Kandy Perahera August 7, 2006

As the August moon begins to wax, the misty hills of Kandy will give itself up to a new excitement in preparation for the spectacular festival of the "Kandy Perahera". For ten nights, as the old cannon booms after dusk, the Perahera, the event for which Kandy lives each year, will take to the streets growing longer each night until on the final night of pageantry, the past shatters the present. The whips crack like pistol shots, the torches gild the pallid moonlight, the drums roll like thunder down the narrow streets, the oboes wail, the braying conchs re-echo from the hills, the pious cries of 'Sadhu-Sadhu' lift in thanksgiving to the sky, the dancers leap and whirl in flashing crimson, white and silver, the stately chiefs strut by, rank upon rank of elephants loom up and dwindle, and the glitter of the Sacred Casket fades as the mile long magnificence passes...

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