Here comes the rain

The last update on the 9th was during a little dry spell - no rain for 4 days after a very very wet day on the 5th. It was a dry start to the vegetarian festival which started on the 7th with ceremonies at the shrines to raise the "Go Teng" pole down which the gods descend. Since the 7th I have been eating the vegetarian diet, buying food from restaurants and stalls flying the yellow flags. Today is the 15th, so the 9th day. I could do with a beer and a burger to be honest but can survive another day!

The 10th (Sunday) was the first main street procession of the festival - there had been a small one on Saturday also, but Sunday was the turn of Sapam Shrine, which is about 7km north of Phuket Town. I was there by about 6:45am. Skies were a bit grey... no sunshine, but no rain either, just a bit dull for nice photos. I stayed at the shrine for 45 minutes or so until the procession left to walk all the way into town.





• More photos of Sapam Shrine, Vegetarian festival on Flickr

After the 10th it got wet and windy. We've had divers signing up for dive courses at Sunrise Divers, let's hope next time they go diving it will be nicer weather. Rough seas and rain, not ideal for scuba, not ideal for much really! Well, it has to happen some time. The year has been pretty dry so far. And October is on average the wettest month. We're only halfway and already October has seen more rain than September.

Monday was a wet day but the early morning looked OK, so I was once again at a shrine, this time Sam Kong, which is on the northern edge of Phuket Town about 2km from the centre. Again, not sunny, and I think I'd have got wet had I followed the procession into town.



• More photos from Sam Kong Shrine, 11th October on Flickr

The rain has been heavy at times but also lots of light drizzle. Tuesday was grey all day, but Wednesday morning (13th) was great. I planned to be in Phuket Town by 7am for one of the big vegetarian festival processions from Bang Neow shrine which is in town. Weather looked unpromising at 6am but cleared up for a couple of hours and during the procession the sun did shine. Nice! Mind you, later it P*SSED down and in fact Wednesday was one of the wettest days of the year... I measured 72mm of rain! Which makes the sunny morning all the more special...





• More photos of the Bang Neow Shrine procession on Flickr (including some rather bloody ones :))

Still windy yesterday and another inch of rain. Today also wet.. (dashes out to shed to check) .. trusty rain gauge says 43mm so far. Rain is measured approx 8am - 8am. This morning was again grey and drizzly but I went to my local shrine in Kathu to try and get some more photos of mutilation and to try my new Canon 50mm F1.8 lens. Have not sorted out photos from this morning yet. Well, OK, here's one...



Hoping for a drier Saturday as I have a day off work and hope to go to Kathu Shrine again to see fire walking in the afternoon. For now, good night from a wet Phuket. I hope for plenty more rain in the next 2 weeks so we might have a nice dry November :)