Vegetarian Festival / Back to Bangkok

Vegetarian Festival. Sounds rather benign doesn't it. Conjures up images of Portland's Waterfront Park in August. Local restaurants setting up food stalls with tables and chairs under large canopies. Granola types exhibiting their handicrafts, local musicians providing music. This is not the scene in Phuket. Yes, vegetarian food is served by restaurants, announced by flying yellow banners and food stalls are set up next to some of the Chinese temples. But the focus of Phuket's Vegetarian Festival is really quite bizarre.

Early one morning, soon after my daughter Inga arrives for a visit to Thailand, we set off for one of Phuket town's Chinese temples. Standing amidst a crowd of spectators we watch marchers stream out from the temple into the street accompanied by drumming and cymbal crashing. This is just one of the many processions that will take place during the week long festival. One by one the men who have chosen to practice self-mutilation join the parade along with their handlers. At the temple each man has gone into a trance. This is evidenced by an uncontrollable shaking of the head. Slits are cut into the men's cheeks by a doctor or someone with medical training. These slits are then skewered by an unusual array of objects. One man has a sword, one sports an umbrella, another has several 2 ft long metal rods radiating from around his mouth. We follow the procession, taking pictures and then turning away because it is unnerving to look at them for very long. Firecrackers are set off on small shrines carried along by groups of young men. Back at the temple the grounds are littered with blood soaked gauze and latex gloves.

In the evening we go to a different Chinese temple to see firewalking. There is a protracted buildup to this event with much stirring and raking of the rectangular bed of coals. Finally a few men who are in a trance run back and forth through the coals. They are soon followed by others who decide to join in the fun. Later we climb the steps to the temple, flanked by long colorful sea dragons, take off our shoes and go inside. In the back a man is being released from his trance. All we are able to see is a gong being struck and the man falling back into another man's arms. He then walks away looking quite normal. Reminds us of TV evangelism.

The vegetarian festival in Phuket originated with the Chinese in the early 1800's. Many of the local people wear white all week to signify their purity. This means they will refrain from eating meat and drinking alcohol and will abstain from sex.



After much discussion we have decided to go through the Red Sea rather than sail around South Africa as we had previously planned to do. Wanting to stop at Cochin, India along the way means getting visas in advance. So we fly back to Bangkok and apply for visas at the Indian consulate. This takes 5 days. This trip we stay at the Reno Hotel. While waiting for our visas we take a train to the old Thai capital of Ayutthaya. We get 3rd class tickets for about 50 cents. No air conditioning but there are opening windows and fans. The train stops everywhere.

After taking a ferry across to the island we rent bicycles and tour the ruins. While riding along a quiet road in the afternoon a young man on a motorbike zooms up alongside Richard and grabs his backpack out of the bicycle basket. We pedal as fast as we can but there is no way we can catch him. We report our loss to the Tourist Police but the incident happened so fast we have no real description of the man or the bike. Fortunately there was not much of any value stolen except we did lose our digital camera and memory stick with photos taken at Angkor and the vegetarian festival. The following day in Bangkok we shopped for a new backpack and camera.