Ko Samui, Thailand: Good for a half day…not much more…

Ko Samui is becoming one of Thailand’s “go to” beach resort areas. It is one of the largest islands off the Thai coast and we had half a day there.



Frankly, half a day was enough for us. Although the beaches are among the most beautiful we have seen anywhere, the entire island appears to be overrun with schlocky tourist resorts, tourist bars, tourist restaurants, tourist dives, tourist ____ (insert your own word here).

Our half day was an opportunity to drive through this stuff to get to an adult amusement park (cheesy as it turned out to be) and a look at a large Buddha statue that must have once been really something to see.

We anchored offshore about three miles out. Normally we would have anchored about a half mule out, but the Royal Thai Navy was on maneuvers and we were held much further offshore. What we had expected to be a ten-minute tender ride, turned into a half-hour ride each way.

Once ashore, we piled into mini-vans for the half-hour ride out to the Elephant Trek Park (“Funny Day Safari” – can you believe it!!). Along the way we were treated to a continuous strip of the aforementioned list of tourist stuff. Personally, we were disappointed since we had been told that Ko Samui was such a great place for locals and visitors to vacation. Think of the Florida Keys and Key West on steroids…

The Funny Day Safari was interesting. It appears to be a farm that has been converted to the adult version of state fair pony rides with elephants instead of ponies. Each elephant is mounted by a trainer and has a plank seat for two people. Several of our traveling companions had some issues trying to mount the seat and get “belted” in. The seat belt was actually an iron rod that was placed in front of the seat similar to that of a roller coaster.

Unfortunately, Bonnie was one of those unable to mount the seat because it was both too high and there was nothing to grab on to to pull oneself up. Yours truly had the seat to himself and off we went. My elephant was a 15-year-old named Tonlay and her trainer was Thom (silent “H”). The “trek” was a well-worn path through the fields that Thom and Tonlay had obviously been doing for years.

After I got into the seat and get anchored by the iron rod, Tonlay started moving. What followed was about 30 seconds of abject terror (on my part) coupled with about 15 minutes of gentle rocking as we moved slowly around the trail.





We made it back to the loading point without further incident and I unbolted, returned to terra firma, told Tonlay what a good girl she was, tipped Thom, and we proceeded with the rest of the group to the “Baby Elephant Show.” The show was 15-20 minutes of circus-like stuff by two young elephants (3 years and 5 years). That was followed by the “Monkey Show.” This was another 15 minutes or so of a demonstration showing how they train macaque monkeys to climb trees (not much training required there) and pick coconuts for export. Thailand is the world’s largest exporter of coconuts and coconut products.

When the monkey climbs the tree, he has been taught to twist the coconut so that it becomes detached from its root and falls to the ground where the trainer picks it up and bags it. We are told that the monkeys can pick from 600 to 1000 coconuts a day, whereas when men are hired to do the same job they can only produce from 200-300 coconuts a day. Men require time to recover from climbing trees, they need a smoke break, they need a bathroom break, they need lunch, they need time to re-adjust their garments, etc..Monkeys do not have a strong union and can thus be made to work up to ten-hour days with no long breaks.

I have purposely not included any pictures of the animal shows here. As we were riding back to the tender dock, I got to thinking about how the animals live. I believe they are treated OK - after all, these folks must make their living from these shows. However, I also saw signs of stress among the animals. I am no expert on animal behavior (except for my own in my misspent youth...), but the pacing, head-shaking, and constant reaching for visitors, it seems to me that they really need alone time and room to roam. Enough of my rant.

We left the “farm” to go to the coast and view the “Big Buddha.” No joke, it is officially named the Big Buddha since it is no longer a consecrated worship site. The statue sits on a high platform with a long set of stairs that allowed the faithful to work their way up to Nirvana. The view from the top is great, but the heat precluded any of us from making that trek.

 As we entered the area where the Big Buddha is located, all we saw were shops and restaurants.

The temple itself is rather interesting. If it had not been so hot and sticky, I would have tried for Nirvana. As it was, we bought our obligatory refrigerator magnet and opted for the shade of one of the stores.

We took a few pictures and mostly strayed through the gift shops, tee-shirt shops, beach stuff shops, and food stands until our half-hour of free time was up. Then it was back in the van for the trip back to the tender dock, tender out to the ship, and up anchor to begin the next leg to Singapore.

We know that Singapore will be much more exciting and we plan some better adventures there. We will have two days there, so stay tuned…