The beginning of the Phuket Vegetarian Festival (or “Jia Chai” in the local Hokkien Chinese dialect) was yesterday.
Even though I reside in Phuket, you will never find me at the scary body piercing and fire rituals that my colleague Tim attends religiously. However, I did agree to go to the very start of the Vegetarian Festival - we took some of our guests who were interested or held a Cape Privilege Card.
It commences with the raising of the ‘Go Teng’ pole – this is an enormous and highly polished wooden pole that is raised up at each Chinese Temple.
This enormous pole is actually for the Gods to descend – at midnight the pole is strung with nine lanterns and this signalizes the beginning of the Festival.
I know that Tim is organising another hotel trip on the 20th of October. If you really need to see a street procession of possessed men piercing knives, fans and all manner of pointy objects through their cheeks please contact him at the Front Lobby.
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