On June 13, 1990, as the war raged on, the Yal Devi was discontinued. The rail-link between the North and the South was severed. Now more than twenty years later the Yal Devi thunders from Colombo through Kurunegala, Anuradhapura, Omanthai and finally Kilinochchi.

travel

Nallur Kandaswamy KovilApproximately 2km northeast

of the centre, the Nallur Kandaswamy Kovil is the most impressive religious building in Jaffna and one of the most significant Hindu temple complexes in Sri Lanka. Its sacred deity, Murugan (or Skanda), is central to temple activity, especially during the punctual, cacophonic pujas (5am, 10am, noon, 4pm and 5pm), when offerings are made to his brass-framed image and other Hindu deities like Ganesh, Murugan’s elephant-headed brother, in shrines surrounding the inner sanctum.

The kovil’s 15th-century structure fell victim to ruthless Portuguese destruction in the 17th century; the current one dates from 1734. It is beautifully maintained.

TrackYal Devi

Back On

By Megara TegalPictures by Imaad Majeed

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The North of Sri Lanka is remembered and recognized for

the bitter 30 year war which destroyed not just the infrastructure but also the lives of thousands of people.

Today, more than four years after the war, the North, particularly Jaffna, has become a hot-spot for tourists, not just those

from overseas but even locals from the South.The reconstruction of the damaged

infrastructure, including roads, railway lines and buildings, facilitates the traveler to Jaffna.

Rio Ice CreamJaffna has lots of ice cream places, but Rio’s is the one

people flock to. So, what sets Rio apart from other ice cream places? They say it is value for money. Like a good Tamil movie chock full of fight scenes, with the odd love story and plenty of song and dance, Rio packs all kinds of things into their ice cream sundaes.

Sure, you can have a plain scoop of chocolate or vanilla, but where’s the fun in that?

Try one of the specials instead. The Rio special, for example, is four scoops of ice cream: fruit and nut, vanilla, mango, and milk, with a healthy sprinkling of nuts on top. While you can find the other flavours easily at pretty much any ice cream parlour or supermarket, their milk ice cream is quite unusual – and delicious, too.

Sri Naga Vihara International

Buddhist CentreFor Buddhists, there’s the solitary Sri

Naga Vihara International Buddhist Centre which was quickly rebuilt after government forces retook Jaffna in 1995.

Fits PavilionWith peace dawning

over the historical city of Jaffna, Fits Pavilion was launched on October 18, 2009, and amongst the first guests was none other than our renowned cricketer Sanath Jayasuriya.

The perfect location

The tastefully decorated, rustic interior, the vibrant color themes of Barefoot Fabrics and soothing soft lighting project an extremely relaxing setting and atmosphere which none would resist. The lounge and restaurant areas are a pleasure: furniture stained in oakwood colour, mustard painted walls adorned with attractive abstract oil paintings, and the morning sunlight streaming through the elegant sheer curtaining. Exquisite pieces of brass and copper antiques in varying shapes and sizes are well blended throughout the Pavilion, commencing from the garden.

The in-house restaurant is presently restricted to in-house guests where the in-house chef is a

for anyone wishing to spend time in the city of Jaffna, the Pavilion is conveniently located on the famous A9 Road (Kandy Road).

The Pavilion, a lovely colonial bungalow, offers seven air-conditioned bedrooms with attached

baths. Four of the bedrooms are located in the main house and three in the adjoining building. For those looking for complete privacy and the experience of natural ambience, you may then opt for the three rooms with private verandas or balconies overlooking the A9 Road.

St Mary’s CathedralBuilt along classical lines, St Mary’s Cathedral is astonishingly large, but

it’s curious to see corrugated-iron roofing held up by such a masterpiece of wooden vaulting.

The tiny Anglican church of St John’s

looks like a Sussex chapel, but with the napped flints replaced by cut sandstone chunks in the walls. Appropriately enough, there’s a cricket pitch ranged behind.

St Martin’s SeminaryFounded in 1850 and

rebuilt in 1887 by French benefactors, St Martin’s Seminary looks like a Cambridge college transplanted into a tropical garden.

