PHUKET: The raising of the lantern pole at Phuket's Jui Tui Temple yesterday signified the beginning of the island's nine-day Vegetarian Festival.

Sights during that time can be confronting for visitors and a surprise for photographers.

In daily parades, possessed participants skip, hop, jump and stroll through Phuket's streets with firecrackers bursting all around them.

The festival marks adherents' commitment to purity, which is why so many Phuket people suddenly appear in nothing but white. Many renounce meat, alcohol, sex and cigarettes for the entire festival.

Some make it through, others fall by the wayside. Although the piercing of participants' cheeks with spikes and strange implements of all shapes and sizes is confronting, the festival is noisy but not violent.

Except, that is, for self-flagellation.

A ball pierced with nails sighted at Jui Tui Temple yesterday evening indicates at least one possessed parader intends to suffer for all of humankind over the next few days.

The festival sees the takeover of some Phuket City streets with vegetarian food stalls. The stalls are always decked out in traditional yellow, non-political on this occasion in terms of Thailand's color-coded politics.

The vegetarian food can be surprisingly good and there are mock versions of meat and fish to try to keep people in white from being tempted by the real thing.

The daily parades are extremely noisy and people planning to attend are advised to wear ear plugs.

In nine days, Phuket will return to normal. The final night in Phuket City is an amazing event, when all the paraders converge in an astonishingly noisy and vibrant celebration.

The spirits that have possessed the paraders are driven back into the sea and Phuket City's late-night chicken shops do a roaring trade.

The following day, normality returns. Everybody wonders what the fuss was all about.