This event to see the Perahera turned out a disaster. We paid $125/=USD for each of our tickets and was advised they were premium seats at the Queen's hotel, only to find they had erected some scaffolding with plastic seats crammed in on the covered walkway of the hotel. We got there at 5.00 p.m. to ensure we did not get crushed in the crowd. The parade did not start until after 8.00 p.m.and finished at 12.30 a.m. No one was allowed to leave their seats for a drink or toilet break. The Police and guards made sure of this. Luckily for us an enterprising guy was selling pizzas and drinks just before the start of the event so we grabbed what we could and even though it was hot and stuffy the adults refrained from having the drinks. The kids did and of course wanted to “wee”. The boys aged 10 and 7 became hysterical when they found they were not allowed to visit a toilet. We had to resort to giving them the empty sprite bottles and the kindness of the tourists sitting in the back row to enable the boys to relieve themselves. There were tourists (European and Asian) screaming their heads off wanting to leave, luckily there was no riot but it came very close to one. The procession was an amazing spectacle but repetitive with the drumming, dancing and elephant parade that went on far too long without a break, and definitely not for kids.

How privileged we were to be able to find seats and watch this amazing 4 hour annual parade through Kandy. Hundreds of men and boys from the local buddhist and Hindu temples were in full costume dancing through the streets. 73 elephants were dressed in colorful decor interspersed throughout the groups of dancers.

The Esala Perahera happened to be on during the dates we had booked for our trip so we though we'd make our way to Kandy for the first night of the parade. We'd read various reviews in advance about booking seats and decided to take a risk with the crowd (some places were charging more than tickets for a West End show to sit on a plastic chair in a shop front). The pavements had already started filling up by about 1pm so we moved away from the Temple of the Tooth further on the route and looked for spots. Eventually after a lot of people trying to sell us seats we ended up paying for spots on the pavement for about a fiver as we couldn't be bother to look anymore (and the further along the route you go the later the parade gets to you - obviously). That said, we sat on the pavement for at least 5 hours waiting for the big event to kick off. We occupied our time chatting to the families around us but it was a long and hot wait and there were no toilets nearby (to our knowledge).

Fast forward to the time the parade eventually arrived at us. The parade itself is a fantastic spectacle but there does come a point where it gets very monotonous and you start hoping it'll soon end.

The biggest issue for us was that we had just come from Minneriya, seeing 100+ wild elephants during the migration and contrasting that to seeing 40+ tuskers chained (tightly chained - we saw one elephant with a chain so tight it was cutting into its leg and clearly causing discomfort as it kept rubbing it with its other foot). These are the most beautiful and majestic animals and it was incredibly sad seeing them in this sort of captivity (to be honest I don't agree with seeing them in zoos either). My partner and I found it heartbreaking to watch. Its for this reason that I have rated it so low.