Beaches and festivals

Today was a rest day, that turned out to be not so restful.

I decided I wanted to go to the beach. There is an exclusive $1500USD per night hotel nearby with access to a beach called 'Silent Beach'. The beach is public so anyone can use it so I decided to go check it out. It was a big stretch of sandy beach with huge waves. It was beautiful but not exactly swimable. I attempted to paddle but ended up getting huge waves washing over me. I just sputtered and kept getting washed up like a beached whale onto the shore.

After I decided to head back to the beach near my guesthouse via some treacherous rocks ('cos I thought I'd be clever and take a short cut - NOT) when I started chatting to a group of locals. They informed me it was one of their birthdays and if I fancied drinking coconut arak (The local hard liquor). Free booze? Count me in! So we just drank arak and chatted for a while when I was then informed that there was a big Buddhist festival happening in town called Perahera.

5:30am. Before sunrise

Coconut Arak - 33% alcohol

Perahera is a grand festival that is celebrated with elegant costumes and pays homage to Buddha. The procession consists of many traditional dances and has elephants who are adorned with lavish garments.

I went into town and I could see throngs of people lining the streets. As I got closer I could hear loud music and a parade. It was crazy. People dancing in costumes, massive elephants all dressed up. At one point a group of dancing men grabbed me from the sidelines and made me dance in the parade with them. There must have been about 50 sweaty men all around me and we all just danced. It was so hot and sweaty but really fun!