Thailand Vegeterian Festival

Every year during the ninth lunar month, Thailand held  the vegetarian festival  for 11 day. Like  the name suggests, it involves eating meat-free dishes, but the event involves a lot more. Generally traveler who attends the festival remember something else …

The Vegetarian Festival is a Chinese tradition, so it’s mostly in Chinese temples that the event takes place. It celebrates the Chinese community’s belief that abstinence from meat and various other stimulants during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar will help them obtain good health and peace of mind. It is celebrated in temples where people pay homage to their ancestors and in the streets with parades and processions accompanied by numerous firecrackers. During this week all are invited to follow ten principles: wear white, do not eat meat, do not drink alcohol, do not have sex, etc … and menstruating women should not attend or even watch the festival. But what marks the most the foreigners during the event are the “extreme piercings” and the people walking barefoot on  hot coals barefoot.

If  you are not very found of tofu and vegetables, you may starve. By cons, if you like vegetarian food, you will probably not find more choice anywhere esle.

The best known Vegetarian Festival in Thailand is with no doubt the one held in Phuket with daily parades from one of the main sanctuaries of Phuket (you can find the detailed program here). In Bangkok, it’s in Chinatown, on Yoawarat Road thqt you have to go to attend the festivities.

This year the Vegetarian Festival will be held from September 23 to October 3, 2014.