The Sound That Starts It All
The first thing you notice isn’t the processions or the food stalls — it’s the firecrackers. They start before dawn, a rolling barrage that shakes windows and sets off car alarms across Phuket Old Town. By the time you step outside, the air is thick with gunpowder smoke and incense, and the street in front of Jui Tui Shrine is already packed three deep.
The Phuket Vegetarian Festival — or the Nine Emperor Gods Festival, as it’s properly called — runs for nine days during the ninth lunar month. In 2026 that falls on September 27 to October 5, though you should double-check closer to the date since lunar calendar conversions can shift. The whole thing is a Taoist purification ritual, centered on Phuket’s Chinese shrines, and it’s been going on since 1825 when a Chinese opera troupe supposedly cured a local epidemic by performing the rites they’d been neglecting.
It’s also, arguably, the best street food event in Southeast Asia. But we’ll get to that.
What Actually Happens During Nine Days
The festival has a daily rhythm, though each day is different. Mornings typically bring the processions — lines of devotees in white, led by spirit mediums (called mah song) who enter trance states and perform acts of self-mortification. This is the part that makes international news: metal rods, swords, and various objects pierced through cheeks and tongues. It’s genuinely difficult to watch for some people, and nobody will judge you for looking away.
The processions wind from shrine to shrine through Old Town, accompanied by drum teams and what can only be described as a wall of firecrackers. The noise is physical. Bring earplugs — not optional, genuinely bring earplugs.
Between the processions, there are firewalking ceremonies, bridge-crossing rituals, and bladed-ladder climbing at different shrines. Each shrine operates on its own schedule, and the only reliable way to know what’s happening where is to check locally when you arrive. Printed schedules exist but they’re mostly in Thai and Chinese.
The evenings are calmer. Shrines hold prayer ceremonies, and the streets around them turn into open-air food courts that run late into the night.
The Food Is the Real Reason to Go
Let’s be honest: most visitors who aren’t Taoist devotees come for the food. And the food is extraordinary.
During the festival, hundreds of stalls and restaurants across Phuket fly yellow flags printed with 齋 (jai), marking their food as festival-compliant — no meat, no garlic, no onion, no strong-smelling herbs. Within those constraints, the variety is staggering. Deep-fried taro cakes, mock-duck curry over rice, peppery tofu skewers, vegetarian pad thai with crispy mushroom bits, sweet potato dumplings, kueh in every color.
The main food corridor runs along Ranong Road outside Jui Tui Shrine — over a hundred vendors crammed into a few blocks. It gets chaotic, especially in the evenings, but that’s part of the appeal. Expect to spend 100–300 baht per meal, though if you get into the snacking rhythm (which you will), it adds up.
One thing worth knowing: the food standards are self-regulated. Most stalls are genuinely strict about the rules, but there’s no certification body. If you have severe allergies or very strict dietary needs, communicate clearly — Thai vegetarian festival food follows Taoist dietary rules, which are different from Western vegetarian or vegan categories.
Three Shrines, Three Personalities
Jui Tui Shrine on Soi Phutorn is the epicenter. The biggest processions start and end here, the food corridor surrounds it, and it’s the most crowded and intense. If you only visit one shrine, this is it — but arrive early, because by mid-morning the crowd makes it hard to see anything.
Bang Neow Shrine is a few blocks south and slightly less overwhelming. Its processions tend to be somewhat smaller but just as dramatic. The shrine itself is ornate and worth visiting during quieter moments.
Kathu Shrine is outside of town, up in the hills near the old tin mining area, and this is where it all started. In 1825, a visiting Chinese opera troupe fell ill and realized they hadn’t performed their annual purification rituals. When they did, the illness passed — or so the story goes — and the tradition stuck. Kathu is less touristy, and the atmosphere there feels different from the organized chaos of Phuket Town. Getting there requires a taxi or scooter; it’s about 15 minutes from Old Town.
The Parts Nobody Romanticizes
The heat is brutal. Late September in Phuket means temperatures in the low 30s with high humidity, and you’ll be standing in crowds without shade for hours if you’re watching processions. Bring water, wear sunscreen, accept that you’ll be drenched in sweat by 9 AM.
Traffic during the festival is genuinely terrible. Procession routes close streets unpredictably, and what should be a 10-minute drive can take 45 minutes. Walking is usually faster within Old Town, but the sidewalks are packed too.
Accommodation prices spike, obviously. Old Town guesthouses that normally run 800–1,200 baht per night can double or triple during festival week. If you want to stay walking distance from the shrines, book well in advance — Agoda tends to have the widest selection of Old Town properties, including some of those converted Sino-Portuguese shophouses. Trip.com is worth checking too, especially for larger hotels. Staying in Patong is an option if Old Town is sold out, but you’ll spend a lot of time in transit.
Also: your phone signal will struggle. The crowds create dead zones around the shrines, and uploading photos can take forever. Just accept it.
Getting There and Around
Phuket has an international airport with direct flights from Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and several Chinese cities. From the airport to Old Town is about 45 minutes by taxi — maybe longer during the festival.
Within Old Town, walk. Seriously. A scooter is useful for reaching Kathu Shrine or exploring other parts of the island on quieter days, but during procession hours, motorized transport in central Phuket Town is more trouble than it’s worth.
For organized tours and day trips — including festival-specific ones that hit multiple shrines with a local guide — KLOOK and KKday both list Phuket experiences. I haven’t tried the guided festival tours myself, but having someone who knows the procession schedule could save a lot of guesswork.
Before You Go: A Few Things
Wear white if you’re visiting the shrines. It’s not mandatory for tourists, but it’s the expected attire for anyone participating in the rituals, and wearing colors can feel conspicuous.
The pole-raising ceremony (sak koei) happens the evening before the festival officially begins — September 26 in 2026, presumably — and it’s worth catching if you arrive early. Each shrine raises a tall lantern pole to invite the Nine Emperor Gods to descend. The ceremony at Jui Tui usually draws the biggest crowd.
Don’t photograph the mah song with flash, and ask before taking close-ups. Most people are respectful about this, but it’s worth saying. These are genuine religious rituals, not performances.
The Walk Back
The last night is the send-off ceremony — burning paper offerings at the shrines to see the Nine Emperor Gods off. By then the street food vendors are starting to pack up, and there’s a strange quiet settling over Old Town after nine days of constant noise.
I walked back to my guesthouse that night along Thalang Road, past the shuttered shopfronts and the lingering smell of incense. A stray dog was eating leftover fried taro from a paper plate someone had left on the curb. My ears were still ringing slightly from the morning’s firecrackers.