Beach temple festival

A short 2hour train journey from Colombo, lies Unawatuna: beach resort on the south-west coast of Sri Lanka.
We expected a few restaurants, hotels and watersports ... But we have been greeted by many local people, many pop-up shops (selling all sorts: men's shoes, cheese graters, goldfish, plastic jugs, bags and clothes), all here because of an annual Buddhist festival that has its centre in the temple on the beach.
You can walk up the temple (shoes off, of course!) bringing offers of fresh fruit, incense and oil to keep the flames  burning. It was very moving to see people sitting in prayer, in front of a big Buddha statue. The village was also dotted by the typical orange robes of the monks, that were anachronistically carrying smartphones at times!
We were also involved in a very colourful parade: drums, elephants, dancers and fighters all marched along the narrow street in Unawatuna all the way to the temple. I was really enjoying this, until the parade consisted of a group of young guys who had hooks threaded in the skin of their backs, while the rest of the group was pulling them!
To top it all off, the loudspeaker is on every day from 10am to 10pm, singing, preaching ... If only I knew what they are saying!