Until Recently, Tourists Weren't Allowed Here
all right welcome back to northern sri lanka and we are now at the northernmost point of the whole of sri lanka right i'm still on a trip with hajara and mafas here in northern sri lanka we just left jaffna the town jaffna we're exploring a little bit around the peninsula of japan so here the most point of the ah soda cape is the northern most point of the sri lanka island is missing maybe of sri lanka so yeah actually if you if you have a look on the map where jaffna is actually a peninsula which is separated from the rest of the country so basically here we have the the mainland of sri lanka and then jaffna and the whole area around it is a separated peninsula and we are now here which is yeah the northernmost point of all of the country on the other side of the ocean we have uh india and these are fishing boats from the locals every little village here probably the main business of the village here is uh fishing a very rural area around here i will explain a little bit more about it in a minute but first let's have a look at this point and i really like the slogan here unity in diversity is the strength of sri lanka that is a great slogan i love that cultural diversity awesome northernmost notch in point pedro is the name of the place maybe somebody who knows let me know in the comments why is it called point pedro i mean it's a okay so the the places around you have different names and tamil and signals yeah yeah northern sri lanka they speak a different language here tamil language other than in the rest of the country where they speak sinhalese and i have to say the water here looks very inviting because it is pretty hot here once again and i just see there are some death dead crabs here yeah that did i think don't know let me just touch it did they yeah yeah later by the way we are going to try the famous japanese crab curry yeah we're going to try that later and yeah the whole area here in the far north of sri lanka used to be a war zone in case you don't know there used to be a civil war here in sri lanka for almost 30 years which ended in 2009 and the area around here in northern sri lanka was yeah the the main war zone the sri lankan government fought against separatists here in the north they wanted to separate from the from the rest of the country and when you drive around here the villages it's very rural to to get to this point where we rule roads rural villages and you can see that there used to be a wall here many houses are destroyed burned down you see even walls that still have bullet holes in them so this yeah kind of a weird feeling to to drive around here although it's it's an interesting part of sri lanka to see because yeah it's part of the sri lankan history which i like to learn about and yeah of course because of the war many people that lived in the area actually left of course because they don't want to live in a war zone and slowly these people over the past years came back here to their their homes and you can see they start building houses here again so maybe in a few years the area here will be fully back to to normal maybe we also tourism here wasn't possible obviously during the war there was no tourism here and also the years after the war tourism wasn't really possible here until recently a few years ago foreigners needed a special permission to enter this area and even local tourists you said earlier local tourism is also not really a thing here yeah then after 2010 the locals were allowed so after 2010 when the war was over the locals were allowed and foreigners still needed a special permission so there we are no foreign tourists around here yeah a few years ago so recently yeah foreigners like me can travel to to this area no problem but still you can see lots of military in this area i mean there's a military base here every few hundred meters military checkpoints you see armed soldiers basically all around here so you can feel here this is a little bit different than other parts but the people here that is my impression so far seem to be as welcoming as in the rest of sri lanka which is really nice to witness as a foreigner i feel welcomed everywhere in sri lanka so far so back in the air-conditioned car which is much needed if you want to see a very different part of sri lanka then the area around jaffna i think is very a good place to come so you don't want anything from the tuk-tuk no okay and i will check it out of course we have a tuk-tuk here selling bread hello can i buy something i want to oh i saw that a couple of times before in sri lanka that cook cooks food pastry and bakery stuff driving around the villages hello can i can i buy something no i want um rolls rolls oh it belt yes can i get one uh uh 56 70 rupee oh yes okay okay okay one one one please what is this potato okay one potato yeah that is so interesting a little tuk-tuk converted into a mobile bakery shop oh no just just this one and the egg bread yes ah okay okay and for their business okay okay can i can i have a look inside oh i want to see let's have a look ah okay so many breads in here oh like a like a bakery shop ah okay okay very interesting okay okay how much in total i need to use the other language here the tamil language but not stuti anymore in the north ah we are studying the thousand hundred not yeah a little bit like a new country here for me ah so i bought an eggplant but i think what is more interesting is the roti so this potato roti did you say vegetable roti if you buy the same thing in gold you get vegetables very delicious and this is still warm it's very good oh wow i saw that many times before that these tuk tuks driving around selling bakery stuff those are very useful during the lockdown yeah i'm doing your lockdown yeah oh i see it was yeah early as well but during the lockdown these businesses like real fast oh yeah during the comet lockdown yeah they probably had a good time yeah so we just found something interesting here dried tobacco this is tobacco so this is what people smoke yeah second place yeah yeah so you make cigarette out of this we have something called purely made out of tobacco oh this is like a local cilantro cigarette ah and where are the leaves coming from from vietnam from jaffna yeah but i have no idea how tobacco is made is it is it tobacco tree or something yeah it's some sort of a plant i have no idea about tobacco it's a plant yeah we have coconut trees around here but yeah it looks like it's coming from a plant or kind of tree hello okay but it is a plant right okay tobacco is a plant okay learn something new so i guess the people in the area they they grow a lot of their food by their own because they are not big supermarkets around here they made it by their own so that people here they have fruits and vegetables in the garden yeah it smells like like a cigarette yeah it smells exactly like cigarettes yeah which i don't really i don't like this one i'm not a smoker i don't smoke so i just want to make it feel yeah yeah so yeah where was i am yeah this is a very cool area obviously jaffna town is a proper town but the area around the town are pretty rural a few minutes later and we have actually found