The capital of the north, Jaffna remains a vibrant centre of Sri Lankan Tamil culture, its spirits undimmed despite the massive destruction it suffered during the earlier years of the civil war and its long isolation from the rest of the island. Decades of instability has had its impact on this peninsula city. The Jaffna lies on 8m above sea level. The average temperature in Jaffna is 27°C . In a year, the rainfall is 1235mm.One cannot but miss a slight melancholy touch after the sun goes down in the cultural capital of the Tamils. But it is a charming city of grand houses, fluorescent kovils and a serene coastline. Jaffna remains strikingly different to everywhere else in Sri Lanka, offering an absorbing blend of old-fashioned colonial charm alongside the hustle and bustle of contemporary Tamil life. The town as a whole is as reminiscent of India as of the Sinhalese south, its streets dotted with a sequence of large Hindu temples topped by soaring gopurams, and filled with crowds of cyclists and the distinctive blare of Tamil music issuing from cafés and shops. While east of the town centre stretch beautiful shaded streets of colonial villas and a sequence of enormous churches – a large proportion of Jaffna Tamils are Christian. Yet the town has its own unique and complex identity shaped in true Sri Lankan fashion, by a wide cross-section of influences, including Muslim, Portuguese, Dutch, British and Sinhalese, with colourful temples set next to huge churches, and streets dotted with ancient Dutch and British residences. The rural surroundings of the Jaffna town, and the source of much of its former prosperity, is the Jaffna Peninsula, a fertile arc of land criss-crossed with small country roads lined with endless walled gardens and smallholdings, growing a wide variety of crops including chillies, onions, bananas, jackfruit and grapes. Within the city you can visit the Jaffna library which is the seat of Tamil literature. Most of you will remember that it was also torched down by nationalists a few decades ago, an event which went on to fuel the Tamil separatist movement. The highlight of a Jaffna has to be the Nallur Kovil, named after the suburb it is located in. Other attractions within the city include the Dutch fort. Further south, the vast track of thinly populated countryside known as Vanni, is little visited, even by locals, although the remote church at Madhu draws a steady stream of pilgrims while the war-torn town of Kilinochchi. To the west of Jaffna, a string of islands straggle out into the waters of the Palk Strait towards India. Two of them, Kayts and Karaitivu, almostjoin up with the mainland, to which they’re connected by causeways, as is Punkudutivu further west. Punkudutivu is the starting point for ferries to Nainativu, home to two important religious shrines, and the remote island of Delft.
