So after a long weekend in Singapore I made my way to Penang by train.  It was a long 14 hour ride, but it was comfortable enough.  Luckily I learned from last time that the train can be cold from the constant AC so I was prepared with a flannel shirt.  My friend's dad picked me and we had a quick dinner then it was off to bed because we would have an early start the next day. Tomorrow would be the beginning of the Thaipusam festival.  Thaipusam is a festival were people give offerings to the god to be blessed with good luck and fortune for the next year.  It occurs on the first harvest moon of the year.  Offerings consist of milk, fruits, money, but they can also be very extreme as some men show there devotion through piercings.  As a warnings some of the pictures in this blog may be a bit disturbing and parents may want to check the entire blog before letting children view it.

The next morning we got up early and went to Little India for the parade.  The parade basically consists of one chariot with a statue of the main Hindu god.  The chariot was going from one temple to another across town, but it would take all day as the chariot constantly stops to allow the people to give offerings and pray to the god.  Here is the chariot and the priests taking the offerings for the god.



One of the many ways people give offerings is through breaking coconuts in front of the chariot.  All along the parade path, which is easily a few miles long, you will find giant piles of coconuts.



After taking this picture my friend and I joined in.  Let me tell you that it is actually harder than it looks.  I threw my first coconut at too much of an angle and it ended up bouncing across the street into the crowd on the other side.  So I learned that you need to throw them pretty much straight down.  Because there are so many broken coconuts in the road there are tractors waiting to clean the mess up before the chariot goes by.  This was basically the morning session on the first day.

That afternoon we drove the parade path to see all the booths and shrines that line the entire way to the waterfall temple which is where the parade ends.  Then we had lunch in the park.

That night we went back to the waterfall temple and climbed to the top so my friends could pray and give offerings.  As you can see the temple is all lit up at night.



After the temple we ran into a group of stick dancers and drummers who were wlaking around putting on a show for the public.

The next day was the actual day of Thaipusam.  Two of my friend's cousins were taking part of the morning session and his brother was taking part in the evening session.  So in the morning we went to the park were everyone that is participating in Thaipusam prepares.  My friend was very involved in preparing his two cousins.  I even helped out a little bit.  There are 3 basic styles of piercings that men get for Thaipusam.  I will show you all three styles.  The first is hooks in the chest and the back.  Here is my friend's cousin getting pierced in the chest.



If you look closely you can see that he is also pierced between the eyebrows.  These hooks are very small and just lightly pierce the skin, but from the look on their faces they could feel each hook piercing their skin.  In addition to these piercings he will wear a giant head dress.



What he will do is then walk from the park to the waterfall temple a few miles away.  All along the way there will be shrines to pray at and booths with free food and drinks.  But most importantly there will be plenty of music and they will stop and dance the whole way there.  The second style of piercing is a bunch of thick hooks in the back attached to ropes.



The ropes will be used to either drag a person who is resisting their forward progress or the ropes will be attached to a float which they will drag behind them.  And just to be clear they are dragging the float all by themselves.  They are receiving no help at all.  Finally, the third style of piercing is a bunch of jars attached all over the body by small hooks.



As you can see these guys had the jars and the back hooks.  There were four guys pulling this huge float.  Another common piercing is facial piercing.  In the evening I got to see my friend's brother undergo the facial piercings along with the small hooks in the chest and back.  Here is a picture of my friend's brother after they finished piercing his face.



As you can see he has hooks all over his face along with a pierced tongue and mouth.  He also wore a giant head dress and he had to walk and dance for hours like this.  All along the way I got to help him drink and clear the path for him.  It was so much more exciting to be involved in it with someone I know.  I wasn't like all the other tourist who couldn't take pictures fast enough.  Instead I was involved.  I really enjoyed the experince.  In the end my friend even gave me the honor of bringing his head dress down from the temple.



This was a great honor and experience.  It was also a very long day as we did not get home until 5 am.  The next night we went back to Little India to see the chariot returning back to the original temple and that was pretty much the end of Thaipusam.  I would then leave the next morning back to Singapore (this time by plane).