Day 1
As we traveled by bus the previous night, I was feeling tired. Hence, I did not go around much. I accompanied my mother to the Jaffna Library where she had some work to do. As the Jaffna Fort was close by and we went there to see it. I was sad to see it destroyed but was happy to see that restoration work had started. I also saw some islands from the Fort.

That evening we visited the home of some relatives of a friend of my mother. They were very friendly and gave us ‘thosai’ for dinner. Yammy! Yammy! Yammy!

Day 2
Amma had some work to do once again at the Jaffna Library. A friend of my parents suggested that we visit the Jaffna Archaeological Museum on our way to the Jaffna Library. Thaththa had mentioned this place before and I too was looking forward to visiting the museum. It was a small building but, had a lot of nice things in it to see. The staff there was very friendly and explained everything to me.

I joined my mother when she went on some field visits. We visited several houses of people affected by the war. It was very sad to see that lots of houses had been destroyed by the war.

A friend of my parents had arranged for us to visit the Keerimalai and Nilavarai Ponds in the afternoon.

Bottom-less pond

On our way we were taken to see the ruins at the Kantharodai archaeological site. My father suggested that we stop at Maviddipuram Kovil which is just inside the High Security Zone. It was quite a big kovil but sadly was mostly destroyed. He said that there was something special he had seen there long time back and took us to the rear of the temple where he showed us a very beautiful chariot. Sadly, it too was destroyed by the war.

Beautiful carvings…… Sadly destroyed

On our way back we came through a faming area. The vegetable plots were very neat. It was very beautiful.

Beetroot

And…. Carrots

Bananas, Bananas, Bananas……..

And…… more Bananas

Ah! The Grapes

Red

Ah! We visited a house of a friend of my parents for dinner. Wow! the ‘idly’ we had were so tasty that I just lost count of how many I ate!

Day 3
My father suggested that the two of us should walk around the town and we walked to see a few places close to town

Must have been a beautiful building

Entrance to somewhere

The Priest of St. James Church suggested to us that we should climb to the top of the bell tower of the church. We did and the view from up there was really nice.

While walking around we heard the sound of temple music over a loud speaker and went in search of the place the music was coming from. It was a kovil. We removed our shirts and went inside the kovil and sat down by the musicians to enjoy the music as well as to see the ceremony that was going on. The music was very nice.

My father wanted to show me the northern most point of our country. We planned to go there by bus. But, a friend of my parents knew about this and had arranged for us to go to Point Pedro in a vehicle.

I like the lettering

On our way we went to place where some Sisters of the Catholic faith resided. The Sister who met us there was very friendly and gave each of us all a glass of ‘Nelli’ to drink. It was very tasty.

We did not get to taste this…

We visited a temple in Thondamanaru where there was a festival. It was lunch time and food was free for all. We too had lunch at the temple along with the other devotees. It was the first time that I had eaten at a Hindu temple. The food was tasty. The ‘payasam’ was also served on to the dry ‘kehel bada’ plate. It was rather hilarious to eat it with the fingers. It was very tasty.

Dressed in shining colours…..

We drove along the northern cost and saw a lot of fishing activity.

That evening, we went to the famous ‘Rio Ice Cream Parlor’ once again. It was in fact the third visit to that place in three days. Obviously, I had more than one.

That night we left Jaffna bus.

My father has told me that the next visit to Jaffna will be a camping trip. Probably next year.

I would go there anytime…. Just for the food.

I will be back…… Soon.