I love spicy food, but I don't think you could pay me any amount of money to sit in a tub full of hot peppers!
Would you? If this sounds appealing to you, consider heading over to Ningxiang in China's Hunan Province, where they have a spicy chile pepper eating contest.
Daring spicy food fans have to sit in a vat full of chiles and water and let the capsaicin seep into their skin while they devour some seriously hot peppers, according to NDTV.
The painful competition took place on August 12, and if the well-known spiciness associated with Hunan foods is any indication, I can only assume that these chiles packed near-deadly heat.
In fact, the contest started as something of a tourism advertisement for the region's deliciously hot food, in the hopes that it would bring more interested foreigners to check out the area.
This year, a man named Su braved the scary chile water and guzzled down 15 chiles in a mere 60 seconds. Color me impressed!
It's not clear what the poor guy won, but I hope it was worth it.
If this sounds like your idea of a fun afternoon, you can likely find a hot pepper contest a little closer to your home, although you probably won't be sitting in a tub full of chile pepper juice unless you bring your own.
According to Thrillist, some of the hottest pepper eating contests around the world are: the Clifton Chilli Club Chilli-Eating Contest in Bath, England; the Naga King Chili-Eating Competition in Nagaland, India; The Curry Contest in Edinburgh, Scotland; the Bhut Jolokia "Ghost Chili" Challenge in Ban Karon, Thailand; and the Hatch Valley Chile Festival chile-eating contest in Hatch, New Mexico.
From eating a bowl of ghost chile curry and going three minutes without water to downing as many chiles as you can in a matter of seconds, these contests run the gauntlet when it comes to rules.
But one thing's for sure: they're all too spicy for me.