(Above) Fig 1. “Team Red” (My raft) experiencing a raft. (Photo by Wade Campbell)

 

The trip was, something that I have been looking forward to for a while. Before going into DP 1, I have always been told about the orientation trip, I knew it would be a time of bonding and experiencing new things. Kitulgala is a place that I had never visited but I did hear that we will be swimming in the Kelani River, a river that I would weekly go over when I’m going from my dad’s families house in Kelaniya to Colombo, but actually swimming in it? In my mind I was like “this could be interesting.”

Day 1 was a good introduction to the river as we started rafting in class 2 and 3 rapids, which I thought class 2 wasn’t so bad, but for class 3, I really thought all of us were gonna fall into the river. But nope! We all stayed on. That is until the last part of the ride. My highlight of crossing the river was when we passed the iconic location of the “Bridge Over the River Kwai,” a British war film detailing on prisoners of war. I watched the movie in preparation to the trip. As soon as I saw the tribute bridge across, that’s when I realised that we are close to the location. When the guide told us that this is where they filmed it, I was fanboying so so much as I was looking forward to this moment since I saw the movie. I could actually see ruins of the original bridge, and as we passed the location about 4 meters from the location, I overheard Lara calling and saying that the train is still buried underneath river. Mind…..blown. I do recall that in the movie, the bridge blew up and while it blew up, a train was travelling over the bridge, so to have that thought as Lara said that was just mind blowing to me just as the bridge blowing up in the movie. As soon as I met with my grandparents, I told them a whole lot about the trip, but my grandfather was more fascinated with the “bridge” of the trip. I wanted to tell him about the bridge ruins since he was the one who first told me about the movie. So, swimming in the “Kwai River”? Accomplished