The Bangkok Podcast | Expat Life In Thailand Via Expats From Canada & America

You may or may not have heard about the Sak Yant tattoo festival before, but after hearing this episode of the Bangkok Podcast, you sure as darn heck won't be able to forget about it. For years travelers have been entertained by tales of screaming men rushing the stage, possessed by the spirits of the tattoos that cover their bodies in sheets of intricate sub-dermal ink. But it's not merely an odd tourist attraction - the men who have them, the monks who give them, and the shamans who 'recharge' them all hold the tattoos - and the power they say they represent - in the highest regard. With an origin story that involves a Burmese invasion, sinking boats, lost Buddha images, and man-eating tigers, it sounds like something from a novel by Graham Greene or Joseph Conrad, but it's all - very probably - true. Evo and his lovely wife Sheila headed up to Wat Bang Phra in Nakhon Pathom - about 50km west of Bangkok - to check out the festivities and boy did they get the goods. Hanging out with devotees on Friday evenin