Remotest island: Choose to return or not

Delft, here we come

Vithushan (Tommy) with a guest

Aloe Vera perfect for sunburn

The Baobab tree that takes your bad energy

The stone cobra

Part of the Dutch time archaeology ruins 

Located in the Palk Strait, south-west of Jaffna, Delft, also known as Neduntheevu, is the remotest island in Sri Lanka. It is around 35 kilometres from the mainland. About three community boats function per day from the Kurikadduwan Jetty area, beginning around 6:30 a.m. and up to about 3 p.m., with similar timing from Delft. Regular buses ply from Jaffna town to Kurikadduwan and from Kurikadduwan to Jaffna town. The bus fare is Rs. 180. A tuk tuk would cost between Rs. 3,000 to 4,000. Delft is an island of silence, rimmed by sea and living corals. There are humans but few and is ideal for a solitary retreat. 

The Delft Samudra hotel is the place if you want some luxury in an island where even the basic facilities are difficultly sourced. The Delft Village Stay is the place if you want adventure. This is a typical backpackers’ paradise where you camp out in tents that are single, double or hostel type accommodation and hang out with humans mostly below age 30s, including Vithushan (Tommy), the 28-year-old brainchild of the place. There are few other places offering similar experiential stays but the better known are the two mentioned above.  

By Surya Vishwa 

Delft. The island where coral like stone grows beneath your feet and where unique Baobab trees create a mysterious tapestry for your eyes, weaving in with Neem, Palmyra and Coconut.

Aloe Vera and other succulent cactuses also thrive here.

Silence is the permanent music in Delft and it creates a percussion with the waves that thump around the shores that garland the most beautifully tinged ocean. 

How exactly does one get here? First and foremost; by being punctual. Arrive five minutes late and you have to wait a couple of hours for the next boat, there being only three passenger ferries per day. 

On my first visit I took an auto (tuk tuk) from Jaffna town to the ferry point in Kurukadduwan which cost Rs. 3,500 and I returned in the Kurikadduwan-Jaffna bus which comes right upto the ferry disembarking point. The second time around I travelled with a friend who hired a scooter and although the mid-morning ferry allows the hauling of bikes, bicycles and scooters, the early morning one does not permit this. There is a rush only in the evenings so it is better to travel either early morning or pre-noon.

Boating is enjoyable but depends on the constitution of the individual. Some may feel sea sick and others sail through. Either way, one can arrive in one piece, so to speak, and clamour out of the boat to admire the sense of wonder that awaits.  

A newcomer to Delft will feel welcome when they spot the array of tuk tuks just as one steps into the island. Job opportunities are scarce in Delft and the increasing number of visitors to the island are helping many youth who provide sightseeing tours throughout the island for a sum of around 7,000. Please do not stint or ask for reductions here. You can keep that for places in Sri Lanka that thrive on fleecing visitors. Nowhere in Jaffna will you find this kind of treatment of guests, whether they be local or foreign.  

Tommy’s camping haven – Delft Village Stay

Now let us meet Vithushan (better known as Tommy). His camping haven, known as Delft Village Stay was created about four years ago when during the COVID lockdown a group of restless Delft youth began chilling in makeshift accommodation in Tommy’s grandmother’s land. There was only a small house here. Now the premises is place of pure magic that melts everyone who enters into its aura. There is no staff as you would find in resorts. There are only Tommy’s friends (eternal travellers who hop around the world) who hang around in turns helping out. Here it is a tough linguistic task to differentiate between guest and friend. The moment a guest (usually between the ages of 20 to 25) walks in they become a friend and as a friend they paint the doors, chairs and carefully craft letterings on pieces of wood to beautify the place. The washrooms that unite with the natural world seamlessly have no roofs. “The stars are watching you,” the large lettering on a door warns. The other washroom declares that the universe is observing you.

The kitchen is I suppose the house that was there from Tommy’s childhood and its outer walls are completely covered with messages from besotted guests who are now friends who will leave no stone unturned to promote their home away from home. 

Just outside the kitchen in the outer place which doubles as a refectory and a music area, there is a signboard that announces about the skills of the Delft crows. 

“The crows here have PHD in snack snatching. Hide food,” it states. 

In this my second visit I am joined by a Sri Lankan born Canadian whose home town is Jaffna and who has a couple of business establishments across the world, including those related to engineering, high tech and tourism. Owning a luxury hotel in Sri Lanka he set up a decade ago he wishes to study the ‘hostel scene’ and thus was interested to study ‘the vibe’ at Delft Village Stays.

What grazed his eyes included a 20-year-old, wincing and leathering her face and arms with a carefully split Aloe Vera. She had got the hue of a boiled lobster after simmering in the noon sun under which she had ventured, on her cycle (the Delft Village Stay has no shortage of cycles). 

Walking around within the premises he was nipped in the ankles by the most annoying puppy in the planet who is Doggy Junior who think he owns Delft Village Stays and all who enters into its precincts.

My friend then spots Tommy (Vithushan) who is taking a break and lounging in one of the many hammocks that dot the place.

“Is he a guest or the owner of the place?” he asks me, genuinely confused. 

“I really don’t know,” I reply. “Sometimes he is the owner and sometimes he is the guest,” I add.

I get a look from my travel companion which seems to say, “Sometimes you are a writer and sometimes you are a looney.” I certainly agree. 

Delft Samudra Hotel 

He goes off for the standard hotel comfort at the Delft Samudra which he is more accustomed to but I do a see a wistful look in his eyes as he sees around him fleeting youth and its freedom. 

