Although the names of those who get treated here are never revealed, Thamkrabok Monastery has had many famous patients, from movie stars to high ranking politicians.

Hidden away in a forest, 140 km north of Bankok, Thailand, the Buddhist Monastery of Thamkrabok takes in alcoholics and drug users from all over the world. Unlinke famous detox clinics like Betty Ford (California), or Priory (London), this Thai monastery doesn’t have paparazzi lurking around, and it’s a lot cheaper. One month at Betty Ford Clinic costs $23,000, while just one week at Priory amounts to 5,000 pounds. At Thamkrabok Monastery, all you need is $3 for food, because treatment and accomodations are supported by donations.

Photos by GETTY IMAGES

The rehab treatment at Thamkrabok lasts 10 days, and only those who come of their own free will, are willing to follow all instructions, and are committed to kicking their habit for good, are welcome. When they decide to go to Thamkrabok Monastery, patients must realize they are in for a rude awakening. No matter their social status or wealth, patients will have to sleep in a mass dormitory, wake up very early and take every medicine given by the monks.

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Mable, a one-year-old hen, from Shrewsbury, Britain, has the impression she is a dog and takes the role of mother for a group of puppies.

Owners Edward and Ros Tate saved Mable from endig up in someone’s cooking pot, when she was hatched, a year ago. They’ve taken her in as a pet, but never noticed her strong maternal instinct, until Nettle, their dog, gave birth to puppies. The chicken observed the dog’s behaviour, and one day, as soon as Nettle left her nest, she hopped into her basket, snuggling up to the puppies, to keep them warm.

To the surprise of the owners and the actual mother, Mable keeps taking over the basket whenever she gets the chance.

via Daily Mail

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The Pig Contest of Guanshan Village, Guangdong Province, China, is a centuries old tradition dating back to the Qing Dinasty.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists, from all over China, travel to Guanshan, every year, to take a look at the hundreds of pigs on display at the Pig Contest. This year, around 500 oinkers were sacrificed, cleaned up and set on display to be admired by passers-by.

After the most handsome pig is allected, the festivities end in a gargantuan feast, when the tasty participants are sliced up and served to the public. Read More »

Three friends from Bellevue, Green Bay, managed to build Bigloo, the world’s biggest igloo, in just three months of work.

Paul Steckart and his friends were standing in his backyard, after a snowstorm, and one of them said “Why don’t we build an igloo?”. So they did some online research, employed the concept of the spiral, and managed to build a pretty sturdy igloo. That was last year. This year the Bellevue gang set off to build the biggest igloo in the world.

To complete Bigloo, Paul Steckart used all the snow in his backyard and started bringing in more building material, from his neighbors’ yards. He says it’s a fun way to spend time with friends, but building a monster igloo is more than just fun. It requires a lot of math and patience. The snow is mixed with water and thrown into a snowblower, before it’s stuck into plastic containers. Each Bigoo block weighs between 60 and 100 pounds, depending on the amount of water used.

The 17-feet 4-inch tall and 27 feet in diameter Bigloo is the largest igloo ever built, surpassing the previous record of 13 feet 8 inches tall and 25 feet 9 inches wide, dating from 2008, in Canada. All it needs now is official confirmation from a representative of the Guinness Book of Records.

Photos by Evan Siegle via GreenBayPressGazette

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Named “A Noiva”, which translates as The Bride, the 5-meter-high tampon chandelier is one of the main exhibits at Joana Vasconcelos’ “Netless” exhibition, in Lisbon.

If you’re unfamiliar with Joana Vasconcelos, she’s the artist behind the amazing stainless pot shoes installation that we featured a while back. “The Bride” is one of her most original artworks, made up of over 14,000 tampons, wire and cotton thread.

There’s nothing peculiar about Joana Vasconcelos’ chandelier, if seen from a distance, but as you approach you begin to make out the strange materials she used. Right now, the tampon chandelier is only soaking up the gazes of art lovers, and will continue to do so until the Belem Cultural Center exhibition ends, on May 18, 2010.

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Born at a normal weight, little Pang Ya now tips the scales at 41.5 kilograms, which is about as much as an adult Chinese woman.

Pang Ya weighed around 4 kilograms, when she was born, but reached 20 pounds in just 8 months, and ever since then she kept piling on the pounds. Now her worried parents are seeking medical help. They admit the toddler has a very healthy appetite, but claim doctors have no idea what is wrong with their daughter.

Pang Ya, from Taocun town, Shanxi province, is just one of over 60 million obese people in China. The numbers doubled between 1992 and 2002. That may have something to do with the opening of several fast-food chains in China.

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Located on the thin Curonian Spit that splits the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea, lies one of the strangest natural phenomena on Earth.

Known as the Dancing Forest by caretakers of Curonian Spit National Park and as the Drunken Forest, by locals, this unusual pine forest is made of trees of various shapes, most of them twisted in circles and spirals, along the ground.

According to tourists, the Dancing Forest looks more like a site near Chernobyl, with 20-year-old pines tied into natural knots and loops, like lumpy contortionists. A few years ago, the park manager invited students from local universities to conduct studies, and get to the bottom of the mystery.

Since then, several theories emerged, including one suggested by a psychic who said the forest is located on a spot where massive amounts of positive and negative energies collide. Others say the causes are geological, that it must have something to do with the unstable sandy soil. But the most widely accepted theory is that the Dancing Forest was manipulated by the powerful winds blowing in the area.

Whatever the reason, the Dancing Forest of Kaliningrad is definitely an interesting site, especially if you’re into strange natural phenomena.

