Parade and Piercing - Phuket Vegetarian Festival 2016

The possessed were pierced in Jui Tui Chinese Shrine in the early morning (see previous post) and then were ready to walk to Sapan Hin. Then the parade through Phuket Town began. It was a relatively quiet time because I had so got used to the explosions of the sedans.

But this made is really quite picturesque - I don't know how to explain the feelings of everything stopping for this, the people lining the streets and families gathering in front of their homes to receiving a blessing from the possessed.

After the initial confusion of leaving the temple petered out the parade gathered a momentum where there were spaces between people and I certainly had less anxiety about bumping into people (possessed or not). There was certainly a lot more management on the streets that there was in previous years!

There was also a rather serene quality to some of the photographs that I took because the lens (thanks Dad) was far more powerful and sometime I was able to just focus on the piercing and out of context I did not know what to make of some.

I am still a little perplexed - maybe that is more understanding?

I took more photographs of the blessings that people received - this is what I enjoyed more - in all this pandemonium there could be this level of peace.

What I did find this year was the presence of monks taking photographs of the festival.

Even someone had prepared a chair!

I saw my friends at the camera shop next to Bang Neow Chinese Shrine - ClinicKong - who took photographs of our wedding.

But we want to see the piercings - so here they are

Some do look a little... or was it just the way I took the photo?

Well until we had a traffic jam of the possessed at the junction near Bang Neow Shrine - but we all knelt and waited...

I do wonder whether the person with the iPhone took the offering though...