Jaffna Public LibrarySymbolically, one of the first major public buildings to be rebuilt after the 2002

ceasefire was the Jaffna Public Library. Architects kept true to the original neo-Mughal design and books were donated from around the world. The earlier library (inaugurated 1841) had been lost in a fiery blaze set by pro-government mobs after the violent Jaffna District Council elections of July 1981. Few acts were more significant in the build-up to full-scale civil war. The world-renowned collection had included more than 90,000 volumes, including irreplaceable Tamil documents such as the one surviving copy of Yalpana Vaipava Malai, a history of Jaffna.

SJV Selvanayagam Monument

The strange, top-heavy concrete pillar almost beside the Public Library is the

SJV Selvanayagam Monument, celebrating the founder of the Tamil Federal Party. His somewhat Gandhiesque statue stands beside the monument.

Jaffna Archaeological MuseumThis unkempt but interesting museum is hidden away at the end of a messy garden behind a cubic

concrete events hall that looks rather like a Masonic lodge. Asking for directions may elicit odd responses since most locals do not think of or refer to it as a museum. At the door are a rusty pair of Dutch cannons from the fort and a set of whale bones. Inside, the most interesting items are 11th-century Buddha torsos found at Kantarodai, a poorly conserved life-sized portrait of Queen Victoria, and the 1845 palanquin of Point Pedro’s Mudaliyar (district governor).

master in both western and local cuisine; you would be certainly advised to experience the tantalizing delicacies that are offered to you. It is served by friendly and gracious waiters, rather than the impersonal buffet arrangements.

Festooned with some of the most enviable facilities and amenities which include complimentary WiFi facilities, Fits Pavilion is sure to provide you with a memorable holiday experience.

The Pavilion organizes tour packages for those wishing to explore the rich cultural heritage of the City of Jaffna and packages which reveal the historic wonders of one of Asia’s most exciting cities.

From War Zone ToTourist Zone

Visitors can either go by road along the A9 road, which was recently re-laid and carpeted, between Jaffna and Vavuniya or by train on the Yal Devi (See separate box), which had recently recommenced operations after the rail tracks between Kilinochchi and Colombo were linked once again after 25 years.

The fastest way to reach Jaffna, however, is by air. The end of the war saw restrictions on air travel to Jaffna being lifted, and both the Palaly airport and Ratmalana airport converted to suit domestic civilian air travel.

Among the airlines flying between Jaffna and Colombo is FitsAir. Previously known as ExpoAir, the airline is presently the only airline approved by the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka to operate daily scheduled flights to Palaly from Colombo.

FitsAir takes travelers to Jaffna in just over one hour on a Cessna Grand Caravan 12 seater aircraft with leather seats, air-conditioned cabin as well as drop-down monitor which screens silent movies during the flight.

The courteous FitsAir staff at Ratmalana and Palaly guide you all the way from the terminal to the aircraft to ensure the passenger is relaxed all the way.

Once on board the plane, the pilots greet you with a smile and that smile assures the passenger a safe and hassle free flight.

At Palaly, a luxury coach operated by FitsAir is available to take the passengers to the Jaffna town and to the doorstep of the hotel free of charge.

What’s more, if a passenger has purchased a return air ticket, then the coach will pick the

passenger from the hotel and transfer them to the Palaly airport for the return flight back to Colombo.

FitsAir also organizes tour packages for those wishing to explore the rich cultural heritage of the Peninsula of Jaffna which reveals the historic wonders of one of Asia’s most exciting cities – Jaffna.

Visitors to the North can go sightseeing to the Jaffna Fort, the second largest in the country, originally built by the Portugese and later expanded by the Dutch, the Nallur Kandaswamy Kovil, Jaffna’s foremost place of Hindu worship, the Nagadeepa Purana Vihara situated in the Nainnathivu Island, believed to be one of the sacred places visited by Lord Buddha, the Jaffna Public Library and the Kadurugoda Temple.

