Speaker 1:

The Thai island of Phuket is perfect for that quiet, well earned getaway. It's beaches, the ideal panacea for the pressures of modern life. But across the steamy hills in the old town, there's an ancient ritual that's anything but serene. It's gruesome excesses rarely seen and barely understood by foreigners.

Once a year, the Gods visit Phuket by possessing these mediums. Say they go into a deep trance and remember nothing.

Speaker 2:

It's something incredible; we have to see that, we have to see that in life, only one time, yeah.

Speaker 3:

It's a horrible thing to look at.

Speaker 4:

I have a bit of weak feeling in my body today. I was not prepared for this.

Speaker 1:

These tough guys of religious faith use pain defying acts to prove they're divinely empowered. This is body piercing in the extreme, and it's not for the faint hearted. For the local lads, it's become a test of macho bravery and adopted some unlikely modern embellishments. A lampshade or crowbar can be handy to prove possession or how about this beach umbrella. Women get in on the act and some of them start very young.

22 year old [inaudible 00:01:38] says he became a medium when the Gods saved his life in a car crash. He says it doesn't hurt, he doesn't use drugs and he doesn't remember a thing while in the trance. It's really all about reaffirming the people's largely Chinese origins. The ritual was revived by early Chinese settlers as a way to combat the tough conditions and disease of what was then, a foreign land. Today it's bigger than ever.

Speaker 5:

This is a time for abstention, for purification, it's a Lent. Because they believe in this time, because of constellation of the stars, it is time of calamity. So by conducting this ritual, they can avoid this and at the same time, instead achieve peace and harmony, even prosperity.

Speaker 6:

Right.

Speaker 1:

He says the festival started as a sober Taoist ritual and excessive impaling, well that's the Thai's sort of getting out of hand. Out of the trance our young medium says, he doesn't remember a thing.

Speaker 7:

[foreign language 00:02:46] I don't remember anything.

Speaker 1:

At night possession comes in all shapes and sizes. [inaudible 00:03:18] is the temple's chief medium. Tonight he leads the other mediums on their test, a ladder of sharp metal blades. Next is fire walking on a metre deep pile of red hot coals that's been burning for hours. But at the end of the night, there's always one foreigner who just has to try, and he won't forget that in a hurry. Temple guardians say, he didn't have enough faith.

On the last day, the people line up to cross a symbolic bridge of purity; it's a bit like collective confession. Crossing the bridge leaves all the bad things you did behind and sets you up for 12 months of good luck. And maybe that's why this enduring celebration will last for a long time to come.