and walking down the street. Others act in very dramatic gestures as if possessed and laugh manically or moan and speak in grunts.These are people who are apparently possessed and extend blessing to the crowds, to help take evil away from you or to ward it away from you. I am told that the piercings and mutilation are also done to help me, in a similar way that people suffer in order that I do not have to, as they take evil away as well.By mid way through the week, the other activities include climbing up and down ladders with knife or saw blades, barefooted, walking barefoot through burning beds of red hot embers, being bathed in very hot oil or water. These activities take place from the break of dawn until after dark and each temple (there are 15 of them in Phuket listed as participating, although we found others not on the TAT map or mentioned on the program. We had heard of the festival mostly through word of mouth, as with most events here on the island. With respect, the events are publicized, but normally only in Thai and directed to the Thai population.
I went to a web site Clive had told me about called Vegetarian festival.com only to get error messages and a note that if I was the site owner I need to contact whoever was blocking the site. We fell back onto the use of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) , and having checked out their web site and getting the map to their office, we headed to downtown Phuket town to get our English program of the festival. After wandering the streets for a while and consulting the street poster maps of the downtown, where the TAT office was supposed to be, was an FM Radio station. Thankfully there was at least one smoker working the station, and we picked him off outside the studio's only to be told that TAT had been here for many years, but they had moved. He gave us very good directions and a 5 minute motorcycle ride away, we found the offices of TAT. We parked on the street until Mr. Dul told us that motorcycles cannot park in car spaces, and being there were no motorcycle spaces (at least none readily visible or signposted), we found an alleyway and parked. Armed with the booklet outlining the events and a map of the temples, we headed to the core of the city, where Jui Tui temple is located. We wandered the streets, all of the fresh food stalls, many selling vegetarian food, but some selling meat products. Many people dressed in white and lots of white clothing for sale at 99Baht. A shirt and pants or shorts would set you back 200Baht ($6.73 CDN and no tax). Many of the storefronts had small tables similar to a card table set up on the sidewalk with fruit, incense, candles, flowers, sweets and tea. The smell of the food was too much for me and I soon found one of my favorite stalls to find...the doughnut stall. The doughnuts here are warm, light and fluffy and can be sprinkled with sugar or dipped in a custard like sauce of coconut. I prefer them fresh from the boiling oil and eaten plain. Then a drink from the drink vendor. Orange juice is made with fresh ground tangerines, a hit for Clive, I tend to like the lemon juice, which is actually more like a lime. I have taken quite a liking to the lime based drinks and have mastered enough Thai to order it in Thai as, Manaoe (Lemon),but then again I have been known to order something that is green, pronounced as Keow, and used the Manaoe word, causing usually a confused look on the vendors face, as they have already figured out I am asking for something green, as the manaoe is green in colour. The word is also similar to the word for coconut, Mapaoe. Coconut is not the same as what I had experienced in Canada, which is actually more of a sweetened coconut milk flavour. Here the drink coconut is the water like fluid inside the green coconut, a very refreshing drink, but you do sort of recoil when it first hits your taste buds, as you are expecting the sweet coconut milk flavour and get something more bitter than that. Feeling thirsty I ordered what I though was a lemon shake (Manaoe Pan), a drink like a slushy or Slurpee, and got a coconut shake, obviously mispronouncing Manaoe.
