Koh Samui, Thailand

December 02, 2023

THEY ARE GETTING GOOD AT SELFIES!!!!

What to make of a place where you spent a whole week thirty years ago and have very little memory of? Such a place for us was Koh Samui in Thailand. Back then we were leaving China on our way back to the States after two years in China. We bought an airplane ticket in Hong Kong that gave us three weeks in Thailand and three weeks in Turkey and three weeks in Europe. We landed in Bangkok and headed for the back packers h(e)aven Samui Island (koh means island and is not used much by natives when talking about “koh” Samui) almost immediately. Jen had a nasty ear ache and was not doing much for the first few days. We remember fruit smoothies and island food and…..Hopefully this blog will help us remember more.

First, today, we needed to get to shore. It was our first “tender” transfer which means that our ship is
anchored offshore and we passengers need to take a boat from the ship to the dock. Sometimes this is
an easy maneuver (even with way too elderly people determined to proceed) but more often, the ship
and the tender are bouncing in the waves which makes balance and walking the plank between a major
adventure. Remember that this needs to happen twice: to land and back to ship. Well, the adventure
began just by getting off the ship. Winds and waves forced the gangplank to be moved to the opposite
side of the ship just as a large group was getting ready to disembark. (Our huge ship can provide a
windbreak for the tender boarding, but it’s a huge liability to all the crew who are helping people get on
and off.) Another adventure was getting back to ship when the rain clouds split open and drenched us
just after we got onto the tender—except that Jerry and I went down the steps of the boat and found an
entire level of the boat bone dry and capable of holding lots and lots of people. The local tender crew,
as we motored the 10 minute commute to the ship, pantomimed to us that they were clueless as to why
people stayed in the upper part of the boat, complaining, while we had found this dry area. It was a fun
inside joke between us and them.

Tender boat to land with alter

A view of the ship anchored offshore

An extra note about "tendering"--usually our ship furnishes the "tender boat" and they use our own small rescue craft. This time, however, the local marina in Koh Samui offered their own larger two-level ferries boats; more people at a time could get to and from the shore.

Today’s tour was a tour around the entire circumference of the island a distance of about 35 miles. To
start we were on a four-lane highway, something we are pretty sure didn’t exist thirty years ago. Our
first stop was at a place where they use monkeys to help harvest coconuts from the trees. We saw how
the monkeys are trained on practice equipment and what they do when they go up the trees. A good
team of owner and monkey can harvest up to 1000 coconuts a day. There were two basic kinds of
coconut, those used for drinking, and those used for everything else. As difficult as they are to get into
it seems amazing that people figured out there was something worthwhile on the inside. It takes about
7 years to go from a coconut sprouting roots to a tree yielding coconuts. It was a very interesting stop.
Next was a restaurant with a nice view from cliffs overlooking the ocean. Not an area we would have
frequented on our previous visit when cheap was critical.

Water buffalo signals rural wealth

Planting a future tree

Stripping coconut to its core

Tool for stripping coconut

tool for getting shell off coconut.

Map on wall of restaurant

The next stops were temples. We tend to find these temples garish, but that may very well be a cultural
reaction. What is less garish about the great cathedrals of Europe? Is it that they are dark by nature and
the statuary and artwork are inside? It is all pretty ostentatious. We found another lovely long dress for
Jen. We have to find places for her to wear all this finery.