Ow. Quit it. Ow. Quit it. Ow. Quit it....

LOL. My thoughts exactly. Could this be the downside of getting cheeky, no?

W.

I was told there is one in ChiangMai of similar scale? Is it true?

This festival happens all over the country. It is still going on here in Samut Prakan. Though we don't see this kind of self infliction.

We have that in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Penang too. The one in Penang will be of grander scale. Phuket and Penang Chineses are of same descent and religious belief, I think.
My whole family are vegetarian for the whole 9 days too, although I do it on best-effort basis.

Khun Chin is right, we have the Vegetarian Festival in Malaysia too, it is known as Kow Ong Yeah or Nine Emperor Gods Festival.

However, in my 27 years, and my yearly pilgrimage for the festivaly, I have yet to see anything like in Phuket. In Malaysia, there are piercings, fire-walking but on a much smaller scale.

I reckon the rituals performed are very unlike Buddhist festivals in Thailand. The Vegetarian FEstival sees a strong concentration of Mor Du (astrologers/medium)

I was told there is one in ChiangMai of similar scale? Is it true?

Well, yes and no. Like Richard said, this is a country-wide occasion. However, real practitioners of the Vegetarian Festival are not like the exhibitionist clowns that you see parading on Phuket's streets.

In the simplest form, they just abstain from eating any animal products for nine days. There are subtle variations on the theme, but the extremists you see there are the minority. They make all of the participants look like mad lunatics. :/

You can see even more gruesome pictures of this festival on our forums. Enjoy... I guess.

The guys are real brave... Must feel invincible for the moment?

Ugh, I hate to see that! Even my parents hate remembering this festival they saw many years ago.

Especially Vegetarian festival in India take time over 1 month and young girl if they eat vegatarian foods along the festival the future they will has nice husband.

The people who did these thing. Some of them belived that they can continue their life by keep doing these things for the sake of Gods otherwise they will die soon or later. These ceremony is not related to any kind of Buddism.

What the heck? This has to be a joke.

I have been to india & myanmar. In Rangoon they have 9 days vegetarian festival for worshipping the gods of sea. Although myanmar chinese did not pierce like phuket counterparts. They just hide away nine days of preparation of floationg the clay pot into the sea.

These Chinese are descentdents of Hokkien or Fukien. Their forefathers came from Fujian state of South East China. Something like scraficing for themself for devotion of Gods. It is more related to Taosim than Buddhisim.

Evan in Rangoon & some parts of India, Tamil hindu performed their religion belief as Phuket Chinese. At the peak of festival, they put the hot charcols inside their mouths. Scale of pierceing in the body is different. Plenty of long needles stabbed aroud the hip. On the day of festival they walk and dance on the streets. After the festival, they even walked on the burned & hot charcoals.

Strangely, they did not get big injury & burn. It is beyond the science. Anyway, it is very hard to watch as bystanders.