Having had our snack and drink we made our way to the Jui Tui temple and watched as the faithful converged in a steady influx to make offerings at the various tables set up in the temple with various deities. The air was heavy with the sweet pungent smell of incense and the serenity. Suddenly behind me a banging sound began and intensified as the smell of gunpowder overtook the incense scents. I turned to see a small brick structure with metal doors, smoldering and two men began to use a spray bottle to douse the thousands of firecracker remains,smoldering in a pile over 1/2 meeter deep and then shovel this into a wheelbarrow and take away, as some of the faithful, having done their rounds of the deity tables, began to toss handfuls of firecrackers into the structure. After a while, the men who cleared out the last batch, take a look inside the structure and then toss in a few lighted firecrackers, slam the metal door and the banging and explosion begins again as the gunpowder smoke begins to curl and waft through any openings in the structure. After watching the events for a while we headed back to home and reviewed the TAT booklet to plan out our week of seeing the different events that would take place for the next 7-8 days. Having returned home about dinner time after a side trip to see the monkeys at SeeRin Island and a walk up to the Kathu waterfalls, we settled down for a quiet evening. About 5PM the first of what would be thousands of firecrackers and fireworks blasted off all around the neighbourhood. This would continue off and on well past midnight. At the initial blasts Annie sought refuge inside the house. When the fireball firecrackers began, I was followed upstairs closely by three other basset hounds. I tried to make the bedroom as quiet a place to be as possible. They quickly liked the idea that they could lounge on the bed and I turned on the TV there, which receives only Thai television. Dixie immediately became transfixed on the TV and when I went to check on them 1/2 an hour later she was wide awake, at the foot of the bed watching TV with great interest. I fear she may have a better grasp of Thai than I do. There is a challenge to soundproofing a tropical bedroom. There are sliding windows and curtains, but the bed room has levered glass windows, that do not have a handle or any way to close them. The door from the bedroom to the bathroom is a louvered door. I found that by hanging a bed cover over the door and closing it, lessened the blasts from the festivities now in full swing in the neighbourhood. My work must have paid off as with the exception of Dixie, the other 3 were sound asleep.
The following day we headed to the Ban Neow temple in Phuket to see what day 2 had in store. We found the temple fairly easily after going first to Sapahin Park which figures prominently in the processionals that are to follow for the next 6 days. We watched the same activities at the Jui Tui temple and then for the first time, I got to see a fireball firecracker at work. At this temple they have a wire mesh cage where they let off the fireball firecrackers. The cage is about 20 meters high and has a rope and pulley system. The man hooks a large octagon shaped red box, almost like a box of chocolates you would buy for your mother at Valentines day in it's dimensions. Attached to this is a coil of over one thousand firecrackers, which stretch out form the tail of the fireball, as it is hoisted. The tail then comes out of the cage by about 5 meters and the man lights the fuse. As it burns toward the fireball, it sets off the firecrackers on the tail, when it is safe, he puts on a paper surgical type mask and through the dense gray gunpowder smoke, he slammed the cage door closed. I tried to to photograph the sequence of events, but the smoke at some points made it impossible to see where the fuse was in relation to the fireball. Suddenly there was a massive deafening explosion as the fireball ignited and exploded, mostly scaring me, the only person up close to try and capture this National Geographic moment, as everyone else had stayed across the road at the temple. We then proceeded to Bang Neow Shrine, or possible Bank Neow Shrine, the TAT guide spells it differently between the map page and the legend.. Here the temple was a hive of activities, with 9 stations set up for the faithful to pay respect and worship, with a large cement urn like fixture filled with white sand and the faithful would kneel, pray and then put the incense into the sand, upright, thus perfuming the air with the pungent aromas. We had decided that it would be a good idea to see one street procession so that we had some idea what to expect. I really wanted to do photographs and Clive had heard of the piercings and mutilations and despite his desire to not see that at any time, let alone at breakfast, he bravely headed into Phuket town with me. We found a place to park our bikes found a fresh doughnut stand and took up a place that would give us good visibility of the procession. Initially one or two people with face piercings wandered down the street, with large gaps, and as interesting as it was, in hindsight, the first people were fairly tame in their choice of piercings, Don't get me wrong, they were fairly elaborate, but pretty clean looking and the participants seemed to be in a state pf mind that they did not look like they were in any discomfort. The use of daggers, swords, long metal stiletto or pica was the norm, the only variation seemed to be on how many of which or in some cases all three, you could put through your lips, cheeks or even tongue, and perhaps all three at once. As I began to think this was so sterile, and I had heard that the piercings were done under medical supervision, along came a man, who looked like he was wearing a ceremonial bib, as I used the telephoto lens to capture his image, I realized it was not a bib, but rather blood running down his chest. He had a long handle axe that he was licking the edge of and the blood was coming from his tongue. By this time, I had moved across the road and left Clive who was chatting with someone wearing a singlet that advertised a marathon somewhere, so he was engaged in chatting with a fellow runner. I glanced his way to see his reaction and at the same time a number of other self mutilators appeared on the street and soon most of the processional participants were covered in varying degrees of their own blood. I decided that I best make my way back to Clive as I had plenty of photo's and decided this had been a trial run for me to check out the scene, lighting and angles. Clive came to see me to suggested we go, as he had by this time seen enough blood. I congratulated him on not passing out or vomiting. He tells me that the piercings were "interesting", but the mutilations were a bit too much for him and while he did not vomit, he did throw-up a little in his mouth.
