Finally the arrival: That deflating and exhilarating feeling
inner voice is urging me, go on, go on while I become one with the confusion that comes with travel, that is a symptom of travel.
The stretch of road is beautiful, deserted of animals and people though there are stacks of firewood for sale here and there and later I meet some thambili sellers on a rock. I finally reach Kanthale, where I go into the first hotel I see, sun beaten and tired and where two southern navy boys from Kurunegala stand giggling, nudging each other until they finally bring a menu. We look out onto the windy lake and see in the distance, what seems like hundreds of birds, perhaps cormorants riding the waves of the royal tank in crowds, bouncing and swaying ingeniously like acrobats. My surroundings are luxurious and on prime land; well off looking people sit at adjoining tables. My mistake means I have to head virtually into Trinco, along the tank road and then pass the big green and white mosque before finding my way to the Vavuniya road.
When I finally get to the junction, a strong wind has whipped up and forces me to slow down to keep my balance. The road is thoroughly uncovered without trees or shade and the bike shakes worryingly. It’s a long and arduous route, one side green, the other scorched brown; as if one side is cultivated, the other not. Unfamiliar towns’ names take on the double k that feels Tamil, Kambakkoda, then we pass Horowupalama. Between each town the deserted road seems interminable and I stop to see what villages we have passed thinking the map’s red line must be wrong and making a blue mark with a pen all the way along the A29 to the A9 to Jaffna, somehow to try and measure the distance. I’m blown about by the wind on this pale green part of the map and don’t reach Vavuniya until late afternoon, my body aching and the day nearly over. I pass the hospital etched with its memories, lives and deaths and a nearby mosque.
It would seem wiser to stop there, but resolve pushing me, I cross the town and the infamous A9 carries me along until we reach the space between Vavuniya and Elephant Pass where for decades there has been a military check point, an obligatory stop. First the scene of terrors, then of queues and baggage inspection, ID cards and anguish. In fact, until recently a tangible symbol of division but there in this early evening sun it is surrounded by big pots of orange and pink flowers, completely deserted and shrouded in a peaceful silence. Taking in the stillness, a momentous moment I move on through Elephant Pass - the road between the lagoon and towards Kilinochchi.
I stop as night descends where there is a little oasis, of bus stands, temples and a hotel which is dirty and overpriced; the owner realizes my neediness. Anyway though night is falling, the road now calls me more fiercely. In the night, crowded buses and trucks thunder ahead, unconscious of everything, desperate to get their goods and people somewhere. I soon realise that there are hardly any sleeping places on this road and as insects start to bash into my bare face and eyes, a moustached policeman, one of two by the road, kindly smiling, stops me.
“Kilinochchi, that’s a long way, at least two hours on this bike,” he teases.
I head on but it is becoming intolerable, so when I finally see a dark shadow of a guest house with its little flags I stop and shout through the gate. “Tambi, hey Tambi..hello” when suddenly bright as happiness, lights come on and someone opens the big gates as a motor biker also arrives, adding to the commotion.
But the noise has woken up a dog who barks viciously and the night suddenly becomes aggressive as someone, perhaps the guest house owner holds tightly onto the writhing creature. Satisfied I am no threat perhaps, he gives me a room. A young man stands near the door smelling of alcohol and vaguely wanting to talk then leaves unsteadily and amid what should be danger I sleep peacefully, uninterrupted; acknowledging deep down that no-one will harm me.
Three whole days and I still haven’t arrived. The mileage is at 03488, but I see it only the next morning. Could I have travelled 287 kilometres, that third day, that lost windy day?
There is a palpable dichotomy between night and day and just as the night felt full of danger, the day is utterly inoffensive. Everything is forgotten now and as the dog from last night wanders around wagging its tail, someone brings me a cup of tea. I pay my bill of Rs 1,000 and leave along the road still empty where little groups of early morning children in white, the same north and south, wave at bus stops. After the big symbols of war and peace in Kilinochchi, the remnants of war and the elements of war tourism, flora changes to a backdrop of stubbly Palmyra trees, some with their leaves cut down waiting to become fences and dryness pervades the landscape.
The new railway line runs parallel to the road creating little groups of life where stations pop up and as we arrive in Jaffna corrugated iron becomes widespread. The green sign saying Jaffna appears unexpectedly on a bend in the road next to a house in ruins, splattered with the marks of bullets. Warnings of the past dominate. Still on the A9 I go past the big destroyed church with a sign which says, ‘’Never Again’’…then past the YMCA with good cheap lodgings and the sign ‘’Peace with Dignity’’. Then down Kachcheri Nallur Road, until I finally get to the gold statue of warrior King Sankilian sitting on a horse. There are still 31 kilometres to Point Pedro but the rest of the trip is full of the excitement of pending arrival, near lagoons, low bushes and along the flat salty smelling road to the coast, to the very end of this island where land almost disappears off the map.
It is lunch time on Day Four when I see the sign Point Pedro, though it seems to appear well before the town and in an unlikely and undignified place next to a petrol shed on a little hill of gravel.
It’s deflating and exhilarating at the same time but now finally I know I can stop, perhaps rest, though this doesn’t seem appropriate. This is it! Where are the cameras, where is the crowd? A few people think I’m waiting for petrol and try to shoo me in towards the pumps. I want to yell and tell them, tell them everything I’ve seen but I don’t have the language. Someone takes a photo for me and I text my friends but it still doesn’t seem authentically like Point Pedro; the trip can’t end like this. So, looking for some closure, an ending, I head for the beach, past the market and the gold coloured statue of Gandhi, towards the very tip of the coastline where fishing boats are huddled together.
Two young men in a little eating place are reluctant to take a photograph and then well, then I sit, alone satisfied, left in peace, a bottle of ginger beer finished. I play with the straw and scan the sea out into the Palk Straits.