White Water Rafting!

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When we left Dalhousie, the manager of our hotel told us that Kiligatene was an expensive place to stay the night, and that we should look into staying at the neighboring town. So we caught the bus (once again in quite a round-about way - in true Sri Lankan public bus fashion) and once we got to the neighboring town, we found a cheap place to stay (made even more cheap because we ended up staying in a double room, with me sleeping on the floor with my inflatable mattress (yeah to budget travel!)).
That night was interesting to say the least...in order to entertain ourselves, we decided to rent a video to watch on the TV in the living area of our guesthouse. We bought some cothu roti in town, and were all ready for a nice, relaxing evening. Little did we know that the manager of the guesthouse was an alcoholic...as were about 5 of his friends - who had all decided to come and sit at the guesthouse, making it impossible to concentrate on anything, let alone a movie. They drank Arrack until they were all stumbling around, attempting to hold conversations with us. But even though we weren't able to watch the movie, we WERE served various Sri Lankan dishes by the head of the guesthouse, in his drunken stupor (I had to leave the Cothu Roti - because they had made it ULTRA spicy - especially for my Finnish taste buds!).
The next morning we had to wake up early to catch a bus to the rafting center. When we got there, we negotiated a 'good price' - 4000 rupees for the three of us (down from 6000 - quite a bargain - at least we like to believe so). So we got into a tuk-tuk, with the raft on top and 7 of us piled inside (and hanging out of the sides). I'd never been rafting before, so the experience was quite exciting! When we first got into the raft, the two trainers taught us how to follow their commands, and then we were off into the rapids!
The river was quite calm - but the trip was still lots of fun - we had no problems! Except for the one occation where they yelled 'hold the rope!' and both me and Malki pushed out bodies into the boat, but smashed our heads together in the process. This wouldn't have been a problem...except that the place on my head where Malki smashed into wasn't covered by my helmet! ouch!
At the end of the intense currents, they told us to jump into the river - and for about a kilometer or so we were pulled by the current! That felt really good - especially with the hot Sri Lankan sun shining down on us!
When we finally got back to the rafting center, we were ready for a big lunch! However - Uval had given his camera to one of the guys to take pictures of us while we were rafting, so we had to wait for him to return. We waited and waited...and he finally showed up about half and hour later, but without a camera! Turns out the camera had been given to some rickshaw driver who had supposedly left it in the backseat of the rickshaw, from where it had suddenly disappeared! So Uval had to make his way over to the police station - and while he was sorting things out (2 hours!) Malki and I just sat at the center!
When Uval finally returned, I decided it would be too late to arrive to Colombo alone, so I decided to go with the boys back to Kandy - where I could do everything I was going to do in Colombo anyway (buy some random souvenirs, send some postcards, and possibly buy some new clothes)! So we got onto the bus, and soon enough we were back at the Pink House - ready for some more Cothu Roti!

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Photos

White Water Rafting
Preparing to leave

White Water Rafting
On the river