One Day In Sri Lanka

Although I prefer to take the train to Kandy, taking the road has its advantages. On our way to PeraHera, we dropped into two villages but passed by many others such as, Cashew Village, Fruit Village with Rambuttans, Leather Village, and Plastic Blow-Up Toy Village. Now, you may think that I’m making this up, but I think there’s some kind of Economic Development Co-operative-thing happening on the Road to Kandy and therefore, the villages have ’specialized’ and co-operated in not competing with each other’s special market areas. Well, at least that’s my take on it, anyway.

Here are some pics from Wicker Village:

My friend, Brenda says that the above items are very durable and practical… a great gift – Can you tell what they are and how they are made?

Although Wicker is light, it is also bulky and therefore doesn’t make the best plane cargo…we ended up not buying anything at Wicker Village. However, if I go back, I think I will take a second look at the salad spoon and fork made out of the same material as the third photo from the top. Feel free to put your orders in!

I’m not sure if the last two pics can be classified as ‘musicians’…

A week before Mark and I headed back to Canada for our holidays during the summer we made it up to Kandy to see the Pera Hera Festival. Here is how one website describes the festival:

Festival of the August Moon or the Kandy Esala Perahera
For ten successive nights ending on the full moon day of the month of Esala (July/August) a spectacular procession with hundreds of gaily caparisoned elephants, Kandyan dancers, drummers, trumpeters, whip crackers, torch bearers with all the pomp and glory of the past parade the streets of Kandy. On the back of a majestic tusker the sacred relic casket is carried in procession. Kandyan chieftains led by the lay custodian of the Temple dressed in their traditional ceremonial attire participate in the procession.

It was everything described above and more…what I think I liked best was that the festival was not part of a tourism ploy, but rather just a part of the regular calendar of events for Kandy people – the fact that the parade we saw, on Day 7 of the Festival, was almost 3 hours long, supports this idea!