I meet him later for lunch at the Delft Samudra and find that this place provides fantastic food and offers as near super luxury as one can get in this island. This hotel is built by a Northerner who has lived abroad for many years. We will get to this story later.

We enjoy our meal, congratulate the Delft Samudra Hotel staff and plan our visit around the island. 

Be assured that there are enough wonders to see in this island for a month if one wishes to get the best qualitative experience. 

Since the Harmony page is planning a series on Northern tourism (the most neglected region in tourism promotion) I plan to be back. For my friend the hotel investor, who is from Karainagar, also an island, it is his first time in Delft after his childhood and his investing commitments are such that he has to split his time for his global travels, etc. and therefore he wishes to see as much as he can of Delft in one day. 

Of all that we see in Delft what fascinates me most are the ‘growing coral-stones’ that beautify the island with its uniqueness. These are used for most of the walls in the area.

There are hardly many houses here (there is a population of almost 5,000 persons) in an area of 62 km spanning a length of 11 km and width about 6 km at its widest point.

The ambience of the island is of tranquil solitude. If you are suffering from stress and overwork in the modern industrialised concrete prisons we call offices, then take a break and come here. It will not deplete your bank account and the more you bind yourself to the nature and simplicity here the most peace you could derive from this ethereal place.

Much of its most visible surviving archaeology and history is linked to the Dutch colonial time period. The colonial heritage of Sri Lanka is evident in ruins of forts, barracks, and residences of the Dutch administrators. 

Delft is known for its wild horses which has survived since the Portuguese introduced them to the island in the 16th century, with the Dutch continuing this equine interest.

Delft has a strong presence of the supernatural and it is almost palpable. We visit a coral stone that has grown onto a larger than life image akin to the upper body and head of a cobra and it is awe inspiring to say the least. Then there is the majestic Baobab tree boasting a seniority of about 500 years. This tree has an oval door like opening and it said that if you meditate within it, you can ask the tree to draw out all the negative energy you have imbibed from the big bad world. My friend does just this and goes into a 10 minute meditation where his visage seems to transform from business savvy man of the world to a gentle being of renunciation. I tell him this when he emerges and he confides that he is sick of money making and that there is nothing more that he wants than to spend the rest of his life under a tree in Delft.

We walk to our waiting three-wheeler and as our dear Delft driver is about to take us to the next stop, the phone of my friend, the wannabe recluse, rings. He transforms once again to a human by-product of modern industry. 

We next head to a space in the isolated wilderness that has a natural coral giant footprint carved by nature and then fortunately without having to thirst any longer we confront a juice bar.

Cactus fruit and Aloe Vera

There is a sign that announces that visitors can replenish themselves with Cactus fruit and Aloe Vera but there does not seem to be anyone around. Soon from the lonely landscape emerges a tall, well built, amiable human who chats with me in Tamil and when I ask him if he is Sinhala or Tamil responds with a smile that he is Tamil. Turns out he is a Sinhalese from Wattala, enlisted as a Navy personnel who seems to enjoy the isolation of the terrain and the occasional chats like this. He seems to be a genuine peacebuilder, with his profession resting lightly on him. 

“Some would find it unnerving, but we the Navy personnel stationed at Delft like it here,” he says with a smile as he cuts out the cacti fruit which is blood red inside and gives it to us. I rub it over my mouth and play Dracula. When the bright red drink made from this fruit is served with chopped up Aloe Vera cubes floating serenely, I down several. (One glassful is Rs. 100). All around us wherever we go is Aloe Vera, including those which are reddish. I remember a traditional medicine physician telling me that the Aloe Vera that is brick colour has high curative properties for many illnesses. I keep this in mind for future to take a plant back with me. 

Right now the sun is roasting our heads and we return to our respective lodgings.

Please note that this is not by any means a full description of Delft. We will continue this series. We will introduce the people of Delft alongside the rest of North in the upcoming editions promoting Northern Tourism as part of Sri Lanka’s economic resurgence. 

For now we bask in the aloneness and absorb the distance sounds; a hymn played out on a loudspeaker from a nearby Catholic church, the sporadic barking of a dog and the chatter of a few youth from different parts of the globe stationed at the Delft Village Stay where I go on to spend two nights. 

As I relax waiting for dinner, served at 8 p.m., I tell Vithushan (Tommy) how lucky he is. 

He gives me a cross eyed look.

“Lucky?” he queries, acting the role of a long suffering victim.

“I am stuck here 365 days and you – you go wherever you want. Tell you what, you take this place and give me your job,” he retorts as he rushes off to attend to the tidying up necessitated by some more globetrotters arriving soon.

Meanwhile, I look around and mentally prepare to exchange roles with him. I see myself in a solitary haven. No writing deadlines. No humans of the so-called developed world to annoy me perpetually. Just the basic most life. I stretch myself on a hammock and dream.

Note: Last week we announced that we would in this Harmony page edition feature the story of Tony, who runs the Tony’s backpackers inn in Jaffna, a place that seems to almost singlehandedly lure worldwide youth to Jaffna. However, having checked out of Tony’s inn for the journey of Delft, it was impossible (as is always) to get a booking at this incredible place. I try my luck from 3 June to 6 June where I made a tentative booking and you dear reader can await this story to truly harmonise your life. Tony’s most able assistant is Sophie (my name for her is Dalmatian Queen). Both of them are joined by a young woman from Japan who unite to give humanity its legitimate place in a world that seems to have abandoned this quality.