Once ghost towns along the Puttlum – Mannar coastal line bordering Wilpattu National Park, these small towns and villages have now woken up form the 30 year slumber after the end of the LTTE terrorist occupation.

This stretch of sea was world famous for thousands of years for for producing finest pearls in the world but today a waste land with few fishing villages due to over exploitation. Portuguese, Dutch and British all had considerable interest in the region and the best example is the massive bungalow of the British Governor, Sir Frederick North (1798-1805) built for the supervision of pearl fishery operations in the region.

This was my first ever visit to Mannar and one of the most awaited trips. Initially I wanted to join Niroshan on his Mannar journey but had skipped it because of my wedding. Though I missed out on it I did a good copycat journey. For further information on locations please do read his report. This will be more of a picture report.

So this was my second visit (previous visit) to Jaffna this year and I would re visit this lovely land at any given time because there is so much to see. This time my main objectives were to visit two populated islands in Jaffna and also to show around my wife the beauty I experienced during my previous visits. On the way to Jaffna we did stop at Iranamadu to have some tea. We reached Jaffna at around 9am and refreshed ourselves before exploring the peninsula.

This was a long awaited trip for Wuminda and me. I could gather enough information about Mannar and places on the way to Mannar by reading Lakdasun reports. We started the journey from Colombo around 7.30am due to my job commitments. On the way we have visited some other places and reached Mannar around 8.30pm. (I will discuss it later by a separate report). We were warmly welcome by Mr.Rohan at Four Tees Inn.

During a one of my field visits to Vavniya and Mannar, we had likelihood to visit few archeological and Hindu sacred places in Mannar and Silavaturei. Weather was good but too dry and wind impregnated with dust. Most of the Mannaer main roads are really good and newly rehabilitated. Railway constructions are going on up to thaleimannar. First we visited Biobab tree which is situated in the heart of the Mannar island city

It has been almost a year since visiting Mannar and I was tempting to go there again, especially in the middle of the migration season. I have called Mr. Laurance, the owner of Four Tees Guest Inn, many times since the season begun, but couldn’t go there due to some concerns. This time I was very determined to go there and ask my friends to join me from about month a go.

We chose Madu-Mannar as the destination for our year-end office trip after reading a number of trip reports on Lakdasun. We started form the suburbs of Colombo at about 12.30 in the night/morning as we had only two days to explore all interesting places that had been discussed in those reports. The crew was forty and we travelled in a 55-seater Ashok Leyland bus. As we started early, we reached Medawachchiya Rest House by 5.30 am and refreshed ourselves with a cup of tea. (Prior arrangements made to have tea so early!)

We started in the morning around six thirty and headed towards Negombo. We traveled in a 4×4 Hilux pickup and had all what was needed such as several cans of water food items and other necessary supplements. From Paliyagoda we traveled along the A3 highway. At Wenappuwa we had our breakfast and we went to the Chilaw rest house for a cup of tea. By 10.30 am we were at Puttalam. As it was a poya day the roads were peaceful and we made it to Puttalam sooner than we thought.