This 2024 stamp issue – the subject being the Sri Lankan Kandy Esala Perahera festival – is the widest stamp ever produced according to its issuer, the Sri Lankan Postal service. The stamp measures 205mm x 30mm. The Esala Perahera is one of the oldest and most extraordinary festivals in the world, taking place every year in July/August in the old royal capital of Kandy. Thousands of dancers, drummers, whip-crackers and fire-eaters parade through the city. They are accompanied by around 100 elephants that are clothed in highly-decorated material – the largest of which carries the sacred tooth relic taken from Buddha’s funeral pyre almost 2500 years ago.
