Photo Album Above: WARNING graphic images
PHUKET: One of Phuket's youngest temples began the Phuket Vegetarian Festival street parades today with perhaps one of Phuket's youngest entranced warriors - a boy of about 10.
The parade from Naka Temple, near Phuket City's weekend market, trudged its colorful way under leaden skies that doused parts of Phuket, another element in the long Vegetarian Festival tradition.
And of course, participants ignored the annual pleas for use of only traditional needles to piece cheeks.
Defiance of the annual request for modesty in mutilations is also traditional.
Today's small passing parade brought a man who is probably a motor mechanic with twin shifting spanners through his cheeks, and a teenager who probably builds model boats with a large masted vessel impaled.
The piercings seem shocking to Western eyes, even those raised on images of men being nailed to wooden crosses, yet the message of the nine-day festival is one of sacrifice, purity and renewal.
Entranced warriors feel no pain and take the suffering of the Phuket community as the price of participation.
For those who think that Phuket's culture is all bars and go-go dancers in Patong's Soi Bangla, the Vegetarian Festival sets the record straight each year.
Phuket is, in reality, far less predictable and far more diverse than the average tourist imagines.
For nine days, a sublime form of possession takes place that transforms parts of Phuket into a haven for the supernatural and the mystical.
In parts of Phuket, entire communities give up meat, alcohol, nicotine and sex and wear only white, seeking the blessings of the entranced warriors as they pass.
Is there a tourist attraction like it anywhere else in the world? We can't think of one.
And in nine days, Phuket's Vegetarian Festival will close after daily parades and nights of fire-walking and razor ladders with a bang - perhaps the most remarkable blast of fireworks anywhere in the world, still in the hands of the public.
It's extraordinary Phuket at its most bizarre and brazen best.
Thursday's Vegetarian Festival Highlights
SAPAM SHRINE PHUKET
07.00 Street Procession in Phuket Town
15.45 Food Offering to Warriors
KATHU SHRINE PHUKET
05.00 / 18.00 Worship of Gods
16.00 Warriors Propitiation
16.30 Food Offering to Warriors
19.30 Birth-Death Gods Propitiation
JUI TUI SHRINE PHUKET
19.30 Food Offering to Warriors
20.45 Birth-Death Gods Propitiation
BANG NEOW SHRINE PHUKET
15.00 Food Offering to Warriors
SUI BOON TONG SHRINE PHUKET
15.00 Food Offering to Warriors
20.00 Worship of Gods
SAMKONG SHRINE PHUKET
15.09 Food Offering to Warriors
20.00 Propitiation of Seven Stars
BAN THA RUE SHRINE PHUKET
17.30 Food Offering to Warriors
18.30 Birth-Death Gods Propitiation
CHERNG THALAY SHRINE PHUKET
15.00 Food Offering to Warriors
15.30 Blessing Bang Tao Village
19.00 Worship of Gods
YOKKEKENG SHRINE PHUKET
15.30 Food Offering to Warriors
20.00 Birth-Death Gods Propitiation at Koh Sireh Beach
Photo Album Artisans have almost completed work at Phuket's Taoist temples that will be the focus for nine days of rituals and rites as Phuket's vegetarian Festival begins anew.
Phuket's Veggie Fest Photo Special
Phuket Unfurls a Cheeky Challenger: Photo Special
Photo Album The first big parade through Phuket brings some fascinating piercings, but none more cheeky than the man impaled on a beach umbrella.
Phuket Unfurls a Cheeky Challenger: Photo Special
Phuket Enjoys a Pierce of the Action: Photo Special
Photo Album The first street procession brings a flavor of big parades to come. Body piecing and tied up traffic are two of the Phuket Veg Fest's controversial aspects
Phuket Enjoys a Pierce of the Action: Photo Special
Phuket's Mass Circumcision: Photo Special
PHOTO ALBUM Phuketwan goes along with a camera as 30 young boys engage in a ritual circumcision that marks the beginning of the path to adulthood and the Muslim life.
Phuket's Mass Circumcision: Photo Special
Disgusting, young exhibitionists should be at school and performers should have a minimum age of 18 to do that barbaric shows.
It does not help Phuket to get more tourists.
Posted by Whistle-Blower on September 28, 2011 10:21
Editor Comment:
Sameness is the end of culture, Whistle-Blower. Oh for a world free of franchises and narrow minds.