The bloody, drunk oracle in the beer bottle temple

Probably the weirdest night of my life....

There is a Tao temple here in Penang which is partially made up of empty beer bottles. (Carlsberg.) A group of us decided to go check it out. The architecture looks very odd since the empty beer bottles are built into the temple. There are pictures on my kodak gallery.

There is a man there who kind of reminded me of the ancient Greek oracle - he performs a ceremony and becomes a god and knows things about the future. He was there when we went and was about to perform this ceremony. As the white people there, we got pushed to the front. He started by drinking an absurd amount of alcohol and went into a trance with his eyes closed and his body shaking. We were invited to partake and drink along with him, which we of course did. He then took out a large sword and started cutting on his tongue repeatedly so there was basically a river of blood pouring out of his mouth, which he then proceeded to rub all over his face and head and body. At this point, as some other man explained to me, he had become the king of hell. He spoke in this odd low voice, in Chinese. Then we were allowed to talk to him (through an interpreter) and have him look into our futures. While he tells you about your future, he also head butts you and slaps you occassionally. The things he said though about people's problems and personalities were quiet accurate and fairly specific. Then the people at the temple brought out an entire roasted pig, which we ate and it was delicious.