PHUKET VEGETARIAN FESTIVAL - Oct. 1st-9th
The Phuket Vegetarian Festival is a colourful event held over a nine-day period in October, celebrating the Chinese community’s belief that abstinence from meat and various stimulants during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar will help them obtain good health and peace of mind.
Though the origins of the festival are unclear, it is commonly thought that the festival was bought to Phuket by a wandering Chinese opera group who fell ill with malaria while performing on the island. They decided to adhere to a strict vegetarian diet and pray to the Nine Emperor Gods to ensure purification of the mind and body. To everyone’s amazement the opera group made a complete recovery. The people celebrated by holding a festival that was meant to honour the gods as well as express the people’s happiness at surviving what was, in the 19th century, a fatal illness. Subsequently the festival has grown and developed into a spectacular yearly event that is attended by thousands with participants flying in from China and other Asian destinations.
One of the most exciting aspects of the festival are the various, (and sometimes gruesome) ceremonies which are held to invoke the gods. Fire walking, body piercing and other acts of self mortification undertaken by participants acting as mediums of the gods, have become more spectacular as each year goes by. Men and women puncture their cheeks with various items including knives, skewers and other household items. It is believed that the Chinese gods will protect such persons from harm, and little blood or scarring results from such mutilation acts.
Tips:
1) …wear white! Considering that white is symbolic for the entire vegetarian festival, by wearing white it shows respect for the local customs and it’ll be greatly appreciated.
2) …wear protection for your eyes and ears! You’ll see these distinctive little red firecrackers everywhere, though they are relatively harmless, what they lack in firepower
3) …bring a N95 mask! Their is an incredible amount of smoke.
Join in and witness the 7th World University Championship, to be celebrated in Chiang Mai . This competition attracts around a hundred of the best students boxers from all over the world.
Tamarind Village in cooperation with The Rainbow Room will host a charity event to raise fund and expand awareness about children with special needs in Northern Thailand. This event will provide a forum for discussions and exchanges of knowledge and techniques in caring for children through a “Parent-to-Parent” model. Partners companies in Chiang Mai will organize many kinds of activities for the children and their closed ones to be happy together. Everyone is welcome to this event to learn more, help and bring a smile to children faces.
@ The Center for The Promotion of Arts and Culture, CMU. From 11am to 3pm
Museflower Retreat & Spa Chiang Rai is a vegetarian holistic wellness retreat set on a peaceful lake among the green fields and hills of Chiang Rai. This internationally known place is to celebrate all things healing and green with the second Museflower Life Festival.
Through the weekend event of workshops, fitness classes, free and discounted health counseling sessions, alternative therapies, signature spa treatments, nutritious vegetarian buffets, wellness gifts and prizes, The Museflower Life Festival aims to share knowledge and inspire people to learn more about holistic wellbeing.
Open to public and in-house guests, entrance fee of THB 800 per person per day gives you access to attend all talks, workshops, fitness and wellness classes, holistic therapy demonstrations and swim in Thailand’s first Himalayan crystal salt pool. Entrance fee THB 400 per class to attend only chosen sessions.
For more details, reservation and maps :
www.museflowerretreat.com