5) Lopburi Monkey Buffet Festival
Lopburi, Thailand
The Monkey Buffet fest is an interesting festival that takes place yearly in Thailand where the attendees lay out a buffet of fruits and nuts for the local monkeys. The festival is more of a tourist attraction festival but it is still quite interesting to witness and many people visit every year to do exactly that. The fest is located in a town called Lopburi, which is just north of the very popular Thai city of Bangkok. Food fights also break out during the monkey buffet fest, so if you plan on traveling to witness the spectacle be sure to wear old clothes just to be on the safe side.
4) La Tomatina
Buñol, Spain
La Tomatina is the world’s largest food fight which takes place for one week every year at the end of August in the town of Buñol, which is in the Valencia region of Spain. The festival draws a huge crowd from around the globe and the crowds range from 20,000 – 50,000 participants every year. Every year during this infamous food fight festival there are over 100 metric tons of tomatoes flung at each other in the streets of Buñol, in addition to the food fight there is plenty of music, games, fireworks, and dancing that takes place during the week long fest. La Tomatina has been going on in Spain since the 1940’s, and it has grown to a huge festival since, the food fight is only a small part of the fest and after that ends is when the real partying begins.
3) Cheung Chau Bun Festival
Cheung Chau, Hong Kong
The Cheung Chau bun festival takes place annually in April-May on the small island of Cheung Chau, about 7.5 miles south of the mainland of Hong Kong. The island is the most popular place for the festival and it is also the largest, but there are other places that you can find this celebration because it is traditionally a Taoist sacrificial ceremony. The festival draws thousands of people from all over the world because of the festivities, and there are many fun things to watch that will entertain as well as lots of good vegetarian food to eat. In fact, the festival is a complete vegetarian festival and people that celebrate it only eat vegetarian food for 3 days during the period. You will see all the locals, including children, all dressed up in colorful costumes and large towers of buns which are located in the main area of the celebration, which is always in front of the Pak Tai temple. The festival honors Pak Tai, the Taoist god of the sea. He is honored in this festival for helping save the island from pirates that attacked the island hundreds of years ago. The towers of buns are the towers they use for “bun snatching”, and this is where men climb the towers and snatch as many buns as possible. People attending will have plenty of sweet buns to eat as they are flung and showered over people during the fest and especially during the bun snatching ceremony.
2) Hadaka Matsuri
Japan
This is a very unusual festival that takes place annually throughout Japan; it is called Hadaka Matsuri or the Ohara Hadaka festival. The English translation: the naked man festival. It is a fest where men in loincloths (or naked if they choose), rush into the water in large groups while carrying Shinto shrines. By doing this it is said to bring the men good luck for the next year and the event is watched by large groups of people. Usually it takes place when it is in the middle of the winter and it is considered very masculine to participate. In some ways you could compare it to other folks around the world who participate in “Polar Bear Clubs” and go swimming in mid winter. The other part of the festival is when thousands of half naked men gather into a large group and then participate in trying to catch sacred shingi sticks which are tossed out by Shinto priests in the local temples. That part of the festival is a separate experience all by itself, and it is even more exciting than watching the men parade down to the sea from the temple before running into the cold water.
Men waiting for the tossing of the “Shingi” sticks
1) Baby-Jumping Festival
Castrillo de Murcia, Spain
This is by far one of the strangest festivals in the world, if not the absolute strangest. The festival itself dates back to the 17th century, and it is an annual event to celebrate the Catholic feast of Corpus Christi. The actual baby jumping is called El Salto del Colacho, or “The Devils Jump”. The men who are the jumpers dress up in various devil costumes and then they actually jump over babies that were born in the last 12 months. They lay the babies on mattresses in the city streets and then the men take turns and jump over them. It is considered a very dangerous festival as you can imagine, and it is rated one of the most dangerous of all festivals in the world. Based on the faith of the people involved they believe that jumping the babies helps to cleanse them from “original sin” and helps them to be free of evil spirits. The festivals origins are unknown and it is not approved by the Catholic Church, in fact the pope asked many priests to not be involved in the ritual. It has gone on for hundreds of years though and is very popular so it will not be stopping anytime soon.
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