Thugs dripping with amulets that can supposedly deflect bullets; sacred markings that make killers tremble with fear; and men possessed by the spirits of animals tattooed on their backs. You could be forgiven for thinking you’d just come across a Hell’s Angels rally, because big burly men covered in tattoos of serpents, tigers and bears are throwing themselves into a frenzy.
One man is tackled to the ground, eyes rolling, while another comes charging in, hissing and clawing his way towards a stage full of chanting Buddhist monks. This is World Wrestling Federation stuff – Thai occult-style – except none of it’s staged.
This is the annual Wat Bang Phra Tattoo Festival at Nakhon Pathom. The temple, famous for its magical tattoos, is located just outside Bangkok. Thousands of Thais, and a few foreigners, flock here annually to witness this bizarre event, paying homage to the revered monk whose helpers proudly bear his inscriptions. An area cordoned off by holy string, meticulously rolled out by the monks, is set aside for the devotees of this temple to sit and meditate, invoking the spirits of their magical tattoos. A thin line separates them from the crowd, which is braving unseasonable rainy weather to witness one of Thailand’s weirdest phenomena. A primal scream pierces the silence.
The wild party has begun, except there’s no yah ba (“crazy drug” or metamphetamines) here. Rather than a drug-crazed stupor, this crowd’s ‘altered state’ is the result of their fresh tattoos and meditating on Buddhist scripts.
The first to go loco is a scrawny man; he leaps into the air and lets out a guttural roar, signifying that the leopard etched into his skin has come to life. Advancing slowly, foaming like a rabid dog, he makes for the stage upon which the monks chant. But huge guards are prepared for such crazies, as they calmly wait to absorb the shock of these human cannon balls.
The bouncers stop the possessed man in his tracks, wrestle him to the ground, whisper spirit-exorcising words into his ears, and then blow hard. It works. The beast within is tamed and the exorcised man falls to the ground.
Another guy crawls through the mud on his knees hissing like a cobra at the guards, who maintain a cautious distance. “It’s always the snakes that strike the hardest,” said one veteran guard. He proudly shows me a scar from a past festival. “You can even see the fang marks,” he says.
Over the years, the guard has seen eyes gouged out and pieces of flesh bitten off. “It all comes with the territory,” he adds nonchalantly. Masochism is as much a part of the festival as the pantheon of tattoo spirits which are let loose once a year. This is the Thai equivalent of “British Bull Dog” – see how close you can get to the monks on the stage before being bowled over by the bouncers.
As the stampede progresses, the compound is transformed into a rodeo ring; the churned-up mud from the early morning drizzle provides a sloppy obstacle for all and sundry.
Amidst this seething pool of animism, a monk calmly guides me to the back of the temple, where the head monk is busy chiseling religious icons into fresh backs. Young males hang outside in the downpour, awaiting the initiation rites that will make them into men. Inside a pokey room clouded with incense sits a bald elfin-looking monk. He is Phra Sak Yant (Tattooing Man) and he looks as ancient as the tattered Buddhist scripts hanging on the walls.
Next to him are the grisly tools of his trade: a sharp meter-long skewer, plastic bottles filled with ink made from a combination of snake venom and a herb named 108 Tigers, and an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. “You’ve come for one of my specials?” asks the chain-smoking monk, who is surrounded by his assistants, living, breathing canvasses of dark blue.
I reply with a respectful wai.
I’m mesmerized by the monk and take off my shirt. Just to give you an idea of his charm, if he had requested a pint of Guinness for the tattoo, I would have returned with a crate a few hours later. Before I know it, the master is gouging his razor-sharp ‘wand’ into my virgin back for five agonizing minutes. Images of a dominatrix wielding a cat-o’-nine tails whip through my mind.
When the monk is finished, his assistant says to me, “You will never shake this monkey off your back.” I’m then handed a mirror so I can observe my fresh wounds. The tattoo is Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god. How did he know I was born in the Year of the Monkey? I wai the master again, hand him a packet of local cigarettes (the price of a tattoo) and suddenly feel a warmth inside me – maybe it’s the snake venom kicking in.
Then the Thais are beaming at me, and I’m beaming at them. It’s official; I’ve been initiated. Suddenly, reality bites into my raw back. Another Thai man casually remarks that this temple attracts gangsters and hit men seeking the protective powers of the master’s tattoos. In one famous tale, a tattooed bus driver thwarted a robber’s bullet by catching it with his teeth. Credible or not, such stories have built up this temple’s mystical reputation, and explain why magical tattoos are so popular with nak leng (gangsters).
“What the hit-men do with their magical tattoos outside of the temple is their own business,” says Somchai, a hulking Thai covered from head to toe in mythical creatures from Buddhist hell. He smiles at me, a smile of recognition that somehow says, “Welcome to the club.”
But the score of Buddha amulets hanging around his teak stump of a neck suggest that this man is no rice farmer from the impoverished northeast. “They were cast at Wat Paknam,” he volunteers. This temple, he adds, is renowned for amulets with such protective power that they are able to deflect bullets.
Hit men love relating their exploits when you express interest in either their amulets or tattoos. It was a day like any other, he says, when a couple of masked guys burst into his house brandishing guns. But their fear of his phra sak yant tattoos made them flee in terror. Somchai says today is special occasion when rival gangs can meet on mutual turf, let go of their rivalries for a day, and run amok under the watchful eyes of the monks.
Heading back to the main event, I feel empowered by my tattoo and rejoin the melee with a new sense of belonging. I play it safe, however, and strategically place myself close to the monks onstage.
Now I can handle this kind of thing, but when you are dealing with over 200 thugs, many of whom are killers-for-hire, and it’s their big day out, the situation’s predictability is zero.
So I go ‘ Zen’ and just flow with a mass of sweaty bodies intending to mob the stage and head into the temple. “Move to the right,” the bouncers scream. Miraculously, the mob does and the raging mass of testosterone is flushed away from the stage by the monks’ last line of defence – the hoses.
Eventually, I manage to escape the riptide of hysteria that is taking the participants somewhere I don’t want to go. The spirit of the monkey on my back leapt into life and showed me the way out.
