It’s that time of the year again. Actu­ally, it’s almost over. Today the aptly named Phuket Veget­arian Fest­ival ends. Des­pite spend­ing years in and around Thai­l­and, some­how I always man­aged to miss this little happening.

The fest­ival, which lasts for sev­eral days, star­ted in 1825, when a group of opera sing­ers got ser­ously sick and then mira­cu­lously got bet­ter again after adher­ing to a strict veget­arian diet to hon­our their gods. I would like to know how they got from that to stick­ing lots of sharp pointy things through their cheeks and vari­ous other body parts.

The wounds appar­ently heal very fast and don’t leave any scars, so maybe the gods that healed the opera sing­ers are still around and look out for their followers…