The following day, I decided to go back to Phuket town for what should have been a larger procession. Clive had decided that he would skip a second day of this, and is supportive of my rather macabre interest in photographing the activities. We had noticed as we left the day before that there was a large parade contingent much further down the road, with lots of firecrackers, drumming and music performed on tin horns, but the size of the crowd participating and watching made it prohibitive to get anywhere near. Today I hoped I would get to see some of the other attractions, such as the people carrying the statues of various deities and the musicians. The night before we experiences some sever torrential rains and high winds. Having spent some time here now, I have become accustomed to what is commonly referred to as "Thai time". Essentially it means that a set time is never a set time. On the trip we took to Samui a few weeks ago, we were amazed that the buses did in fact run on time, at least for departure. Arrival was out by an hour or two, but they were fairly close to schedule. So I was rather surprised when I arrived in Phuket town in what I thought would be plenty of time, having forgotten another aspect of Thai time. It may be set for 9Am, but it may actually get going at 8AM is they have enough people. Today they obviously had enough people, and the parade was well underway. I found myself in gridlock traffic. I managed to find a place to park and got out my cameras to get shooting, when I realized I had left my Canon battery in the wall outlet getting charged. So out came the handy and great Nikkon CoolPics and I began to shoot, in the rain, eventually working my way to the front of the crowds. The procession today was different. Firstly, there were women with the piercings. I had seen none the day before, just men. Secondly, today there were children in procession with swords through their cheeks. Just as I though it could not get more surreal, then I glanced up and saw a man walking with two escorts, holding the butt's of 2 AK-47 assault rifles, with a muzzle out of each face cheek. I tried to not think about whether they were actually loaded, and just assume they are, and stay out of the direction of the muzzle, which is difficult as it covers the range to the left AND the right! Then, I quietly said to myself, "the silly season is upon us".The procession began to pop out some interesting piercings; a complete dining room fixture (with 15" fan blades); the lead hoses to a SCUBA octopus with pressure and depth gauges and 2 oxygen masks, intact; multi coloured feather dusters; a rod with hanging flower bundles and 8 mirror balls (4 on each side), battery operated and spinning; umbrellas, extended and the handles through the cheeks (handy for the rainy day they were having) and of course the full assortment of swords, daggers, saw blades and chrome rods. Today I also got to finally see the god images being hoisted by the group of 6-8 people who escort the piercing/mutilated person. I saw that the escorts not only helped lift the weight of the object, they carried bottles of vegetable oil to assist with the various acrobatics that they may want to do, lots of blood soaked tissues, water and flags. And the ever [resent firecrackers. Only today they were being carried in bundles by people performing as if they were demented, laughing, screaming or shouting. They are apparently possessed and obviously feel rather invulnerable to the effects of firecrackers, lighting them and tossing them in the air, some landing back on them, setting off a whole new set of convulsive gyrations and fits of laughter. I think about this time, I managed to come to my senses and realize this was actually happening in front of me. It was not on the big screen at a movie house. I was not on a Bollywood movie set. I was in Phuket town. I also realized that I had lots of photos and was on some level apprehensive to see what else could literally be shoved through your face, when along came a young man with a hand carved replica of a Chinese sailing junk. The forward bow of the boat had a protruding wooden shaft, which pierced between both cheeks, was being firmly help in place with his teeth clamped. It was time to leave.
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