Jui Tui Shrine

Jui Tui Shrine, formally Jui Tui Tao Bo Keng, is a Chinese Taoist shrine on Soi Phuthorn off Thanon Ranong in Phuket Town, founded in 1911 and rebuilt in 1982 after the original structure aged past repair. Its name comes from จุ้ยตุ่ย, meaning “water-powered rice mortar” — a reference to a watermill that once stood on the canal in front of the shrine. Entry is free, and it opens daily to worshippers and visitors, roughly 6am to 8pm on an ordinary day.

This is the shrine most closely associated with the origin of Phuket’s Vegetarian Festival (the Nine Emperor Gods Festival), a nine-day, nine-night rite of purification that has run in the city for more than a century. Devotees observe a strict vegetarian diet, and the festival is known internationally for its processions of mediums (ma song) performing body-piercing rituals, fire-walking, and the raising of a tall lantern pole that marks the festival’s start. Dates follow the Chinese lunar calendar — the ninth lunar month — so they move around the Gregorian calendar each year, typically falling in September or October; check the current year’s dates rather than assuming they repeat from a previous visit.

Outside festival week, Jui Tui functions as a working neighbourhood shrine. Red pillars, gilded roof carvings, and deity statues fill the main hall, and it is common to see locals shaking bamboo fortune sticks (see-hai) or lighting incense at the altars on an ordinary weekday morning. The atmosphere is unstaged — this is a functioning place of worship for Phuket’s Hokkien Chinese community, not a museum piece, and visitors are welcome to observe respectfully rather than treated as a photo backdrop.

Insider Tip: Visit on an ordinary morning, not just during the festival, to see the shrine as locals actually use it — quieter, with regular worshippers coming and going, and none of the festival crowds or road closures.

Watch out: If you’re planning around the Vegetarian Festival specifically, verify the dates for the year you’re travelling. Because they’re set by the lunar calendar, a date that worked one year can be weeks off the next, and festival crowds, road closures, and shrine hours all shift around it.

Jui Tui sits within easy walking distance of Phuket Old Town, and two of the city’s other major Vegetarian Festival shrines make natural companions to a visit: Bang Niew Shrine, another of the festival’s key ritual sites, and Kathu Shrine, traditionally cited as where the festival first began in Phuket.