More Phuket

Today, having more time than money (more anything than money, really), I have done absolutely nothing. So I might as well finish the Phuket story, because when school starts again I don't think I'll get a chance.
So we arrived in Phuket Town itself at about 8am on Saturday morning. Coming in, it didn't look like anything I had imagined, and it didn't until I got to Kimmie's house, in a taxi that cost 400baht for a 30 minute trip. That's the second thing I noticed (after noticing that it wasn't what I had expected) - public transport in Phuket is nothing like Bangkok. None of the taxis have meters, apparently there's a taxi mafia that prevents this, and even motorbike taxis are hard to find. I hadn't realised how dependent I've become on public transport in one short month, having never used it before moving to this country. Also the taxis aren't cabs like in Bangkok, its more like a songtaew (a bakkie with benches on the back and a roof). But these are bigger, like a truck version.

Anyway, the man agreed to take us to Kimmie's house as per Nicola's instructions. Honestly, its for the greater good of mankind that that girl is learning Thai, I don't know where I would be without her. Lost in Phuket, that's where. Everything I know how to say is from her (except hong nam, that I learnt from Jay).

I couldn't resist taking some pictures on the way. The landscape is so much different to that of Bangkok, and absolutely beautiful. For once, Discovery was telling the truth :)

 Saturday night was to be the  culmination of the week's celebrations of the vegetarian festival, so there were believers lining the streets as we drove into town, all dressed in white. But more about that later.

Thais lining the street for Vegetarian Festival

 The turn-off to Kimmie's house is marked by a very cool orange giraffe, without whom we would never have found the place. Alas, Nicola's Thai does not extend to explaining giraffes, so we just went along slowly till I spotted it. You then walk down a very steep road (which the taxi man refuses to drive down) and then kind of call out until you hear familiar voices. The house itself is really cool, with all but the bedrooms and bathroom being open.

Everybody at the house had had quite a Friday night, so our early arrival wasn't quite as appreciated as it would have been later in the day.
We headed down to the beach (a mere 15 steps from the house) and lazed around for most of the morning. This was perhaps not so wise, as I was a bit red and sensitive the next day or so. The beach is so incredibly beautiful, I think if I lived here I would never go to school.

Kimmie lives in Ao Yon, or Yon Bay, which is a little secret in Phuket. Its like a little village of foreign travellers, hardly any Thai people around. The up-side of this is that you can communicate with everybody, while the down side is that you could be on an island anywhere in the world.

After roasting ourselves on the beach we had lunch at Pedro's house (a nice teacher-trainer from Ecuador). He's really well-travelled - next on his list is Nepal, and maybe at some point 'Black Africa'. I had to laugh.
He and Carlos (another very well-travelled guy, Mexican) made som tam, which is a Thai salad made with papaya and shrimp. It is very very spicy. I might even want to put another 'very' in there. But it is also lovely, and they fried some fresh fish to go with it. Yummy. I say 'shrimp' because here there is no differentiation between shrimp and prawn. I'm sometimes disappointed by my order arriving with only little babies in it, where I expected big prawns, but more often than not they're great. Prawn/shrimp/gung are very commonplace and cheap, even in Bangkok. My mama would be in her element.

We went back to the beach for a short while and had a shower before making a move towards the festival celebration in town.

Now, about this Vegetarian Festival...Do not be confused by the word 'vegetarian' into thinking, as I did, that this was a peaceful hippy gathering of people protesting for the rights of the chickens. It is in fact almost the exact opposite.
The festival is the beginning of the Taoist Lent, so really a Chinese festival. What happens is that followers of this religion abstain from meat and a host of other things for the period of lent, which is the only vegetarian thing about it. On the Friday night and earlier in the week, followers had been making themselves more inviting to be possessed by ancient spirits. Still doesn't sound too bad, right? Well, the way they do it is by ritual mortification - piercing their cheeks with sharp objects and lashing themselves, grazing the blade of an axe across their backs and so on. The reason for this is that pain purifies the soul, and enough of it induces the person into a trance state whereby they are more inviting to the spirits.

The Saturday night, as I said, was to be the culmination of all this mortification, where those who had been selected by the spirits would be possessed at the beginning of the procession, and then walk for about 4 hours blessing families and stuff. The procession is quite something, they move through the streets of Phuket and the rest of the city crowds around them, throwing fire crackers at them. You've never heard such a racket in your life. And the spirits enjoy the fire crackers, so the possessed people actually stand still and let you throw the crackers at them.

Most people were wearing masks to avoid smoke inhalation.

The lady in pink is the one posessed, the rest are there to help her and give her water and so on, they walk the whole way with her.

They don't seem to feel any pain, but I certainly did when I got caught by a stray one.
The video explains it better, but I took it sideways and now don't know how to flip it.

We returned to Kimmie's house, tired and having had enough noise, to have drinks on the beach and play the song game, although Ben and Pedro didn't sing very much. I've really missed Kimmie.

Sunday was a lovely lazy day, we had lunch at a restaurant just down the road called The Beach Bar, lay around on the beach cementing my sunburn some more and did absolutely nothing productive. Lovely. 

The path down to the beach bar.

More tomorrow.