Ko Samui, Thailand

During the night we sailed to a new island called Ko Samui. We had to take a boat tender to the island.

This beautiful island is only 15 miles long and 13 miles wide and has about 45 thousand people. The island has mountainous terrain and is ideal for coconut palms. There are some fairly big plantations. To help on these plantations they train monkeys to climb the coconut trees and the pick nut. These monkeys are sent to school for six months to learn how to find the ripe coconuts and how to twist it off. We had a drink of milk from a coconut and watched one of the monkeys.

I saw a water buffalo and took this picture for Chelsea.

Next they had us walk through the fishing village of Baan Hua Tanon. I'm sure that I would never eat anything from there...Flies! They sold bottles of gas for motorbikes.

The next stop was to visit the huge Seated Buddha built in 1972. It sits on the top of a rocky islet on the northeast coast of the island.


So much of this island is turning into large resort developments. The beaches are so pretty. No building can be built taller than the coconut tree. (three stories high)

We had a Thai buffet lunch down by the seaside. It was really good. We have learned to enjoy a Thai dessert made with sticky rice cooked in coconut milk and served with very ripe mango slices. The rice is warm and the mango is cold. The mango only gets this sweet a couple of months of the year.


On our way back to the ship, I tried to take pictures while the bus was moving of the little houses placed in the front of some homes. If there is only one pole holding up the house, the people would make offerings so that there would be a good spirit at their home. If there was four poles holding it up then they made an offering to the spirit of a person that had once lived in that house.


We had to take a old boat tender back to our ship. We were so tired that we couldn't even leave our cabin the rest of the night.