Last port of the cruise – as usual, we can’t believe it is over already. 21 days went by really quickly somehow. Today is also our last tender, and we are on our last tour with Paul and Sheila – a whole set of “lasts.” There are 10 of us on the tour, and 8 are Elite, so we meet near where they are handing out tender tickets to get organized. I confirm that each of us can take a non-Elite member off the ship without a tender ticket and we proceed down to the gangway, getting a little separated in the stairway crush, but finally all ending up together on one of the first tenders. The staff isn’t even checking tickets or cards or anything. Not the most organized crew on this ship, that’s for certain.
The tender ride starts off fine, but ends up contentious as people in the back start getting hot and they keep yelling at the driver to hurry up and dock (yeah, like he has any control over it when there is another ship at the dock!) and then some passenger tells us by the door that we can’t stand up and get off, we have to wait for the people in the back. Yeah, right. like that’s going to happen. At any rate, we finally dock, disembark and besides the fact that there is almost a tender riot, make it ashore safe and sound – and early – which is good because we have a very short day on the island and a lot of ground to cover.
Paul has booked Island Gem tours, owned by Meghan, a Kiwi ex-pat, who is our tour guide for the day. We meet pretty quickly and Meghan leads us down the pier and to our comfy van. We get out of the melee of the pier, made even worse by an AIDA ship tendering in as well, and head north on the road that circles the island. The roads are quite good – wide and relatively well paved, and we make pretty good time up through some relatively unpopulated scenic areas, through Bophot, the old fisherman village with more commercial development, and onto our first stop – the Big Buddha statue.
Piling out of the van, we walk through the souvenir vendor stands to the stairs leading up to the Buddha. Wow – he is big! The sign at the stairs says NOT to take our shoes off between 10a and 4p, which is pretty weird (Meghan later tells us its because the tiles get too hot to walk on barefoot), but it’s after 10 – so we comply.
The view from up here is beautiful as well, overlooking a little bay near Bophat. There are some great statuettes on the Pagodas too. Meghan points out her house, up on a hill across the water and tells us she can see the Buddha from there, it shines in the sunrise and then is backlit with the sunset. That’s got to be a magnificent sight every day!
We agree to our meeting time and head back down to the market, passing these interesting metal sculpture men (that turn out to be popular all over Koh Samui)..
Then wander our way through the shops, finally finding a cute little bracelet for Danica, our fabulous Junior Waiter who has searched high and low, literally, for the last remaining bottle of Nobilio for me at dinner. (And I mean seriously searched, she left the dining room and was gone for 10 minutes or more, arriving back with a little less than 1/2 a bottle, telling us it was “private stock” and giving it to me for free. So I definitely wanted to find something a little special for her, besides the normal extra tip at the end of the cruise.)
Back at our meeting place two of our tour companions are shopping, and shopping. We finally tear them away and get back into the van heading toward Wat Plai Laem temple, a large temple complex only a few minutes away. This temple is set on a lake and features huge, oversized statues of the Buddha and Guanyin, the 18 armed statue of the Goddess of mercy and compassion from Chinese mythology.
We visit one of the temples on the site which has a golden Buddha, but also fresco murals all around the walls depicting the Buddha’s life. It is a very peaceful spot, surrounded by the vibrant paintings and the lake.
We wander the grounds a bit, looking at the lake, the fish, the statues. The whole complex is a little more ornate than a lot of the other Wats we have visited, and we can see why it is a popular spot for locals to come to pay homage.
As we are waiting for the group to go to the facilities, Meghan points out an automatic blessing machine. No kidding! You put your baht in, and the dial spins, then spits out your blessing and squirts holy water on you. I so want to do it, but we’ve run out of time, so I settle for a picture of it. Darn, that would have been great.
Oh well, onto our next stop – Grandmother and Grandfather rocks.
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