Waiting for the Perahera to start, Kandy, Sri Lanka

Mending an elephant’s headdress, Kandy, Sri Lanka

Preparations – planning what to do in case an elephant charges

Flame throwers watching a man balancing on one stilt

First elephant in the procession

Drummers, Kandy, Sri Lanka

Three elephants, Kandy, Sri Lanka

A single “tusker,” Kandy, Sri Lanka

Esala Perahera, Kandy, Sri Lanka

After the festival

A:  My trip to Sri Lanka was timed so that I could observe it first hand.  Here is a description from the “Insight Guide to Sri Lanka:”

The lunar month of Esala is a month for festivals and peraheras all around the island.  Easily the finest and the most famous is the Esala Perahera held at Kandy over the ten days leading up to the Esala Poya (full moon) day (late July or early August).  The festival dates back to ancient Anuradhapura, when the Tooth Relic (of the Buddha) was taken through the city in procession, and the pattern continues to this day, with the relic carried at the head of an enormous procession which winds its way round and round the city by night.  The perahera becomes gradually longer and more lavish over the 10 days of the festival, until by the final night it has swollen to include a cast of hundreds of elephants and thousands of dancers, drummers, fire-eaters, acrobats, and many others – an extraordinary sight without parallel anywhere else in Sri Lanka, if not the whole of Asia.

I would go further and add that the Esala Perahera is one of the world’s great festivals.  Who could ever imagine such a spectacle?  It may be a cliché to say it, but travel is ultimately the best education. 

Comments are welcome!