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It's just after 5:30 am when I roll out of bed and start walking around the streets of
Jaffna.
Beach Road is quietly waking up, a lady is sweeping on the side of the road, a few people
are washing their clothes, and motorcycles randomly breeze past.
The air is already warm and humidity is already intense.
Luckily not all of Jaffna is still quiet. I'm heading on over to grab some local style
breakfast and a few cups of tea.
Ok, I'm about to chow down on some local breakfast. Paratha which is - oh the power has gown out
now, but anyways. A piece of warm paratha bread is like a roti, and dip it into coconut
sambal which is coconut mixed with chil.
Sorry, the power has gone out guys, but I'm going to keep on munching! Mmmm, so good,
coconut with chili and lime. I've also got some curry sauce to dip it into. Ohh that's
insane. Aww, dude that curry sauce is bomb. Washing it down with tea, Wow!
After breakfast, life in Jaffna has begun.
I might go check out this Fort right here.
Just a few years ago, Jaffna was a war zone. As you can see there's all kinds of bombed
out structures and old homes. Now that the vegetation has grown up over the ruins, this
type of scenery is really common here in Jaffna.
Right now it's about 9 am, but the sun is just absolutely blazing hot. I can't even,
you got to cover up your head or you're just going to dehydrate within moments.
From the bombarded neighborhoods, it's just a short 5 minute walk to the bustling center
of Jaffna town.
Over here they are filling up buses. Filling them to capacity, stuffing people in like
sardines, but I'm going to choose the walking option right now, straight through the center
Alright, I just picked up a snack, a mango, chopped up like this. Let me grab a chunk.
It's sour! It's real sour, ok that's a bit too sour for me.
Nallur Kovil is the most famous Hindu temple in Jaffna. Traditional ceremonies are held
everyday. I arrived just in time for the 4 pm session.
And to enter you have to take off your shirt, so I'm going to quickly take off my shirt,
but unfortunately photography is strictly prohibited inside, so you're not going to
see more of this temple, but I'm going to go in and catch a ceremony.
They have ceremonies throughout the day, I'm at the 4 o'clock session. So if you come to
Jaffna, you got to check out Nallur Kovil.
I'm at a restaurant called Hotel Rolex, about the smash down on some awesome looking food.
I got a paratha, and this is actually a squid, a local squid curry.
Grab a piece of the squid. Get a bit of the rice and chilies and tomatoes. That squid
curry is awesome! I also got daal and rice, anyway, I'm going to dig into the food, it's
too good.
One thing you'll need to get used to when you come to Sri Lanka is the napkins, made
from yesterday's newspaper.
Alright, see you guys later, I'm about to devour this food.
My last tasty treat of the day is something that's very dear to Sri Lankan's.
I'm about to taste for the first time, something called wood apple juice, made from the bizarre
wood apple fruit. It's pretty brown looking.
Take a tamarind fruit and cross it with blue cheese, and you have wood apple juice. It's
rather bizarre, but, it's pretty good.