"The heart of the Nothern Province." Jaffna by Emichelle

Jaffna, was one a wonderful city in the distant past and a city that produced some of Sri Lanka's finest intellectuals. A city rich with cultural heritage and history. It used to be famous for Agriculture, Fishing and its famous cement factory amoung many more. I remember my dad, telling us about making a special trip to Jaffna which is over 400 Kms from where I live, to buy his cement to build our house. That was almost 32 years ago. To this day the house looks a newly built house. - oh ! they maintained it : )))

However there after, there was a little group that was building up and later turned out to be the no.1 terrorist organisation in the world and the war in Sri Lanka began to grow bigger and bigger. Jaffna was one of the main strategic points as it is the heart of the northern province. It was a city which was captured and recaptured time and time again. In 1996 the city was finaly captured by the Sri Lankan forces. However there remained far and the risk of going there until very recently when everything was fully cleared. The war officially ended on the 19th May 2009 and people began to travel and explore opportunities and the city began to take a new face and its fast changing with lots of development.

With a Taxi driver in Jaffna.

This was a picture taken during my second visit, I was on business so I hardly had any time to be a tourist however I managed to capture some moments in the city. There is so much that I have yet to see even though later I made two more trips to Jaffna. It was one great experience and the people there are some of the cicest people I've met in my entire life. They are totally innocent, honest and very respectful. During my few trips to Jaffna I felt very much at home and love the association of the people of Jaffna.