We caught a local bus into the Kandy city centre, much of the streets are blocked off and by the time we arrived most of the vantage points - both paid and free were completely taken. The last night is the biggest and the buddhist people believe that they will get a special blessing if they witness this last parade - so Kandy was completely full! With Asela and the local boys guiding us we walked through back lanes and around the outskirts to see if there was any places where we could see the festivities.
After walking and trying a few places, we finally found a road, way back from the middle but looking down over part of the parade. So we stopped, found something to eat and waited....and waited.... and the rain came...and went...and came....
and finally, the parade came into view - we could see the fire throwers, and people marching, but it was quite a long way away, so some of the boys went scouting and found a better place. So off we all went, wending our way through the crowds and the backstreets to very close to the middle. There was thousands of people already there, with a big screen showing the parade which is televised on the final night. But we worked our way through the crowd and got quite close to the action. With the kids on shoulders they could see over everyone but it was still hard to see over all the people.
Then the police came in numbers and started yelling for everyone to sit down, on the pavement or street...where ever they were. The problem being that people take up less room when they are standing and there was so many people crammed in that it was quite difficult to sit down. For a brief time we had front row seats, rather front row standing, and we all got see some dancers, maypole runners, drummers and brightly coloured and fairy light covered elephants. But after a couple of minutes the police were back yelling and forcing people to sit or move so we had to sit down and could no longer see very well. We decided we'd had enough excitement for one night and squeezed through all the people and back to the buses. As it turned out, the Williamses got two more chances to see the Perehera as it is performed during the next day at some of the other temples in Kandy in the morning, and then one last time in the afternoon in the city centre - which they saw while munching down on some KFC (another thing ticked off the list of things to do in Sri Lanka).
The next day we had a rest day - which we spent catching up on washing or shopping or the Williams arranged to pay a visit to Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage. A huge population of tame elephants who are fed, and then watered twice a day to the great delight of many tourists who come along to see it every day. While it's not possible to get too close to them most of the time, it is fun to watch them go down to a shallow river flat and wallow around in the water. There was also the opportunity for the whole family to have a ride on an elephant and Ebonie's highlight for the whole trip was when the elephant sucked up a great trunkful of water and sprayed it all over them as they sat on its back. It really was a great day for everyone, whether out and about or just taking it easy close to 'home'.
Kandy Perehera - many elephants from around Sri Lanka come to Kandy and wear their sunday best.
Bath time at the orphanage.
A chance to get up close to a baby elephant.
A study in opposites!
All Aboard!
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