Kandy Perahera

Years ago on the Discovery Channel I saw a parade of elephants lit up like Christmas and I resolved that was an event I should witness first hand if possible.  A two hour procession of elephants, torches, half naked dancing men, drums, flutes and the relic Buddha tooth was worth every bit of waiting and effort to get here.  I travel with a pocket size point and shoot camera so I hope you will take a few minutes and google Kandy Perahera to get a glimpse of what I experienced.

I did not try to count how many elephants processed through the city.  I suspect around 50 or 60.

When I was living  in Valdosta I took up clogging and our clogging group, The Thuderbirds, danced down Patterson Street in the Christmas parade.  This group is a far cry from the Thunderbirds.  The torches would occasionally explode coals into the path of the barefooted dancers and they had to deftly avoid stepping on a hot ember or into an elephant pie

This was my second time in Kandy in 10 days.  While there before I gave some money to a family who had just lost a grandmother so the son of the family sat on the sidewalk all day the festival opened to save me a spot to sit and watch the Perahera.  All the other tourists I spoke with went to reserved seating grandstands which costs upwards of $60.  I sat with the locals who had also camped out all day long to save a spot, and enjoyed sharing the snacks they had brought along.  I was not aware of what an eventful time this is is Kandy until I went to a posh restaurant the second night of Perahera and even this fancy spot, like all Kandy, was not serving alcohol for the 10 days of Perahera.  I sure wanted to sip a gin n tonic on the terrace overlooking the city of Kandy but settled for a ginger beer (not really beer).