Kandy, Danbulla and Sigiriya

The largest buddhist festival, called Esala Perehara, lasts for two weeks, with parades down the streets, lasting  a few hours everyday. I went for the last friday and saturday nights and it was incredible. I have never seen anything quite like it in my life. There were thousands of people dressed up performing different acts, such as fire throwing, plate balancing and incredible dancing, as well as about 30 elephants, all dressed up in marvelous outfits, parading down the streets.

Elephants parading with the famous 'tooth relic'

On the first night I went there were monsoon showers, and even though we borrowed two umbrellas from the guesthouse we were staying in, we were drenched byt the time we came home.

It was very very wet!

We ran around and followed the festival down the streets and managed to get some amazing photos close up to the parade.

Close up of the festival!

When the festival was over, we were walking down an alley and just bumped into one of the performing elephants having a rest and eating. It was a complete shock but was amazing to be able to touch it. Although I was pretty scared at first, as I had read that elephants can kill humans easily by standing on them!

On saturday, I went to pinnawela and millenium elephant orphanages and had an elephant shower and rode o top of it. At millenium orphange the elephants were kept in really horrible conditions and you could tell from their swaying and repetitive movements they had actually turned crazy from living in such a small environment and being controlled by humans.

Elephant shower!

On the way back from the elephant orphanges I went to a spice garden and found out about a lot of ayuverdu medicines. I managed to get a free head massage. I had a headche and said I was interested in buying this 'headache oil' you have to massage onto your head, so they massaged it into my head for me for about twenty minutes, and yes my headche actually went away (probably just due to the massage, as I dont really believe in non-medical miracle cures!)


On Sunday, I travelled to Danbulla and saw the golden temple and the temple caves. They were very interesting and the caves were really peaceful. On the walk up to the caves, there were loads of monkeys and little puppies. I made the mistake of giving a chocolate finger to one of the monkeys and the others saw and came running over, so we did a run for it!

Budda displayed in the temple caves

Later in the day we travelled to Sigiriya, but they had no cash points so unfortunately we couldn't pay entry! However, we walked around the lake and came across many different animals. I filmed a group of dogs and monkeys fighting. Fortunately I left just before two other volunteers got stuck in a tree of bees! At the end of the nature trail we came across a temple and met a monk, who talked to us about the temple.

On monday we visited another temple and had an introductory meditation class from the high priest of the temple. We had to walk around in a circle, very slowly, and concentrate on our stepping and breathing, without letting our minds think about anything else. We chatted and drank tea with the monks.

The weekend was amazing, I learnt a lot about Buddhism and find it a very interesting and humble religion. It was also the first weekend I wasn't ill which is a great relief, as i thought my body would never adapt to the differences in food and lifestyle.