Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
DON'T MISS
VEGETARIAN FESTIVAL
Loud popping sounds similar to machine-gun fire fill the streets, the air is nearly opaque with grey-brown smoke
and men and women traipse along blocked-off city roads, their cheeks pierced with skewers and knives or, more
surprisingly, lamps and tree branches. Some of the flock have blood streaming down their fronts or open lashes
across their backs. No this isn't a war zone, this is the Vegetarian Festival (
Click here
), one of Phuket's most im-
portant festivals, centred in Phuket Town.
The festival, which takes place during the first nine days of the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar -
usually late September or October - celebrates the beginning of 'Taoist Lent', when devout Chinese abstain
from eating meat. But more obvious to outsiders are the daily processions winding their way through town with
floats of ornately dressed children and ladyboys, near armies of flag-bearing colour-coordinated young people
and, most noticeably, men and women engaged in outrageous acts of self-mortification. Shop owners along
Phuket's central streets set up altars in front of their shopfronts offering nine tiny cups of tea, incense, fruit, fire-
crackers, candles and flowers to the nine emperor gods invoked by the festival.
Those participating as mediums bring the nine deities to earth by entering into a trance state, piercing their
cheeks with an impressive variety of objects, sawing their tongues or flagellating themselves with spiky metal
balls. Whatever form the self-flagellation takes, the mediums (primarily men) walk in procession, stopping at
shopfront altars where they pick up the offered fruit. They also drink one of the nine cups of tea, grab flowers to
stick in their waistbands or set strings of firecrackers alight. The shop owners and their families stand by with
their palms together in a
wâi
gesture out of respect for these mediums who are temporarily possessed by deities.
Surreal hardly describes it.
In Phuket Town, the festival activities are centred around five Chinese temples, with the
Jui Tui
temple on Th
Ranong the most important, followed by
Bang Niew
and
Sui Boon Tong
temples. There are also events at
temples in the nearby towns of Kathu (where the festival originated) and Ban Tha Reua. If you stop by the pro-
cession's starting point early enough in the morning, you may see a surprisingly professional, latex-glove-clad
crew piercing the devotees' cheeks - not for the faint-hearted. Other ceremonies occur throughout the festival at
the temples and can include firewalking and knife-ladder climbing. Beyond the headlining gore, fabulous veget-
arian food stalls line the side streets offering a perfect opportunity to sample cheap local treats and strike up in-
teresting conversations with the locals.
The TAT office in Phuket prints a helpful schedule of events for the Vegetarian Festival each year. The festival
also takes place in Trang, Krabi and other southern Thai towns.
Oddly enough, there is no record of these sorts of acts of devotion associated with Taoist Lent in China. The
local Chinese claim the festival was started by a theatre troupe from China that stopped off in nearby Kathu
around 150 years ago. The story goes that the troupe was struck seriously ill because the members had failed to
propitiate the nine emperor gods of Taoism. The nine-day penance they performed included self-piercing, medit-
ation and a strict vegetarian diet.
For more info, visit
www.phuketvegetarian.com
.
Sleeping
The cheapest place on the island to get some zzz's, Phuket Town is a treasure trove of
budget lodging. Head out to the beaches for more midrange and top-end options.
AI Phuket Hostel
OFFLINE MAP
HOSTEL
$
GOOGLE MAP
