Vegetarian Festival
We veterans of the festival involved more than one decade, the scars quite conspicuous. At the parade, we see hundreds of people. Vegetarian Festival is now not only religious but also commercial holiday. Children dressed in T-shirts for hotels, mobile phones, banks, sneaked the yellow flags of the vegetarian festival. Officials pass on machines with ice cream and hand out wanting cooling balls in wafer cups. Among them are decorated with flowers and flags of the machine, pulling a Nine Emperor Gods. (Similarly see: Simon Pagenaud). On some pickup trucks are women, immersed in a trance, they chanting prayers in the ancient Chinese and sprinkled holy water around.
Warriors of the Gods, surrounded by aides carry their heavy burden. They bless the people of Phuket Town, which put special tables near their homes and shops with offerings Ma Song. Everyone tries to get a gift from elected: charms on his hand, blessed sweets or small pieces of yellow cloth with Chinese characters, protecting them from evil spirits. Complete the process of men carrying on their shoulders altars with Nine Imperial Gods. They hang on the figures of gods long strip of firecrackers and blowing them. The noise is incredible, the smoke enveloped the street, the pavement littered with scraps of red paper to the ankle. By nightfall starts the next part of the festival vegetarians.
The temples are set huge ladders, steps which are sharp blades. Favorites pass on them without a single drop of blood. By comparison, walking on hot coals and bathing in hot oil seems child's play. At the end of the day ma Song going to the temple where the monks, he laid his hands on the Warriors of the Gods, remove them from the trance. According says he does not remember what happened during the day. His exploits resemble a strip of adhesive on the cheeks. On the last day of the festival vegetarians residents of Phuket escort Nine Emperor Gods. Hundreds of men, bare to the belt, are altars with figures of gods. Everywhere exploding firecrackers. The city surrounds a thick pall of smoke, and I think that this is not a happy ending of the holiday and the beginning of an unexpected invasion of the enemy. Gods, with honors, was escorted to heaven to a year later they again paid tribute to Phuket with his presence.