Jaffna

Jaffna, at the far northern tip of the island, feels distinct from the rest of Sri Lanka: this is the Tamil and Hindu heartland, flat and dry, threaded with palmyra palms, and reached along a causeway across shallow lagoons. Its centre is the Nallur Kandaswamy temple, a great gold-and-red gopuram complex where drums and bells mark the daily pujas and where an enormous August festival draws pilgrims for over three weeks. Around it sit the ramparts of a large Dutch fort on the seafront, an old public library that is a point of pride, colonial-era villas behind garden walls, and a market piled with produce. The food alone justifies the journey, a Tamil cuisine of crab curry, odiyal flour, palmyra treacle and fierce spicing that is quite unlike the south. Ferries run out to flat islands where wild ponies roam and coral-stone churches stand in the sand.

What you actually see

• Nallur Kandaswamy temple - the great gold-and-red Hindu complex and its daily pujas.
• The Dutch fort - the star-shaped seafront ramparts and their walls.
• Jaffna cuisine - crab curry, palmyra products and the region's distinctive spicing.
• The northern islands - Nainativu and Delft by ferry, with wild ponies and old churches.

When to go

December to March is the coolest and driest window; the peninsula is hot and dry for most of the year. The Nallur festival in August fills the town for weeks and is extraordinary but crowded. Island ferries run on limited schedules, so start early if you want to reach Delft and return the same day.

Honest expectations

It is a long way from anywhere else on the island, and while the train has made it far easier, it still means the best part of a day each way. The peninsula is flat, hot and short on shade. At Nallur, men are required to remove their shirts to enter the inner areas, which surprises visitors, and photography inside is restricted. Facilities are simpler than in the tourist south, which is part of the appeal.

Nearby

The islands of Nainativu, Karainagar and Delft lie offshore; Anuradhapura is a few hours south.