Phuket Vegetarian Festival... wait, WHAT?!?!

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At least, “boring” was the response I got whenever someone asked where I was going on my next trip. “I’m going to Thailand for the Vegetarian Festival,” I would say, and the inevitable response was “Why?” or “Haha, but no, really – where are you going?” Admittedly it’s a very mundane name, but the actual festival itself is anything but.

If the name “Vegetarian Festival” doesn’t do it for you, the actual name is the Nine Emperor Gods Festival, a Taoist festival that’s celebrated in Phuket primarily by the Thai-Chinese population during the ninth lunar month in the Chinese calendar. Wikipedia has a few paragraphs on the backstory if you’re interested, but the relevant quote for the Taoist belief seems to be “the Nine Emperor Gods are actually high-ranking Star Lords who preside over the movement of planets and coordinate mortal Life and Death issues.” So it sounds like it would be important to honor them. The folklore behind the vegetarian aspect is in 1825, a troupe of opera performers from China traveled to Phuket to perform for the tin miners there and the whole act came down with a mysterious illness. However, after switching to an entirely vegetarian diet and praying to the Nine Emperor Gods, they all got better. This impressed the local populace and the festival was born. It’s evolved over the years to its current form, where additional rules for the Taoist devotees, besides no meat consumption, include no alcohol, no sex, and wearing white to show their purity.

The most visible aspect of the festival is obviously the ritual mutilation. Most often this takes the form of facial impalings using a wide range of objects, but it can also include piercing other parts of the body, slashing the tongue with a sword or axe, and self-flagellation. There are other activities in the afternoons and evenings, like bladed ladder climbing and fire-walking, but I didn’t see those on this trip. After waking up at 5 am, I didn’t have the will power to leave the pool/beach in the afternoon to head back to Phuket Town. Next time…

It’s important to realize that all these impalings are done under very controlled circumstances. While they are carried out without any drugs or anesthetic – the devotees put themselves into a trance to deal with the procedure – the actual incisions are made by local doctors and physicians.

Liberal amounts of iodine and petroleum jelly are used on the skin as the objects are put through the cheeks. And during the actual street processions, each devotee has attendants that monitor them to continually wipe down the area around the wounds and apply more petroleum jelly as needed. That’s why despite the gruesome nature of the impalings, if you look closely at the photos, you see very little blood. These people are known as Ma Song, roughly translated as “entranced horses,” which refers to how the spirits of the gods possess the bodies of the devotees and use them as vehicles, similar to how a person rides a horse. The mutilation rituals are supposed to bring good luck to the community and rid others of evil spirits.

So how does the actual festival play out? In 2015, the festival kicked off on October 13, when each shrine raised a Go Teng pole to allow the spirits of the Nine Emperor Gods to descend down to earth and enter the shrines. Then on the 15th, daily morning street processions began and lasted for seven days. The impalings happen early in the morning, with the actual street processions generally starting around 6 or 7 a.m. Each procession route seems to be a few kilometers long and winds through the streets of Phuket Town, sometimes even doubling back on itself. I had originally hoped to attend all seven days, but because of my work schedule I ended up not flying into Bangkok until late on the 17th, which meant I didn’t get into Phuket until the 18th. I was able to attend the final three mornings, which were pretty crazy. Fireworks and drums are everywhere during the processions, as it’s believed that loud noises drive away evil spirits. Most of the time, the fireworks are directed at the people marching in the procession carrying shrines on their shoulders, and they have to stand there and take it as fireworks explode at head level. Of course, sometimes the fireworks are thrown and miss the intended target, landing at your feet instead. The lesson – wear jeans and closed-toed shoes or it might be a bit painful.

Each morning is generally like that. Fireworks exploding around you, people marching down the street with all kinds of crazy objects through their cheeks, traffic jams because they don’t close off the roads for the processions… it’s pretty surreal. There are the spiritual activities, too; all along the procession route, local families set up altars with various candles or incense, fruit, tea, etc. for the devotees in the procession. The devotees will pause their march at these altars to pray to the gods and take some of the offerings on the table (typically fruit or candy) to share with the observers. Others will bless individuals (including me) as they march by. The festival concludes on the last night with a street procession where the amount of fireworks going off makes the previous days seem like nothing. I missed out on this one, which I regret. From what I’ve read, all the smoke and small explosions are absolutely insane.

So it was quite the experience. If anyone’s interested in going next year (you might see me there), I’ll end this with a few tips that I wish I had known going into it (or did know, but wish I had followed).

• Wear closed-toed shoes and jeans/long pants. Fireworks can hurt.
• Wear a face mask. Lots of fireworks = lots of smoke.
• Get there early. The days when I got there right on time (according to the website), the festival was already in full swing.
• Find a knowledgeable taxi driver. The taxi driver my first day dropped me off in the general neighborhood and I had to wander around, following the sound of fireworks, to find the festival. The next day, a different driver knew exactly where to go and was on the phone with a buddy while en route to get the exact details. I set up transport with him the next morning as well.
• Things wrap up early. I had time every morning to watch the procession wind down and then get back to the hotel at Kata Noi beach to catch the end of the buffet breakfast. But don’t be afraid to grab a snack from the street food vendors.
• Be respectful. As crazy as the photos look, this is a religious rite that they take seriously. Don’t get in their way, don’t take stupid selfies, etc.

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