Part of OSC’s school curriculum is the week without walls program (WWW). This is a program that send a group of 12-15 students from MYP 5 and DP 1 on a journey in Sri Lanka, this year there were five dedicated programs that students could choose from. This year I decided to select the Venture North cycling trip. This trip had a target goal to reach 181 km cycled by the end of the week, as most of us weren’t very used to cycling of the busy and unpredictable roads of Sri Lanka. In order to prepare for the trip we had two scheduled practice rides that would help us get used to the roads. Our trip took place around Sigiriya which was around a 5 hour drive from Colombo, and we would be staying at Back & Beyond for the whole duration of the trip.

Since I’m in DP 1 this will unfortunately be my last week with out walls and I wanted to take part in one that focus more on activity as last year’s Hambantota was more focused on creativity.  This was the reason as to why I chose the Venture North WWW trip. I wasn’t particularly nervous with the amount we had to cycle at least not at first, this was because I had a fair amount of biking experience. However all of the cycling that I did was more on the smooth paved road, which was why I was caught off guard when I saw the type of terrain that we would be cycling on. The muddy, rocky, and especially the sandy parts of the terrain surprised me and at first I found it quite difficult however by the end of the journey I felt much more confident with myself and the terrain.

Prior the the trip we had 3 practice sessions. For the first session we started off small, at school. This was so that we could all get used to our bikes for example adjusting the gears, breaks, and seats. This session was simply to get us comfortable with our bikes. After this session, our other two rides were around Battaramula and Pelwatte. These sessions we to get used to cycling on the road and getting to know when and how to use the various signals. This was a lot of fun as we got to experience a mix of the smooth paved road as well as the more rough and rocky tracks. However it did teach us that we need to maintain a large amount of concentration especially on the chaotic roads of Sri Lanka. The bike ride was around 26 kilometres which I found to be fine however when we came to the hills and we had to adjust our gears I did find that a bit tough especially trying to find the right gear. The second session however was a lot more difficult than the first one we had, this time we spent much less of our time on the road instead we were thrown out of our comfort zone. This time the terrain was much more treacherous as we spent most of our time struggling up hills and getting tossed around on the rocky tracks. By the time we got back to school everyone was is a dazed state and I think we provided some good entertainment for the teachers who seems more or less unaffected.

The first day of our trip started off with having to wake up by 5:00 am and we were told to be at school at 5:45 am to leave school by 6:00 am. The whole journey to Dambulla was around 5 hours, the ride there was a lot of fun however it did start off a bit slow given that it was so early in the morning. However by the time it was 8:00 am everyone was filled with energy from the students to start cycling and this would come sooner than we would have thought. We stopped 11 km away from Back And Beyond and got onto our bikes, we were eager to start the temperature was amazing and the scenery around us looked even better. The hotel was at the end of a small dirt road, that we would soon become all to familiar with. Just before the hotel there is a extremely steep hill and we were all told to go one by one and apply both brakes, at the time we didn’t think much of it however we soon found out the pain it brings when tying to get up it. That was the first challenge that we were introduced to and something that we literally had to overcome.

Once we arrived we were welcomed with a really good lunch. This was followed up with a tour around the hotel which led us to our rooms which were amazing. Some being tree houses and some being built off a cave, in addition they were all extremely open which just let us soak in the scenery around us. Me, Harry, and Takuro shared the room in the cave which we really enjoyed, the highlight of that room has to be when we came back from dinner and thought we saw a bat in our mosquito net, and every time we went close to it, it started flapping its wings and making sounds. After trying to hesitantly get it out for 20 minutes we then realized that it wasn’t a bat and that it was actually a bird. Continuing with our first day, in the afternoon we had our first off road bike ride. This ride was very relaxing and enjoyable, we were able to ride on a combination of dirt and paved roads. Once we came back from our ride we all went to river to cool off, we also found out that in the river there were a lot of small fish, and when ever we stepped in the water they would come and nibble on our feet.

Day two was one of our longest rides with a distance of 46 km. After waking up to the sounds of the animals we had breakfast and prepared our self’s for the ride. Majority of the time was us riding on roads however we did come across a fair amount of hills, at first I found this difficult because I still couldn’t seem to find the right gear when going uphill however the more we did the more I got used to it and soon I was able to go uphill without that much trouble. The trail that we were going on was amazing the scenery was like something else which all culminated in a extremely relaxing and enjoyable ride.

After around 30 km we stopped by a small shop along the side of the road. While most of us were catching up on our breath and getting something to eat, group 1 had to go and get things to cook for that night. Shortly after we again got on our bikes and started to cycle ahead, there were many other stops after as the weather started to take a turn and ultimately once it started raining we put our bikes into the trucks to wait it out. In the mean time we were practicing a rock skipping trying to see which one of us was able to throw it the furthest, which ultimately ended with all our shoulders hurting. Soon after that we were done with our ride and after we cleaned up the bikes and started to prepare for a workshop. The workshop was about how to fix and maintain your bikes this included in us checking and fixing our tires for punctures and making sure that our brakes were working well.

 

Day 3 was a lot of fun mostly because we got to visit a temple. go hiking, and rice and curry cooking class. After getting ready we rode to the temple which wasn’t to far from our hotel however the roads were a bit difficult to cycle on given the fact that it had rained the night before creating a lot of potholes with and without water.

Once we arrived  we all washed the mud off our self’s and began hiking to the temple, the hike wasn’t tough however towards the end of the path it went from being steps to rocks and boulders. But it was all worth it in the end when we were greeted with an amazing view, we also completed our reflections for the day.

 

We then moved onto our cooking class, where we would learn how to cook traditional rice and curry. This was a lot of fun and a really good experience given that we would be cooking the next night, the food that we got served was one of the best rice and curry meals I ever had and it gave us plenty of energy to make our way back to the hotel.

The ride back was one of the most enjoyable experiences from that trip, this was because as we were cycling back  we were hit with an enormous downpour with only 2 km left till we reached the hotel. Naturally we all decided to rush back as fast as we could to try and escape the rain however this proved to be futile as within a matter of minutes we were all drenched. What made it worse was I could barely see anything in front of me as my glasses were getting flooded with water. The race back to the hotel was extremely fun especially when we had to cross a puddle and we all got covered in mud. Finally we reached the hotel, again cleaning our bikes and then going back to our rooms.

Day 4 was the last full day of cycling, we would be cycling around the Dambulla area seeing sights such as the large fields of paddy and seeing the golden Buddha statue. We also learned how to act in situations if someone gets hurt, in addition learning the proper protocol for how to assist a biker that has crashed. Today was my groups time to cook, we had planned to make chicken noodle soup and we had a decent idea of how we would carry out. It took us sometime to gather all of the things that we would need to cook