Fri 3rd Dec – Ko Samui

Today we’re anchored off the island of Ko Samui so we caught the tender to the pier.  The island is small – it only takes an hour to drive all the way round it! We drove up to the safari park in the coach, then transferred to jeeps to get into the park itself. The first stop was the elephant show which had 3 young elephants doing various tricks. They stood up and spun hoola hoops on their trunks and then played football against one of the members of the audience. We then saw the monkey show which was quite uncomfortable as the monkeys obviously didn’t want to be performing  and they seemed scared of the trainers. They were dressed up in clothes which was horrible.

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The highlight of the day was the elephant ride! I know it’s such a touristy and clichéd thing to do but we loved it! I’ve always had a soft spot for elephants so it was just an amazing experience. We went for a walk through the park which ws lovely. This photo of a  photo is a bit blurred, but the original is better.

We continued on the drive around the island stopping at the Big Budda Temple. They’re not lying – it really is big! There were some interesting shops around the base including one that had models made from bits of cars and motorbikes. Andy would have loved to get one but it wouldn’t fit in the luggage!

We had a bit of time to look around the shops in Na Thon before getting the tender back out to the boat. We were very lucky to miss the very heavy rain storm as we were on the coach between the Big Budda Temple and Na Thon.