tobacco plants so in case you're wondering as i was wondering how these plants look like this is what they look like and then yeah you dry it and make cigarettes out of it now i just see that the locals are drying fish here right by the ocean whoo a super strong fish smell is welcoming me here and yeah i'm not a seafood expert so i cannot tell you what type of fish this is but i think it's probably most likely coming fresh from the from the ocean here hello hello what fish is this the name of the fish fish from from the ocean here right yeah yeah fresh from today today oh i can touch but ah oh yeah it's about to uh dry it's not fully dried yet some parts are still soft ah okay and uh delicious uh good good good fish good quality okay okay ah and then you sell sell market columbo you will bring to colombo ah the fish here is going to colombo okay that is interesting jaffna fish to colombo okay okay are nice okay thank you thank you ah that's interesting so they actually transport the fish all the way down to colombo from here wow yeah must be like hundreds or even thousands of fishes lying around here how much rupee one fish you don't know but they're expensive or not so expensive like a rupee rupee how much how much i don't know you don't know okay no problem 1000 1000 for one fish oh that sounds expensive but i don't know about their fish prices in general okay okay okay thank you thank you ah yeah the local economy here in the north is probably a lot uh depending on catching fishes okay ah that was interesting and he says the fish is going to colombo they are transporting it to colombo later okay i was trying to find out how much is one fish okay uh he didn't really understand anything but he said something about one thousand is that realistic yeah one thousand yeah okay okay then he understood it okay we understand each other so what is special about the lighthouse that we're having here this picture used to be on a stamp when we were kids postal sometimes ah did a picture of the lighthouse yeah okay when we were kids we were not able to visit jaffna right because of the war yeah so only thing we see about jeff knight is the lighthouse of the point pedro so this is the famous jaffna lighthouse i know ah okay it's i think it's not really a news anymore right so then this is probably the northernmost lighthouse of sri lanka as well because the area here is northern most of skylander okay okay i like the roads here it looks cozy actually lovely small rural road with the palm leaves hanging over the road oh i absolutely like the vibes around here oh it's a beautiful piece of land here hello and the sun is shining the sky is blue we have a beautiful ocean over there i actually saw some many locals actually swimming in the water as well the water looks super inviting and they're free of tourists of course hello and i was just surprised that i saw a lot of churches around here and you just explained that the tamils here are christian tamils so we have hindu tamils we have christian tamils oh that is interesting because i saw a lot of churches around the area here so and we just found sri lanka's only desert kind of desert we have a lot of sand dunes here close to the ocean and there are a few villages around i have the feeling i am in a desert now that is incredible i did not expect to see this in sri lanka oh the sand here is uh yeah it looks like like sand from the beach right yeah yeah wow but that is incredible interesting that we just have a piece of land here that yes full with these sandy dunes desert looking like area in northern sri lanka so the area here cannot be used to to grow anything or why is it like looking just empty like this i think you cannot use it for any cultivation yeah okay so just like a sandy area but it's natural right it's not it's not man-made it's it's a natural piece of desert here and then people living here in the village nearby yeah there's a very small village here right next to the dunes oh did you know that something like this exists here in sri lanka i am very surprised to see this i guess not many sri lankans no yeah nobody even sri lankans they don't know that yes a place like this here oh we will see in the comment section yeah how many of you know about the place like this is the jungle sand jungle sam jungle yeah oh you called it sanjango i like that name interesting journey around northern sri lanka here today so and we are back in jaffna and we are about to try jaffna crab curry sri lankan crab curry was one of the most recommended dishes by you guys in the comment section for me to try so this is the moment and the jaffna crab curry is the best in sri lanka because the crabs here are the best yeah yes okay and i ordered the non-spicy version because my stomach can't handle spicy food so well but look at the difference this is my crab curry which looks yellow and the original spicy one is this one which looks very dark red yeah it looks like a chili paste gravy so i have no chili at all no so this is just like a regular curry not to put even pepper because in the last two days i already ate spicy food and my stomach couldn't handle it so well so today no spicy food for me okay i have a huge question mark now in my hand how are we going to eat this i'm going to use your hat and uh but it's pretty hot so i use the second plate too yeah and then we have to like kind of dig out the meat yes yeah i am not a seafood expert i'm very new into the seafood eating world so uh let me even think is this the first time i eat a proper crab meal i think it is like i tried crab before as like small part of another dish but i think this is the first time ever i eat a whole crab a whole crab meal okay it's also like uh sharp it's pretty sharp here so you have to be careful when you actually uh dig into it so what is inside the soup potato onions and curry leaves onions curry leaves potato okay and spices and i guess for you they added coconut milk as well spicy coconut milk okay so it's not only the the crab inside here okay i have a meat peas now my first my first uh piece of meat here yeah of a piece of meat wow but it is very soft yeah very soft easy to eat and it tastes really good actually okay so if i look at all the pieces it's going to be a lot of work to get all the meat out yeah and yeah yeah by the way we also have uh but that's already it has no more meat in here this is a fun way to eat and i have defeated the crab wow i have to say it is a lot of work to get a little bit of meat because the the crab actually don't have or doesn't have that much meat inside but the meat that is inside is very delicious yeah i will check over the bill quite exactly 6 000 rupees is that is this the just like crab curry like more expensive than regular crab curries because it's special crab in general is expensive right yeah okay all right that was a long day exploring around jaffna today thank you for showing me around it was really really a nice experience i saw a lot of interesting things today and yeah if you haven't seen the previous video the first impression video from just now then check it out right here stay healthy stay positive and then see you on the next episode ciao guys
2022-04-10 12:25
