Hard core tattoo tour

BANGKOK, 29 March 2013: Khiri Travel has just completed its inaugural trip to the Wai Kru religious tattoo festival in Nakhon Chaisi, Thailand, 22 to 23 March.

It took six curious hard core travellers, all resident in Thailand, on a special trip led by Tom and Aroon Vater, author and photographer of Sacred Skin, a book on Thailand’s spiritual tattoos. The company says it will organise a similar trip next year.

Popular with soldiers, policemen and members of Thailand’s underworld, the tattoos were said to have the power to stop bullets and break knife blades.

The monks of Wat Bang Phra in Nakhon Chaisi did the tattooing at the festival last week, which attracted about 10,000 devotees, most of them obsessed with spiritual and occult beliefs and the protective powers that tattoos and amulets allegedly bring.

Vater described the scene when the group arrived at Wat Bang Phra in the evening prior to the festival: “The temple courtyard was packed with people and stalls selling fried food. A giant screen showed movies. Visitors lay on mats in front, slowly falling asleep. Rolling Stones songs and Thai Luk Thung music blasted from a huge speaker system. It was a wonderful country fair ambience. Amazing Thailand indeed.”

Although most Thais are Buddhists, they also mix Hindu, Brahman, animism, and various superstitions into their spiritual belief.

Vater said that the trip might appear quite shocking for casual observers. Some of the possessed devotees transformed themselves into animals. They impersonated monkeys, snakes and crocodiles, adding maniacal laughter that resounded through the temple compound.

Devotees ran, crawled and slithered on the ground of the temple’s courtyard. Many tried to sprint towards the main stage where the monks were chanting. They stumbled and fell into the crowds, hurting themselves and other people.

Khiri Travel introduced this insanity in a bold new two-day trip to the festival, located 60 km west of Bangkok. The company used the quiet surroundings of the Parn Dhevi Riverside Resort and Spa as a sanctuary in between visits to the frenetic rituals played out at the temple.

Khiri Travel’s director of inbound sales, Sakai Naismith, who went on the trip, said: “All of our clients were blown away by it. They were all foreign residents of Thailand, but too intimidated to go by themselves. The Khiri trip with commentary and insights by Tom and Aroon was therefore the perfect solution.”

Khiri Travel will organise the trip again next year when the tour will include a visit to the amulet market in Wat Mahathat Bangkok before the journey to Nakhon Chaisi.

It decided to offer the experience as part of its commitment to delivering authentic discoveries and immersion into local culture in Thailand and the region.

Khiri Travel, established in 1994, is an independent destination management company with its own regional network. It has ten offices in Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia. Contact the Khiri Travel Group.

Sourced: ttrweekly