Thalsevana Holiday Resort

Last updated
Thalsevana Holiday Resort
Former namesKankesanthurai Rest House
General information
Town or city Kankesanthurai
Country Sri Lanka
Coordinates 9°48′57.30″N80°02′55.00″E / 9.8159167°N 80.0486111°E / 9.8159167; 80.0486111 Coordinates: 9°48′57.30″N80°02′55.00″E / 9.8159167°N 80.0486111°E / 9.8159167; 80.0486111
Current tenants Sri Lanka Army
Renovated2 October 2010
Owner Government of Sri Lanka
Other information
Number of rooms31
Website
thalsevanaresort.com

Thalsevana Holiday Resort is a holiday resort on the northern coast of Sri Lanka near the town of Kankesanthurai. Formerly Kankesanthurai Rest House, it was taken over by the Sri Lankan military during the civil war. After the civil war the military renovated the buildings and turned them into a holiday resort.

Sri Lanka Island country in South Asia

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia, located in the Indian Ocean to the southwest of the Bay of Bengal and to the southeast of the Arabian Sea. The island is historically and culturally intertwined with the Indian subcontinent, but is geographically separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. The legislative capital, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, is a suburb of the commercial capital and largest city, Colombo.

Kankesanthurai Town in Sri Lanka

Kankesanthurai, colloquially known as KKS, is a port suburb, fishing division and resort hub of the Jaffna District, Northern Province, Sri Lanka. Formerly an electoral district, Kankesanthurai is home to the Kankesanthurai beach, Keerimalai Naguleswaram temple and the Maviddapuram Kandaswamy Temple. The port's harbour has served as an arrival and departure point for pilgrims since classical antiquity and is named after the Sri Lankan Tamil god Murukan. Kankesanthurai suburb has many fishing villages and Grama Niladhari and is a northern part of Valikamam, one of the three regions of ancient habitation on the Jaffna peninsula, located on the peninsula's northern coast, 12 miles from Jaffna city, 85 miles from Mannar and 155 miles from Trincomalee.

Sri Lankan Civil War armed conflict in Sri Lanka (1983–2009) between the government and the separatist organization Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

The Sri Lankan Civil War was an armed conflict fought on the island of Sri Lanka. Beginning on 23 July 1983, there was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north and the east of the island. After a 26-year military campaign, the Sri Lankan military defeated the Tamil Tigers in May 2009, bringing the civil war to an end.

History

During British colonial rule a network of rest houses were built around Ceylon. [1] Kankesanthurai Rest House was run by the Northern Provincial Road Committee. [2] After independence the rest houses were taken over by the state owned Ceylon Hotels Corporation. [1]

British Ceylon former British Crown colony

Ceylon was a British Crown colony between 1815 and 1948. Initially the area it covered did not include the Kingdom of Kandy, which was a protectorate from 1815, but from 1817 to 1948 the British possessions included the whole island of Ceylon, now the nation of Sri Lanka.

In 1990 the Sri Lankan military declared a large area of the north of the Valikamam region a High Security Zone (HSZ) and forcibly evicted all the residents in the area without offering them compensation. [3] Kankesanthurai Rest House was deep inside the HSZ. It was taken over by the Sri Lankan military and used as an officer's mess. [4] [5] [6] After the civil war ended the military renovated the buildings and turned them into a holiday resort known as Thalsevana. The renovated resort opened on 2 October 2010. [7]

Valikamam Region in Northern, Sri Lanka

Valikamam is one of the three historic regions of Jaffna peninsula in northern Sri Lanka. The other two regions are Thenmarachchi and Vadamarachchi. Valikamam is sometimes spelt Valikaamam or Valigamam.

A mess or mess hall is an area where military personnel socialize, eat, and live. The term is also used to indicate the groups of military personnel who belong to separate messes, such as the Officers' mess, the CPOs' mess, the Enlisted mess. In some civilian societies this military usage has been extended to the eating arrangements of other disciplined services such as fire fighting and police forces.

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References

  1. 1 2 Holmes, W. Robert. Jaffna 1980. The Christian Institute for the Study of Religion Society of Jaffna College. p. 100.
  2. ↑ The Automobile Association Of Ceylon Handbook. The Automobile Association Of Ceylon. 1950. p. 141.
  3. ↑ Brady, Brendan (30 August 2013). "Soldiers at Your Service". Slate .
  4. ↑ "In bigger barracks". The Economist . 2 June 2011.
  5. ↑ Bedi, Rahul (20 August 2011). "Armed, dangerous and building their own empires". The New Zealand Herald .
  6. ↑ Jayasuriya, Ranga. "Army's new civilian role - is this a good signal?". Lakbima . Archived from the original on 25 April 2012.
  7. ↑ "Thal Sevana Holiday Resort in Kankasanturai". The Island (Sri Lanka) . 15 May 2011.


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