Phuket Vegetarian Festival 2015 - Last Night

The last night of Phuket Vegetarian Festival is always fun...

People are waiting around the ClockTower for the fun to start...

The last night starts very calmly - offerings are laid out on the side of the road like every other time there is a parade through Phuket Town.

The parade this evening starts at Sapan Hin and Bang Neow Shrine, winds it's way through Phuket Town to Jui Tui Shrine and then returns.

I visited Jui Tui first and my first thing was to go into the place where you are not usually able to go - the Shrine area to the right of the main shrine and links to Pud Jow shrine adjacent to it. Then here there are people preparing their Chinese Shrines for the Parade.

I did not stay - I walked back through the busy food market to meet my family at 

Clocktower Circle. 

It was at this point that I thought that it was getting dangerous and that I thought that they should go home - they did (Note: there was a gun shooting in the later evening and a drunk foreigner taken by police).

Then the fireworks began to escalate....

Then there was a sudden move from a mob of people opposite Mee Ton Poe I - there was some Chinese Dragon Dancers...

5 minutes later there was a second surge - the sedan chairs with the god statues in began to arrive.

Here's Jamie.

Then the parade began in earnest - it was 'politely chaotic' - certainly noisy.

Here are some images of the parade.

(is that child lighting the fireworks?)

Wonderful - on the third time that I was hit with the fireworks I felt that it was time to go home. 

The road is always covered in what is left over from the firecrackers!  After my last incident and visit to hospital I did promise my wife that I would be more careful...

The camera managed to survive but I think that the video might be fun - coming soon.