Kitulgala

The driver from the bus has already asked me a few times where I want to go and I call the same thing every time; Bridge over the River Kwai. The man also starts to ask other passengers and a little later everybody in the bus is talking to each other about where I want to go and I do not understand. Does nobody know this?

At a bridge in the center of the town in the little village of Kitulgala I’m dropped and I wave everybody goodbye in the bus. The first person I met along the road I ask if he knows my destination and I show him the front of my reading book. He points back to the road where I have just come from. "Back" I hear him say. A shame because later I would hear from someone that the restaurant is full of pictures of the time the filming of the movie was here.

I take a local bus back and get out along the road where a very small sign along the road stands Bridge over the River Kwai. Here I had just expected a fun fair with stalls, guides, souvenirs and I know much more but nothing at all of this. I walk to the sign where a small forest path leads me away from the road into the forest that sloops down. There are a few houses in the forest here and a woman comes to me and I have to follow her. She knows where it is.

We walk together on a very narrow forest path past some vegetable gardens and we’re slooping further down towards the river. Suddenly we are standing on a number of rocks with a number of large foundation holes. Here the bridge stood, she says cheerfully. Wow what a shock – it’s so small. rThe river is not as wide as in the film and the riverbanks were also much higher? It seems like she can read my thoughts because she told them that at the time (at the end of the fifties) a dam was built so that the water came much higher and the river seemed much broader.

I do not get much further than these rocks and yes what else should you say about it; for film freaks it is of course a beautiful location but I also enjoy as a nature lover because it is beautiful here! She walks in front of me and offers me a cup of coffee at home on her wooden veranda, which I readily accept. The woman presents her whole family and retrieves some yellowed magazines in where the whole story and ofcourse the film is told with lots of photos. The booklets fall apart from misery and are held together by rolls of tape so to see. Underneath these are some real photos and she tells us that the boy who stands up next to the main characters is the man who just sat down next to me.

The old man, who turns out to be her husband, attaches little value to it, but the woman is very enthousiastic. When I take my book from my bag and show the pics inside she is getting even more exciting and seems to know and recognize everything. There is a picture with the sign which the actors had to point to the right location and this sign is taken straight out of the closet; it appears to be here! Proudly she tells me that all scenes are recorded in Sri Lanka, all of them here in Kitulgala.

Finally she tells that the Dutch are played by burghers from this country because they are lighter in color. I drink my coffee, give them some money for showing me around and for the coffee and walk back to the road.