Perahera Crazy

Wed 29th July

Incredible. Tonight we saw the Kandy “Esala Perahera“. Its billed as one of the greatest spectacles in Asia, and it lived up to it, even though we saw one of the earlier of the 10 nights, and the each night is meant to build in spectacle to a climax next week. Still, a parade of two hours of about 50 elephants and thousands of dancers and drummers all illuminated by fire was just fine for us!

To start with, there was an amazing buzz in the town. Although the parade did not start until about 8pm, local people crowded the streets from around 3pm, reserving their spaces.

Fortunately, we had our position sorted well in advance. Some tourists had to sit in their seats for hours before the parade, while the locals crowded below

But we were able to see the whole thing from the balcony of our hotel room. In the picture below, our room is in the centre - C and S are just peeping over the balcony.

The Kandy temple is lit up brightly for the event, and I sneaked up onto the hill behind some of the preparations and took this view of an elephant with the temple behind, waiting to take part in the Perahera.

Later, a platform would be fitted to him, and then lights and robes also attached.

The parade itself eventually started with a line of men extravagantly cracking whips so loudly they sounded like firecrackers, followed by a troup of fire dancers. See the fire dancers (and hear J’s excited voice in the background - he made it through an hour and half and loved it):

From then on the dancers and elephants just kept coming:

The point of the whole thing is to parade one of the Buddha’s teeth, which is kept in the Temple of Tooth in Kandy. In fact, only a replica dentine cannister is used, and there seemed to be 6 or 7 elephants carrying caskets which could have contained a tooth, or fake tooth. Here are some dancers and one of those elephants, which would give you more of a flavour of it all (excuse the sideways camerawork):