In this July 5, 2016 photo, a tamed elephant rests in a pool of water by a road in Baduraliya, a village outside Colombo, Sri Lanka. Even as the country cracks down on illegal ownership, the enduring demand for elephants has the government planning to set up its own pool of captive animals to be hired out to temples for ceremonies and maintained with budget funds. (Photo by Eranga Jayawardena/AP Photo)

Hirunika Premachandra, a politician and a leader of Samagi Vanitha Balawegaya, a part of the main opposition party Samagi Jana Balawegaya, hugs a female police member during a protest near Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's private residence, amid the country's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka on June 22, 2022. (Photo by Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)

Commuters interact with an elephant as he rests in a public road ahead of the annual Perahera festival of the historic Gangaramaya Temple in Colombo on February 18, 2019. Some 50 elephants, most of them from the central area of Kandy along with thousands of traditional drummers, dancers, and monks have gathered in the Sri Lankan capital to participate in the city's biggest two-day annual Buddhist Navam procession, scheduled for February 18-19. (Photo by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP Photo)

Layers of breathtaking colour streak the rolling hills of this vast desert, making the landscape appear as though it has been tie-dyed. The natural phenomenon, nicknamed the “Painted Desert”, was formed when the area was once a river floodplain. Each colour corresponds to a different underground geological feature – rocks which have seemingly dyed the layers of earth above. Formed from volcanic activity, the hills at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in East Central Oregon, USA, are almost bursting with colour. Pictured: The colourful hills at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in East Central Oregon, USA. (Photo by Mark Brodkin/Solent News/SIPA Press)

Kuwaitis play in front of kites at for Kuwaiti al-Farsi Kites team, Kuwaiti desert, 50 kilometers south of Kuwait City, 06 January 2017 (Issued 07 January 2017). (Photo by Raed Qutena/EPA)

Ahmed, a 10-year-old jockey, looks on during the opening of the International Camel Racing festival at the Sarabium desert in Ismailia, Egypt, March 21, 2017. (Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)

A participant tests his motorcycle ahead of the launch of the Rally of Morocco 2021, in the desert Zagora region, on October 7, 2021. The rally will be held from October 8 to 13, 2021. (Photo by Fadel Senna/AFP Photo)

A man dressed as Hindu god Shiva, smokes during an annual Hindu religious festival locally known as Shyam Baba festival in Ajmer, in the desert Indian state of Rajasthan, April 12, 2015. (Photo by Himanshu Sharma/Reuters)