Vegetarian Festival

That is about veggie rocks and body piercing extreme.

Strange things happens along the streets in Phuket Town where they are selling vegetarian food at small stalls everywhere. What is really unbelievable, if you wont see this with your own eyes is the masochistic behaviors of some local guys. 



That actually is the reason which makes tourist come to the island to watch, just watch the pictures and videos.

• Actually there are legends of a Chinese Theater Group playing here to entertain the worker of the tin mines about two hundred years ago and they turned to vegetarian food trying to get resistance against the mosquitoes which finally didn't work out. But it rather looked that this was a clever marketing idea in the last century to lure tourist to the island in the "dead time" of September - October.  

Carrying the Taoist deities from one temple to another.

They got the idea from the Thaipusam Festival in Kuala Lumpur where exactly the same happen. Thais are copying anything when they can make money with it and this is a perfect exotic festival with all attributes tourist want to see.

A walk on fire ans knives actually glowing coals 

• Some try to climb up a ladder whose steps are razor sharp knifes, an extreme test of courage as it also needs to climb down at the other side again. Most try to make a few steps and then make it back down very slowly. The walk and the ladder session are at the end of the week long celebration. It brings the fact to light that the island has a long and intense Chinese history.

All this is centered around a few Chinese temples in Phuket Town.

• The actions are spread over a week and the procession moves every day from one temple to the next and so on. The festival starts on the first day of the ninth month according to the Chinese lunar calendar, that means in late September or start of October. Legend tells that there was a Chinese Theater group during the Tin Mine age who try to get rid off mosquito and fever by strictly observing the vegetarian way. No need to tell that this was not very successful since what have mosquitoes to do with vegetarian food.

Actually I think it was a clever marketing idea to get the body piercing show in which is a copy of an event they already had in Kuala Lumpur before, initiated from the local Indian population. They copied this to create an event to bring tourists in during the very low season. But anyway, everyone will deny that anyway but it is a interesting festival with plenty of Tattoos shown.
     

The devotees or "soldier of god".

They pierce themselves with the help of others and move from one temple to another with lots of noise from Chinese firecrackers. The spectators line the street and smoke are everywhere, a incredible noise. 

• But the real bizarre stuff is what kind of materials the devotees pierce themselves. 

There is tongue piercing, sharp objects penetrating the cheek in the mouth region and full body piercings. It's amazing what they push through their skin, it doesn't look like a festival rather as a gathering of masochists.

This is the absolute high season for a few days in a otherwise quiet time, it also brings people right into Phuket City  because since they built the bypass road at the west side of town most business went into the shopping malls along that road.

They even managed to build this as a underpass which is rather rare in Thailand because they don't have capacities for difficult buildings and a tunnel is for sure one this seems to be the only tunnel in the southern half of the country.

The Phuket Vegetarian Festival is a bit of a copy they do in Kuala Lumpur and that again is similar to festivities in various cities in India.