Mannar to Jaffna - the coast less travelled

After bidding goodbye to the donkeys, we headed north along, what looked on the map to be, a main road that followed the sea. Our first stop was a beautiful old Shiva temple, one of the most important in the country. And we were lucky enough to be there for the amazing smells and sounds of morning Puja!

Gypsy loved the resident holy cow!

Having left nice and early, we were hopeful we would make Jaffna not too late in the afternoon. We hadn't eaten breakfast or even had our daily dose of Ceylon Tea! We figured we would find something in the first little town we went through. 
And then we saw it.. 
The dreaded "concrete road ends here" sign.... Oh no..

And so it took us over an hour to go the next 15 km....

We were finally reunited with bitumen long enough to get breakfast and for Gypsy to be passed around what seemed like the entire village. 

No sooner had we gotten back on the road and felt like we were finally making progress when it happened again.. Now you see it, now you don't... Goodbye again nice smooth road..

And so our journey to Jaffna went. Bitumen for 10 mins, bumpy dirt roads for an hour, then bitumen again.. 
What the roads were lacking in comfort though, they made up in wildlife! Being such a terrible road we didn't see too much other traffic apart from a couple of buses and trucks and the inevitable Army checkpoints, but we did see more variety of birdlife than I have ever seen before! Ibis, Peacock, Eagles, Herron, Kingfisher, Crows... To name the ones we recognised! It's just beautiful countryside!

When we finally made it to the bridge over to Jaffna we were surprised to see it was more of a rockwall through the shallows than an actual bridge. I swear you could walk over the strait it is that shallow! Quite surreal actually.

And so we arrived in beautiful, peaceful, tree-lined and shady Jaffna. We really like the chilled out vibe here. I think we will stay a while.... Gypsy, as always, is already making friends...