Phuket Vegetarian Festival

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Party time...thai style!

Everyone dressed in white, half of all restaurants closed for 10 days, endless stalls lining the streets selling only vegetarian food, processions through town, men walking around in trances as they have been taken over by a spirit?! , fire crackers going off everywhere, men walking around with various objects protruding through their face, walking over hot coals, running up bladed ladders, walking across the bridge of nails....it can only mean one thing...."PHUKET VEGETARIAN FESTIVAL"

This festival occurs every October for 9 days, the festival and its above mentioned sacred rituals bring good fortune to those who follow it and stick to the rules. There are 10 rules altogether.

Its all about spiritual cleansing and merit making..

I haven't personally followed any of these rules myself so I guess I'm doomed...but I bought a cool funky pair of white fisherman pants that have a red dragon on....(this is what all of town is wearing)...only mine are my slobs for around the house.

The sacred rituals that are performed like the walking on hot coals, sticking knifes through your face and walking over nails are all performed by "devotees"...its crazy to watch. On the way to work the other day, I stopped at the lights to let the procession past and I saw a guy with a chair leg through both cheeks, chair still attached!!!! and another guy had a parasol through both cheeks!!! parasol open!!....I didn't have my camera on my unfortunatley!! what an awesome picture that would have been!

On Sunday we got up bright and early to watch the procession walk through town...you could hardly see anything at times as there was so many firecrackers going off that there was thick white smoke everywhere! We ended up at one of the many Chinese temples to watch them remove the knifes and poles from their faces....there was NO blood! it was ever so strange...

Yesterday we went to Sampanhin (not sure if thats spelt right) to watch them walk over hot coals....most of Thailand had the same idea so we couldn't get anywhere near enough to see what was going on. We just saw the guys heads as they ran across the coals....and these coals were HOT!! I mean red hot!...

There was also plenty of fireworks which was ace. I got told off for leaning on this "sacred carriage", not sure what I did but the moment I moved this holy man came over and started what looked and sounded like blessing the carriage...almost as if I had passed on some evil spirits...whoops! Again loads of firecrackers...plenty of farang running scared...the Thai's love to target our feet!! On the way home they were shooting fireworks over really busy streets...I wonder how many people die in the Vegetarian Festival every year?

Check out the pictures...it really is bizarre...can't imagine this happening at home! Health and safety would be out in force!

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