Erik Fearn has logged some fantastic trips in his time. But mixed in among these are some trips which turned out...differently than expected.

On the Road to Jaffna

Talk about strange circumstances. I had been invited to cover the first international football match in nearly 20 years in Sri Lanka's war-torn north, and instead here I was, wandering the dilapidated streets of Jaffna looking for a stranger I had never met.

As anyone who occasionally picks up a newspaper knows, peace has finally broken out in Sri Lanka. The Tamil Tigers have laid down their arms against the rest of the country as part of the run-up to a Peace Accord to be signed next month. This would mean the first true chance at peace in a generation for this amazingly beautiful country .

Jaffna is the proud, war-ravaged city in the country's very north. And although it has never fallen to the Tigers, it has been largely cut off from the rest of the country, and the world, for longer than anyone cares to remember.

As a gesture of good will, the Tamil Tigers have allowed the heavily disputed road connecting Jaffna to the rest of the country to open recently. This is Highway 9. A few of us journos were invited to be among the first to travel from the capital Colombo to the northern outpost town of Vavuniya.

From here, we would follow along this isolated road, across the vaguely demarcated 'front line', across the infamous Elephant Pass and on to Jaffna. A very long day's journey over roughly 400km. Our arrival would be marked the next day by a football friendly between Jaffna's home team and the national team of the Maldives. Clearly, the welcome mat was out.
To call Highway 9 a 'highway' is hyperbole. It's length is pock-marked by war's abuse and negligence. Finding a way around the bigger potholes takes astute driving and nerves of steel (apparently it is not advised to veer off the road for any reason as not all the landmines in this area have been cleared).

I have been to this charming land a few times and, it must be said, every time I return, I fall more in love with the warmth of its people and the mystique of its cultures. But I had never before been allowed to travel anywhere near the north. Wary of possible bad press, the tourism people steered me away from there, saying there was nothing much to see in the north anyway. But history told me a different story.

Jaffna is home to a massive Dutch fort and, architecturally speaking, is the best example of colonial fortifications anywhere in Asia. Surrounding it is a fine moat, cooled by broad-boughed trees. Near it is the fabulous Dutch church, the Groot Kerk, built in 1706. Our Christ Church in Malacca is said to be an uninspired copy of it.

Jaffna even boasts literary history: Leonard Woolf, Virginia Woolf's husband, did his best writing in one of the finer English colonial houses still occupied in this hard-done-by city's leafy suburbs.
Or at least so it said in the outdated guidebook that I'd bought from an al fresco book vendor in Colombo. I was prepared for the worst. War has a way of bringing once proud cities to their knees. But now was my chance to find out. I'd been given a clearance letter from the Ministry of Defence to go to the Jaffna peninsula.

There were five of us journalists gathered in the lobby of the Colombo Hilton. BBC was there; CNN and Voice of America. Then there was an Indian journo and - for some reason - me. Maybe it was a clerical error - who knows? - but there I was, being bundled into the front of a van with the rest stuffed in the back with two armed guards and a very sweet young nervous-looking guide.
We started off north, skirting the hill-country, coming temptingly close to the charming old capital and hill-town of Kandy. The three western journos were well acquainted and the banter revolved around all the strange, interesting experiences they had had covering last year's important national elections, which led to the truce. The Indian journalist oozed arrogance and busied himself lecturing the polite tour guide on her country's problems.

I was up front, squeezed in next to Wijay, our soft-spoken driver. Interestingly, he was a Tamil from the south who would serve as our translator on our way through Tamil country further north. He was an old 29. When he smiled, which was not often, he grimaced. And when he spoke, he spoke with the frankness and conviction of a contemplator.

As we spilled out of the hill-country and onto the dry, flat, hot and dusty landscape which defines the north, Wijay and I had a memorable conversation: