Phuket Vegetarian Festival, Thailand

(Oct. 22-31, 2006) Thailand called us back home for one reason and one reason alone, the Phuket Vegetarian Festival. I'll admit that the bloody pictures our friend Randy sent us from his trip to Thailand the year before confused me, disturbed me and well as peeked an interest in me. What does blood and a vegetarian festival have to do with one another? I'm not sure I understand even now after witnessing what I did. Here's some background on the Veggie Fest taken from the official website.

"The Phuket Vegetarian Festival is an annual event held during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar. It is believed that the vegetarian festival and its accompanying sacred rituals bestow good fortune upon those who religiously observe this rite. During this time, local residents of Chinese ancestry strictly observe a 10-day vegetarian or vegan diet for the purposes of spiritual cleansing and merit-making. Sacred rituals are performed at various Chinese shrines and temples and aesthetic displays such as walking barefooted over hot coals and ascending ladders with bladed rungs are performed by entranced devotees known as "Ma Song".

Before dawn one morning Matt and I donned a wardrobe in white, the official color of the religious observers (some splashed up their outfits with yellow in honor of the King), and made our way over to the Samkong shrine. A parade was scheduled for a quarter past 7 a.m. but we had our sights set on witnessing the devotees becoming entranced and that required an earlier arrival. From inside the shrine we watched as men would strip off their shirts and slowly build themselves into a fury of head shaking and fist pounding. Some even seemed to dry heave as though they were going to puke up their spirits. All who became entranced rolled their eyes behind their head and grunted gutteral noises, sweat following freely. From there they wisked themselves outside to begin the piercings. Stations of piercers were set up throughout the grounds and at any one time you could go right up to the very cheek that was being penetrated. Foreigners were encouraged to get as close as possible. I myself got lost in the frenzy of things, snapping pictures like a madwoman losing focus of what I was really seeing behind my lense. How does the mind comprehend seeing a gasoline nossel in someone's cheek, or a feather duster out of the side of one's face? Countless men had mutiple daggers criss crossing their face, how do you even move your head without inflicting greater wounds?

Before we knew it the parade was underway and Matt and I were swept up in it's current. People didn't march they jogged. Matt said he'd run too if he had swords cutting through his cheeks. The parade was a moving freakshow. Fire works exploded underfoot and overhead leaving a smokey stream of red, groups of men with swords and blades would stop from time to time to beat their backs in a circle, devotees licked knife blades with their tongues dripping copious amounts of blood down their chests and all this while on the move. It was no easy task to avoid the fire crackers and the long blades of the piercers. The parade snaked through town with people lining the streets with offerings off fruit, tea, incense and fire crackers all in hopes of bringing good fortune for their families and business. Matt and I made it to the end and practically collapsed on the lawn from emotional fatigue. It was exhilarating, frightening, disgusting and I loved every bloody minute of it. Don't worry Mom, my cheeks are safe (at least this year!).