Kandy Esala Perahera: What the World Needs Now is More Dancing Elephants Lit Up Like Christmas Trees. Really.

No booze either

 

So we are back in rainy Kandy, smack dab in the middle of the Esala Perahera festival. I don’t have my guide book with me to remind me what exactly it’s about.  You can Google it then lambaste me for being a lazy traveler.  I’m tired.

The nightly procession starts at the Temple of the Tooth near the lake, so let’s venture a guess that it has something to do with Buddha’s tooth. And elephants. Lots of elephants. Elephants lit up with a Catherine Wheel or a particularly excellent Christmas tree.

We came in yesterday from the east coast where we had spent the past four nights recovering from a particularly vicious and debilitating pot-holed bus ride from Anuradhapura. Remind me never to sit at the back of a rickety bus as it dashes at 90km/h over war-torn, pock marked roads, past bombed out shells of concrete buildings and fields and fields and many trees. Or rather, ‘roads’.  Also, I’ll remind all of you not to do so either, unless you bring full body armor and knee pads and a bungee cord.  We’ll leave it at that.

To come back to Kandy, we hitched an expensive ride with a kindly Belgian family in their hired van. No lethal bouncing allowed when there are toddlers in the vehicle! One little girl puked violently all over the front seat anyway, but that was pretty good for two little kids on a bad road for over five hours. In Burma the kids were puking all the way to and from Hsipaw.

So anyway, Kandy. We are back in rainy season, back in the clouds. And like I said, back in a rather religious city during a rather religious festival fortnight. There are public loud speakers on all day, blasting a combination of religious and pop music interrupted by announcements that are prefaced by the first few bars of Take My Breath Away, which I now have running through my head incessantly.

Hotel prices are tripled for the festival and rooms were scarce when we tried to book from Trincomalee. We’re lucky we got what we did (I won’t even mention what we are paying for it). Because of the holy festival, all the bars in town are closed and supermarkets, as noted above, have stopped selling meat and alcohol.  Our hotel manager, however, kindly and quietly informed us that he’d stocked our mini bar with beer and if we needed any more to just ask. It wouldn’t show up on our bill due to festival protocols though. We’re to pay a discreetly noted ‘fee’. A plain brown wrapper kind of scenario.

However, we are right down town, wonderfully central,  and last night we were able to easily make our way to the nightly procession that starts in the temple of the tooth and ends up…somewhere.

By 6pm, the streets were blocked off and people started lining the sidewalks, claiming their spots with tarps and cloths. There were police everywhere. Richer folk paid absurd amounts of money for plastic chairs set up at key points along the route. We weren’t that ambitious. We lurked around, trying to find gaps in the throngs, and eventually ended up behind some bright yellow barricades under a thick cover of bird riddled trees.

We had a good view, just a step back from those who had claimed the sidewalk, with the added bonus (and good luck!) of some seriously freaked out birds who were having bowel problems. During the one hour wait and the two hour procession, I was shat upon four times, quite exuberantly.  I’d like to think I was just extraordinarily lucky.

 

Waiting for Godot

 

The procession was amazing. Drums and whips cracking; dancing and singing, illuminated elephants– for two hours! The Victoria Day Parade back home has a lot to work on to get up to this level of awesomeness.

Let me show you.

 

This is the Illuminated Elephant Tranquilizer unit, just so you know

 

Fire!

 

And elephants lit up like the best Christmas tree ever!

 

Followed by awesome dancers– with the elephants swaying and stepping to the very same rhythm. Insert italics here.

 

I said elephants, right? how about three golden elephants? Is that good enough for you?

 

Or maybe you require three shimmering, dancing blue-lit elephants to keep you satisfied?

 

the remarkably peaceful, non-shoving, non-pushing throngs exiting calmly after the 2 hour procession

 

FIN

 

Comments

8 responses to “Kandy Esala Perahera: What the World Needs Now is More Dancing Elephants Lit Up Like Christmas Trees. Really.”

  1. Anthony @ Positive World Travel Avatar

    Wow it looks like an amazing festival! I can’t believe that they blinged out the elephants with all those lights! Looks like you had an unique experience there.

  2. Sally Avatar

    Wow. I think the elephants would maybe make up for the no alcohol and no meat… maybe. You said there was still cake, right?
    Oh, and can you bring me back one of the elephants, please? I think that would be helpful for getting through Chinese traffic.

  3. Dee Avatar

    Super post! Glad you’re enjoying my little island 😀
    xo

  4. chathsie Avatar
    chathsie

    hey,

    looks like you had a good time in Kandy during the ”perahera” time. its a buddhist festival thing, showcases the cultural traditions if nothing else.

    yes I do agree Kandy is a mad city, I lived in Colombo all my life and every time I went to Kandy we drove down the one way road or went up the wrong street looking for the wrong place or what ever. Most of Kandy only makes sense to Kandian people 😀 but its a beautiful city I do love the temple of Tooth, if you have time pay a visit but must warn you it would be supper crowded these days.

    have fun.

  5. Michi Avatar

    Holy cow, it’s like Disneyland’s electrical parade. What beautiful festivals, I love cool parades. 🙂

  6. […] parade of elephants in Kandy, and elsewhere) I’m having to have second thoughts about. As a visitor said: “What the World Needs Now is More Dancing Elephants Lit Up Like Christmas Trees. […]

  7. Zee Avatar
    Zee

    This post filled me up with nostalgia I remembred the good old days when we were young, how our whole family went to see the “perahera”. Waited for hours to enjoy this magnificient parade, how everytime me and my sister tried to count the total number of elephants(we never got similar numbers) and after the parade we usually go to carnivals and returned home very late at night. Its sad that not only I no longer lives in Kandy I also haven’t been to a perahera from a very long time…..

  8. […] ‘7 Reasons Why Sri Lanka Is More Badass Than You Could Ever Hope to Be‘ and ‘Kandy Esala Perahera: What the World Needs Now is More Dancing Elephants Lit Up Like Christmas Trees…‘ Well worth a […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.