Kandy Perahera

Kandy is an ancient kingdom in Sri Lanka. It is situated on a lake high up in the Hill Country about a 3 hr. train trip from the bustling city of Colombo. The train trip is really a"Trip" all itself. It's like going back in time to the early 1800's as the train is almost that old. The scenery id fantastic as you climb up out of the flat plains and rice feilds surounding the city and on up into the hills and up to the cool fresh air of Kandy at about 4000 ft. The perahera is a huge week long Buddhist festival that requires reservations for hotels many months in advance. Fortunately a member of the office staff had family up there and we of course were in typical Sri Lankan style, totally set up for the entier stay! We stayed at the Hilltop hotel which was fantastic with pool, great food service and views. The parades go every night from 800-945 pm but you have to be there by 6 pm to get any kind of aa decent seat. We were there on Fri. and Sat. which was not as good as the following Wed. which is the full moon and final best night of the parade. On that night you'd need to bee there in morning to get the best seats fort the night parade. On the night we watched we counted 55 elephants. On Wed there will be over 80 and many more dancers and drummers. It will be televised that night all over the country live. Sunday were requested to go to check on and help with an IDP (Internaly Displaced Person) camp about 3 hours East of Kandy which was rapidly filling with people from a recent conflict problem on the east coast.