recaptured Jaffna and imposed military rule, after a few battles in 1996 and 2005.  It took several years for the sense of occupation to be relaxed in the city.  The ban on domestic flights was lifted, mobile phone use was allowed, people returned to their home town, businesses re-opened, and reconstruction of the city began.   Jaffna still feels like an occupied territory.  There is still a heavy military presence, despite that I have been told this is a relaxed version of previous years.  The people of Jaffna seem relaxed and un-phased by random identification checks by the police.

A holy man handing out prayers and blessings to young children at a Hindu temple

Casuarina beach was a beautiful location; a desolated area with white sandy beaches, palm trees, and clear blue waters.  It was exactly what I needed after bumping along the roads for several hours that morning.  I met a nice man who was there with his two young daughters.  He told me he had lived in Mississauga for 15 years, and was proud to tell me he has a Canadian Citizenship.  He was very friendly, which I was later thankful for, as a large group of young men started to harass me when I went for a swim. They started swimming towards me and surrounding me.  The Sri Lankan man told me everything would be ok, he would watch out for me and I should enjoy the waters.  He kept his eye on the young men and made sure they stayed a safe distance away.  The entire afternoon as I tried to read my book on the beach, I had young men approaching me asking if they could take their picture with me.  I understand they were trying to be friendly, but it got very annoying after 2 hours.  Eventually I got rude and just ignored them as much as I could; not easy when someone is talking to you.

A bombed out building, but was being used for a resting place

The second day in Jaffna I decided to take in some culture.  I hired a trishaw and he took me around to some local Hindu temples.  We saw many temples along the way, but my destination and most spectacular of all the temples I had seen that day was Naguleswaram Kovil.  It was a beautifully ornate building that had been heavily bombed during the war.  A lot of it had been reconstructed and repainted.  The interior and exterior of the temple was coated in a vast array of all the colors, with loads of plaster Hindu statues and gods on the walls of the building. It was an architectural oasis built within rumble of the war.   While I was visiting ceremonies were being held inside in temple, which were fascinating to see.  There were men playing drums, guitars and clarinets; their music filled the air inside temple, as well as the air outside (it was being played over loudspeakers).  I believe a baptism ceremony was taking place, and buckets of water were being thrown over several men’s heads for everyone to see.  There were large crowds of women and men sitting cross legged on the floors of the temple watching the baptisms and saying prayers.  The burning incense filled all my senses as I sat and watched my surroundings. 

After a period of time I left the temple and ventured around the grounds.  My trishaw driver indicated the grounds were considered to be “most holy place”.   His English was very broken, but I understood what he meant.  I walked through shell blasted buildings towards the water and saw an outdoor temple (which I describe as a large ornate gazebo-like structure).  I took a few pictures of the area and then had to move on.

The busy streets of Jaffna

I left Jaffna at 1pm for Trincomalee ( which will be my home for the next 3 weeks).  I asked the driver how long my journey would be (thinking it was 4 or 5 hours); 7.5 hours! Holy Crap!!!  I think it was a good thing I did not have knowledge of this prior to my trip to Jaffna, otherwise I may not have gone. A young man sat beside me on my trip south.  He fell asleep and kept resting his head on my shoulder.  Agh. I thought this was awkward, but no… it was worse when he woke up; he introduced himself and asked if I could buy him a Canadian visa and bring him back to Canada with me.  When I turned him down he proceeded to ask me for my email address, facebook name, cell number, salary, etc.  I was glad when he finally got off the bus.   It was a long and awkward trek. 
I arrived in the dark in Trincomalee, grabbed a trishaw and made my way to my hotel.  When I got to my room I threw down my dusty bag (which the bus driver told me I could store in the underbelly locker of the bus) and headed straight for the shower.  I have never been so dusty in my life.  The yellow scarf I was wearing that day was brown from the dirt.  I am going to have to figure out a way to clean my poor backpack that was tussled around in the dirty luggage compartment of the bus.