This has probably been my hardest blog to research as there’s little written about this part of Sri Lanka and next to nothing from a tourist perspective. Tourism has not yet reached this leg!

The road I plan to take from Mullaitivu is the A35 towards Kilinochchi where I’ll pick up the infamous A9. This has been dubbed the Highway of Death as so many were killed fighting for its control. I’ll need to get military clearance to travel this section as it’s still highly militarised, even 11 years post the end of the Civil War.

Kilinochchi is a relatively new town, established in 1936 as part of a colonisation project to ease overpopulation and unemployment in the most northern Sri Lankan city of Jaffna. It’s positioned on the northern edge of the Vanni, a huge area of the Northern Province which is the emptiest and eeriest of regions. It’s still covered with patches of impenetrable jungle. During the Civil War the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) made Kilinochchi their de-facto capital. This was the case until January 2009 when the Sri Lankan Army recaptured it.

But before reaching Kilinochchi, I’ll pass through a town called Puthukkudiyirppa. This is where the leader of the Tamil Tigers, Velupillai Prabhakaran, is said to have hidden in an underground complex which was four stories deep. There’s now a war museum here displaying many weapons and assault vehicles which were used by the LTTE, together with remnants of a ship that was captured by them.

However fascinating all this may be from a somewhat morbid perspective, I think I’ll be glad to leave this area and head on up towards the Jaffna Peninsula via Elephant Pass. When I first heard of Elephant Pass I imagined a beautiful and peaceful scene of elephants walking across a narrow stretch of land to their paradise. This is probably based on reading Sir James Emerson Tennent, the 19 Century explorer’s, description of it: ‘Elephant Pass acquired its name from being one of the points chosen by wild elephants for their passage to the mainland, at the season when the fruit of the palmyra palms, which abound on the other side of the estuary, is beginning to ripen.’

This could not be much further from the current reality. Elephant Pass is a narrow causeway separating the Jaffna Peninsula from the mainland of Sri Lanka. As with Kilinochchi, it was a fiercely contested area during the War. As the site of two recent major bloody battles, there seems to be nothing very beautiful about it. Located at the gateway of the Peninsula it has massive strategic military importance and has done since at least the arrival of the Portuguese in the 1700s.

From here I’ll walk over the pass where the elephants used to, expecting to encounter a very different part of Sri Lanka and to view the country from the other side!

Next up – Spotlight on the Jaffna Peninsula

Previous Blog – Leg 6 – Edging further up the north east coast – Trincomolee to Mullaitivu (approx 116 KM)