Tourists can also visit the Keerimalai Springs, located in the northern coast of Jaffna, which contains water that comes from an underground spring popularly known for its curative and miraculous powers, as well as the Nagadeepa Naga Pooshani Ambal, built in the 16th century and demolished by the Portugese and later rebuilt in 1788 by Ramalingar Ramachandirar.

Other must see sights in the North include the sandy Chatty Beach, the scenic drive to the Kurikattuwan Jetty, Point Pedro, the Jamunari bottomless well, the War Remembrance Monument, the Hasalaka Gamini Memorial, a damaged LTTE war tank at Elephant Pass, the War Remembrance Wall and a damaged LTTE water tank at Kilinochchi.

Speaking to another passenger, Mohammed Naoshaad (22) who was travelling on the Yal Devi for the first time, he expressed that he enjoyed travelling by train. “I was disappointed that I didn’t get a train stub, be-cause of a new system of printed out tickets,” he said.

“It’s a long journey but there’s no canteen on the train. There are food sellers who walk up and down the aisle, but the food they sell is terrible. But that said, it beats the journey to Kilinochchi by bus,” he added.

Unlike Naoshaad, Dharshini (31) has travelled on the Yal Devi before the impressive train was stopped dead in its tracks. “I love nature, so what I liked most about the journey was the beautiful and ever changing land-scape. Back when I travelled on the Yal Devi, in 1989 and 1990, there were several vendors that brought along food which is mouthwatering to recall. From corn on the cob with chili, to vadais and so much more. Since it’s a long journey, my parents used to buy my siblings and me food to keep us occupied during the length of journey. I am disappointed that the new train

It’s going to be a packed train’, I tell myself as I join the throng of people on Platform 4 of the Fort Railway Station. Not a minute past

6.50 a.m. a relatively new train chugs into the station and comes to a sighing halt at Platform 4. It is the new and younger Yal Devi.

The passengers make a scramble for the train. The Yal Devi has only second and third classes compartments, and if you have got third class tickets you would have to fight the stampede in order to get a seat. I imagine this is probably how boarding the Yal Devi would have been 23 years back. It was one of the main arteries of public transport as it was a key link between the North and South of the country; making it one of the busiest railway routes.

On June 13, 1990, as the war raged on, the Yal Devi was discontin-ued. The rail-link between the North and the South was severed. Now more than twenty years later the Yal Devi thunders from Colombo through Kurunegala, Anuradhapura, Omanthai and finally Kilinoch-chi. There is still more of the railway track to be completed. Once the track is reconstructed, the Yal Devi will hurtle right on to Kankesan-thurai.

Back at the Fort Railway Station I make my way to compartment A1. I was merely taking the train up to Kilinochchi and I had a second class ticket in compartment A1; which was almost eerily empty all the way from Colombo to Kilinochchi.

Travelling by train is an experience that is far more pleasant than travelling by road. If you need to stretch your legs you can always walk around the compartment. The gradually changing landscape from the bustling city of Colombo, to dense greenery in Kurunegala and finally to the dry, palmyrah spotted landscape of the Northern reaches of the country.

What was disappointing however was that there was no canteen on the train. On a six hour journey, passengers are bound to feel the pangs of hunger. For the time being, it would be best to bring some food or snacks and water along with you.

There are however vendors who walk the stretch of the compart-ment with baskets of vadai, packets of chips, and bottled water all for almost double the price you would pay for the same in Colombo.

did not have as many vendors and the food that the few vendors did bring, was not great either. But the train is better than travelling in the big A/C buses. In the buses you don’t really see much of the beautiful landscape. All you see are buildings,” she said.

Aside from the food (or the lack thereof), the journey was pleasant and must be experienced by those who are fond of travelling.

The train pulls up at the Kilinochchi railway station; a newly built structure. I gather my bag and step out on to the platform. The throng of people who clambered into the train at the Fort Railway station has thinned out as they disembarked at stops along the way; for most it seemed Anuradhapura was their destination. But here at the Kilinochchi railway station, I’m joined by a few. The Yal Devi is still to gain the same crowd of passengers it had when it operated 23 years ago, but it’s only a matter of time before it does.

St John’s Church