Sri Lanka Day 49 (Jaffna): Same Country, Different Culture
Started the day pretty early. I didn’t sleep since 2.30am because I was busy watching shows which my phone couldn’t play and of course I have to pack. Kanken is really good. I can fit all my things including clothings and even a 1.5 litres mineral water. Of course, its worst weakness is the material which is really difficult to wash off the dirt. Always buy dark coloured bags, really.
Didn’t eat breakfast and boarded the train right away. We couldn’t get the tickets for the AC train, which is $6 more but we were lucky because the weather was good! AC was totally unnecessary but the seats were really hard and my butt hurt. We reached Jaffna at around 3pm, so the whole train journey actually took us a total of 9h.
I am a person who pays a lot of attention to small details and tend to remember small things that people say. I am glad that we went to the guesthouse Treatooo Jaffna first because the Sales Rep was really waiting there for us, for at least 1h already. Imagine if we choose to explore the place before going back to the guesthouse, he would be there waiting for the rest of the day!
Some facts about Jaffna: The population of the district is almost exclusively Sri Lankan Tamil. The population of the district, like the rest of the north and east of Sri Lanka, has been heavily affected by the civil war. The war killed an estimated 100,000 people. They are in the midst of rebuilding this city so some of the buildings are newly built such as Jaffna Railway Station.
Some observations I have made:
The guys here tend to not have a belly as compared to other parts of Sri Lanka
All vegetarian food (I really starved for the 2 days, not that I don’t fancy vegetable but vegetable with curry is just not my kind of thing)
Poor command of English language (we really had a hard time trying to communicate with the people here)
Of course, after being on the train for the whole thing, the very first thing we did after checking in was to find food. BUT I was really disappointed because yup, everything was vegetarian. How I survive eating rice and curry here is to just eat the rice and the chicken and sometimes if that was my day, I get to enjoy familiar vegetables like cabbage and ladies’ fingers.
Lunch: Roti Parata (super cold and with cold curry as well). They put in on banana leaf which was something different.
Walked around the city area, mainly the Dutch Fort as well as the Jaffna Public Library.
Dutch Fort
Jaffna Public Library
Subramaniyam Park
Shattered Church
St Jame's Church
Back in Treatooo Jaffna and man, I felt feverish and still had to bathe in cold water.
