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Photo 1: Chinese and Thai Buddhist religious items sit on the dashboard of local taxi cab driver Boonsom Kongyont. Kongyont, reflected in his rearview mirror, is a deeply religious person who feels that Mother Nature came calling because people had gotten greedy and ruined the land by overdevelopment and overuse of the natural resources.

Photo 2: Closeup of Kongyont’s dashboard.

Photo 3: A Buddhist monk from the SuwanKhiri Temple prays and chants in the temple’s shrine.

Photo 4: A Buddhist monk from the SuwanKhiri Temple uses a plank of wood to ring the bells in the temple’s towers at sunset to call the other monks to prayer.

Photo 5: The holy day of Eid al Adha brought thousands of faithful Muslims to Banda Aceh’s Mesjid Raya Baiturrahman, the largest mosque in the town’s center. The Eid is the festival of sacrifice and celebrates the end of the Hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

Photo 6: At the end of the prayer service, animals such as camels, goats and cows have their throats cut for a sacrifice. The meat is then divided up and handed out to the poor. This year’s Eid al Adha is particularly meaningful and hard for the Acehans as they continue to come to grips with the tsunami’s aftermath.

Photo 7: The mosque is so full for the holiday that thousands of Muslims listen and pray to the service from the outside grounds. Emotions were high on the first Eid al Adha after the tsunami took so much from the Acehans.

Photos 8-11: More images of Eid al Adha

Photos 12-16: The mosque is so full for the holiday that thousands of Muslims listen and pray to the service from the outside grounds.

Photos 17-20: Cows are sacrificed at the end of the Eid al Adha service. The meat is divided up and handed out to the poor.

Photo 21: Blood drips off a knife and the hands of Daud Hanafia, right, after he finishes slaughtering one of many bulls and goats on this holy day.

Photo 22: A copy of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, sits on a window sill of the house of Ruwaida Ibrahim, which was destroyed by the tsunami.

Photo 23: The Phuket vegetarian festival first started around 1825 when a visiting Chinese entertainment troupe succumbed to malaria, which was epidemic on the island. By strict adherence to a vegetarian diet and purity through deeds and thoughts, the worst ravages of the plague were beaten. This custom was adopted by the local populace and has been followed by Phuket’s Chinese community and Thais on every ninth Chinese lunar month since.
During the Vegetarian Festival in October, for nine days, urban Chinese-Thai, particularly in Phuket, Trang, Krabi, Takua Pa, Satun, and Ranong, cleanse themselves spiritually and physically by abstaining from meat, alcohol, sexual encounters, lying, uncharitable thoughts and aggression.

Photos 24-28: During the Vegetarian Festival, much public focus is on the “spiritual devotees” or “Ma Soung.” These are young men or women who will undergo rites of purification at a Chinese temple, inviting benign gods to possess their soul days before the festival. Once in a trance they pierce their flesh, usually their faces, with knives, metal rods or sharp instruments and begin their street procession of the “spiritual devotees” accompanying Kiu Ong Yeh, the spirit of the Nine Emperor Gods who is carried aloft in a palanquin carriage.

The “spiritual devotees” allegedly do not feel pain. The cutting shows how powerful they are.

Traditionally, these rituals take place in October for the Vegetarian festival. Although Thais will perform these rituals throughout the year to call upon the spirits for guidance, help or prayer.