Such an easy and comfortable train ride from Anuradhapura to Jaffna, and how very different Jaffna felt from where we'd been. It wasn't as dramatically different as arriving in another country, but the differences felt very pronounced. There were cows in the streets, the people looked different in a darker way (not just skin color but also expressions), and as we'd notice, there were many more visible army bases and checkpoints.
The hotel we stayed in, the Fox Resort, is a historic place. It had been the home of an illustrious Northern family, but then insurgents grabbed it, then the government used it as an office space. The owners got it back and remodeled it into what was clearly once a lovely resort. The various underground bunkers were transformed into art galleries, which we never got around to visiting even though I'd thought I'd do that. It's fallen on hard times. We had no hot water in the shower, and the shower door wouldn't close, and the windows were a mess and we couldn't see through them. Just overall, it seems to have fallen into disrepair. The pool was lovely, and guarded by a giant dragon-harp-thingy, and the egg hoppers at breakfast were delicious. One guy at the front desk was so, so lazy, telling us the first night to just go out to the street, we could flag down a tuktuk to take us to dinner....which (a) wasn't at all easy, and (b) there was almost no English, and (c) only one tuktuk driver knew where the hotel was, when we wanted to get back. After that first difficult time, we simply told the guy at the front desk to get us a tuktuk and tell them where to take us, and that was that. Getting back, though, required many, many tuktuk-driver-conferences. Yes, they'd say immediately, they know where it is, and then obviously they didn't, so they'd consult with other drivers, sometimes a whole bunch of them, and finally they'd figure it out.
Oh, we loved Jaffna. It was so vibrant, and we enjoyed walking around. Finally we did some shopping—two silk saris for me, a couple of crazy Hindu prints in sparkly gold frames for the house, some spices and curry blends, and an egg hopper pan—and that was loads of fun. When I think of Jaffna, these things stand out for me:
- We went to a big Hindu temple, Nallur Kandaswamy, at the end of our first day. No photography is allowed inside, and my poor memory being what it is, I rely on seeing our photos to recall our trips, so this wasn't great....especially because of how Marc was required to dress. As long as my shoulders and upper arms and knees were covered, I was good. Marc, on the other hand, was required to take off his shirt (required of all men), and since his long shorts just hit his knees, he was wrapped in a yellow sarong thing. I really wish I'd been able to get a picture. The interior was so beautiful and surreal and outside my own worldview that, combined with incense and the fire in one ceremony, it just took me outside my reality. Tor me, the visual aspects of Hinduism are psychedelic and so over the top: vibrant endless colors, wildly colored avatars of Vishnu, along with the various deities, like Ganesha. We walked through the large space, shadowed by a frowning man whose displeasure was perhaps due to our being Westerners (maybe he thought we might take a photograph surreptitiously), or maybe he was offended by my calf tattoo (on which more in a second), or maybe that was just his face. There was some kind of ceremony going on in a small structure within the space -- a kind of building within the building -- with priests(?) lifting and circling plates of fire, or something, and I wished I understood what was going on. I remembered being in Varanasi for the evening Ganga Aarti ceremony where the Brahman lifted big lamps filled with incense and fire, and wondered if it was some non-river version of that, especially since the temple closed when it finished.
- We returned to the temple the next evening, not to go inside but really just as a drop-off spot because we wanted to walk around and see all the other, smaller temples and shrines in that neighborhood -- and because it was very close to the restaurant. This second night, we were just walking along and a local man started calling out to me about my tattoo. He was not the first one to do that. Even though I was with Marc, he fell in step with us and kept trying to talk to me about it, and I felt a little scared and threatened and Marc felt protective, so we got ourselves away from him. This is one thing I will remember about Jaffna that doesn't feel so great. I was stared at a lot, and I didn't always feel OK. It was so hot, and I had a dress with a modest neckline, but it was sleeveless and hit at my knee and the fabric was cool, but it was apparently provocative. The cholis that women wear under their saris have sleeves that hit just above the elbow, but their bellies show, so I was left believing that it must be the upper arm that is too risque. My tattoo was probably too provocative, although my legs were also showing below the knee and saris of course go to the ground. Whatever it was, I didn't feel as safe as I did in the south. I'm not saying I felt scared, as I often did in India, or threatened by leering men (again, as I did in India), but it was markedly different for me.
- We ate at Malayan Cafe our first night, a small restaurant that TripAdvisor listed as the best in Jaffna, and we'd seen it in a video, too. It was dark and close inside, and bewildering, but Marc somehow ordered something for us, and we took our seats. We were the only Western people there, and whoo boy were we of interest to the locals. Banana leaves were placed in front of us as plates, and we unrolled these cylinders of brown rice and coconut, and gradually figured out that we should break it up and spread it out a little bit. Then a very frowny man came along with small buckets and ladles and dumped stuff on top of the rice. I'd learned ahead of time how to eat, and knew a couple of things already, like you do NOT use your left (dirty) hand, only your right. You kind of smush the food all together, knead it together a little bit, and then gather a clump of it in your fingers and thumb it into your mouth, kind of like a marble. Oh, people around us were smiling at each other in what felt like a "look at those people!" kind of way, but it was still fun. The dour, frowny man served us stuff from several different buckets (we didn't really know what any of it was), and stood right next to us as we ate, kind of glaring down at us. He spoke zero English. When we finished, we took our banana leaves to the back and put them in the trash, and washed our hands. As Marc was paying, when we had finished, the dour man looked at me and smiled SO BIG and gave me a thumbs up. As much fun as the whole experience was, eating in this new way, it was the shock and surprise of his big smile that I'll remember best.
- The second and third nights we ate at a restaurant called Mango, which was also highly rated. The food was great, but the experience was bewildering. The first night, we studied the menu and made our choices, only to be told by the first waiter that no, we could only order from these sections of the menu. So we studied it again, made our choices, and when a different waiter returned, he said no, we could only order from this section of the menu. The second night, we knew going in that only some sections of the menu were available, so right away I asked the waiter (the first guy from the night before) which sections of the menu were available. He kind of snorted and rolled his eyes and said, "Like I told you last night. This and this and this." Except the second guy the night before had told us something different. Marc got kotthu roti that was delicious, the best he'd had, spicy and fresh.
- The other tourist place we visited was the Dutch Fort, as we read it referred to everywhere except there, where it was called the Jaffna Fort. The Fort is most striking from above, because it's constructed in the shape of a 5-pointed star, and they used blocks cut from coral to construct it. It was built by the Portuguese in 1618 and captured by the Dutch in 1658. The British took it over in 1795, and between 1986 and 1995 it was under control of the Tamil Tigers, during the civil war. It's largely in ruins, and when I saw the Sri Lankan flag flying over it, I thought that he who laughs last, laughs best. Take that, colonizers. It was very hot, and on the ground the site isn't all that interesting to see, so we didn't stay too long but I'm glad we saw it anyway.
- We went to a regular grocery store in our ongoing quest to find coconut sambol to take home. We didn't really find the kind of markets we always find in SEAsia, so we thought maybe we'd have some luck at a plain old grocery store. As you enter the store, a man at a counter takes your motorcycle helmet for you, which just tells you how ubiquitous they are. We never did find coconut sambol anywhere, but we bought some sambol spices, and some packets of Sri Lankan curry mix, and of course packets of cookies.
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