When your mother told you to eat your vegetables she probably didn’t have a trip to Thailand in mind. Now that you’re all grown up do something that’s good for your body as well as your soul. The Oct. 15 – 23 run date for this year’s Phuket Vegetarian Festival may preclude a Thai trip this year, but that doesn’t mean we can’t whet your aspirational appetite for a culinary sojourn next year.
Held during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar, adherents hold that the vegetarian festival and its attendant sacred rituals “bestow good fortune on those who religiously observe this rite.”
For 10 days local Phuket Chinese descendants strictly observe a vegetarian of vegan diet. The idea is to spiritually cleanse body and soul – while racking up a bit of merit at the same time.
Some of those rituals are best observed rather than participated in. Some particularly aesthetic folk walk barefoot across beds of hot coals, while others climb ladders embedded with blades. This sort of thing is done by special devotees, the Ma Song.
Organizers say the afternoon before the festival kicks off participants raise a great Go Teng pole at local temples. Then, devotees implore the gods to descend those poles. About midnight the poles are bedecked with nine lanterns. That signals the start of the meatless festival.
Other gods play an important role in the festival, notably Lam Tao, who keeps tabs on the living. It’s Pak Tao’s lot to watch over the dead. Then begin the numerous processions heralding the images of the deities – as well as those fearsome feats of the Ma Song we sold you about, including one that entails bathing in hot oil.
The Phuket Vegetarian Festival culminates with a goodbye to the gods, signaled by the setting off of fabulous fireworks displays.
(Image: Electrostatico)