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If you’re a fan of Discovery Channel, you know about Bear Grylls’ crazy adventures from “Man vs. Wild”, and particularly about the famous camel carcass he used to protect himself in the Sahara Desert.

In an original advertising move to promote the new season of “Man vs. Wild”, Discovery Channel placed a replica of the camel carcass in Sydney’s Wynyard Park and put it up for rent, on a popular website.

Passers-by had the chance to crawl inside the carcass, dubbed Camelot,  to see how Bear felt during his survival test in Sahara, and also fill in a form telling Discovery why they would be the best tenant for this unusual property, for the chance to win a holiday voucher worth $2,500. Read More »

Through her “Dream Anatomy” collection, artist Rachel Wright give anyone the chance to explore the realms of human anatomy, as they walk on the streets. She uses private clothing items like women’s slips and nighties, and transforms them into dresses meant to be worn outside.

Her Dream Anatomy models include “diafragma, pneuma, circulation or sacrum (sacred bone)”. Check out the whole anatomical collection on Rachel’s website and stop by her Etsy shop, if you want to buy some of her creations.

via StreetAnatomy

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Thanks to the invention of an animal-loving art student, little Hoppa can easily move around, even without front legs.

Hoppa, a 4-year-old mixed breed dog, from Tel-Aviv, israel, has received a very special gift, created especially for him. This adorable pooch was born without his front legs, and even though his owner, Avi Kuzi, showed him all the care and affection, he had trouble moving around.

But most of his problems were solved by a wheeling device custom made for Hoppa, by an art student, who hopes his invention could ease the life of pets born with abnormalities, or with amputated limbs. This is great, but dogs like Faith – the biped dog don’t need such contraptions.

Photos by REUTERS via CCTV

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Over 60 thousand people gathered in downtime Buffalo, for the Powder Keg Festival, and the chance to go through the world’s largest ice maze.

Apart from all the delicious food and the fun rides, people in Buffalo were most excited about the giant ice maze built in the center of the city. The world record creation was made up of 22 hundred blocks of ice that weighed 600 thousand pounds of ice.

Now, as the ice maze begins to melt, local authorities are confronted with a flooding problem, so they’ve set up several pumps to drain the water into the streets.

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Actually, Vijay has earned the nickname “Rubber Man” in his native country of India, for performing incredible flexibility stunts.

Vijay is able to wrap his legs over his head, wind his arms around his back, crawl his body through a tennis racket and even drink from a coke bottle held between his toes. The 27-year-old shop assistant says his passion for extreme flexibility tricks comes from watching Jackie Chan movies when he was a kid.

Vijay Sharma discovered his unusual talents when he began taking martial arts lessons, so he could follow in the footsteps of his idol. He started crawling into tight spaces, curling up in boxes, and before he knew it, he was earning the title of  “Rubber Man” in the Limca Book of records. That’s India’s version of the Guinness Book of Records.

Te ambitious young man has made appearances on national TV shows and won the silver medal in a body flexibility tournament, and says he will stop at nothing to reach the international fame he deserves. Maybe he could learn a thing or two from Rubberboy

Photos by BARCROFT INDIA via Daily Mail

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After changing his name from Har Parkash to Guinness Rishi, in order to show his commitment to setting Guinness records, this Indian daredevil wants to cover his body with 220 flag tattoos.

67-year-old Guinness Rishi constantly tries to make his family and the entire Indian people by constantly setting new records. He previously became father of the world’s oldest adoptee, after taking custody of his 61-year-old brother-in-law, and built the tallest sugar-cube tower in the world, which stood at 64 inches.

Now, Guinness Rishi wants to become a human flag pole, by tattooing 220 national flags on his body. He has started his effort at the top of his head, continued with his face, got a map of the world on his stomach, and plans to get his privates tattooed as well. He just hasn’t decided what he’s going to put down there. Rishi’s efforts began in 2009 and he plans to fulfill his dream in three years time, but by the looks of things, he just might finish ahead of schedule.

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Korean art Ji Yong Ho uses pieces of used tire to create rubbery artworks he refers to as mutants.

You’ve definitely seen tire sculptures before, and I posted some cool photos, a while back, but now, I can finally associate these recycled masterpieces with a name. And that name is Ji Yong Ho, a talented artists who likes to show the material’s possible mutations.

Ji Yong Ho wants to show tires, which are made from natural rubber liquids, pass through several stages, but can also be reborn as a whole new other form of life. His new creations are mutants of the original rubber. His works vary from an 11-inch-tall dog to a 10-foot long shark.

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Although he never got his hair officially measured and acknowledged by the Guinness Book of Records, Vietnamese herbalist Tran Van Hay was known as the man with the longest hair in the world.

According to his wife, Tran hadn’t gotten a haircut in over 50 years, after getting seriously sick after cutting his hair, when he was 25 years old. And, in half a century, he only washed it a few times, the last time being 11 years ago.

Tran Van Hay died of natural causes, at the age of 79, at his home in Kien Giang province, after dedicating his life to curing people, for free. His wife, Nguyen Thi Hoa, says Tran’s personality changed completely after he stopped cutting his hair – he became inspired by the local Buddhist monks, and lived a content life, as a herbalist.

At the time of his death, Tran Van Hay’s hair was over 6.8 meters long and weighed around 10.5 kilograms. As impressive as that sounds, the hair was a real problem for Tran, who couldn’t even catch a motorcycle taxi or work as a farmer, because of the giant pile of hair he had to balance on top his head.

via AsiaOne

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