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Koh Samui - tropics and temples

Koh Samui is a well known tourist island lying off the east coast of Thailand.  It's a popular cruise destination and it's also a popular stop on the South East Asia backpacker circuit.  For our first foray off the good ship Westerdam we all (six adults minus Samuel who was happy to stay in kids club as temples are really not his thing) decided to take a tour of the Buddhist temples of Koh Samui. This involved a trip round the entire island dropping in at the different cultural venues on the way.  While there were many booked on the tour, our bus took our little party and another couple.


Of the four temples I thought the Wat Plai Laem was the best. Here we saw a laughing Buddha and learned how he was very attractive and caused ladies to fight over him so asked to be changed to not so attractive, this is why he is now depicted as rotund and laughing. This site also had a temple for worship, a library and a depiction of a female goddess who has 18 arms so she can do more work to care for people. I liked the temple which was in construction which had greater Chinese influence, the dragons and artwork in this took my fancy. Other artwork included intricate carvings. 











By the Buddhas and temples was a pond which was full of fish that people who came to worship had offered the Buddhas. These double as a tourist magnet - thousands of open mouths when feed is tossed to them.

The first Buddha was on a high point and he was a seated kind, tall and imposing at the top of some steps. However it was a great location to see the fusion of religions with depictions of Ganesh (Hindu) and the Brahmin religions too. I liked the intricate mosaic work on the temple structures by the sides of the steps.



By the time we got the to fourth and final temple we were a bit templed out. Everyone was weary from the heat, driving and so many intricate displays. The final place was said to house some of the first Buddha’s ashes and showcased the corpse of a monk who predicted the date of his death. Apparently he is mummified, it was a little gruesome seeing him in the glass case. He wears sunglasses for perhaps two reasons, one to cover the decaying eyes and the other because he asked for sight to see into people’s dreams. People come and offer his body glasses. This is rather a different kind of second site I have not heard of before.







Our drive took in some of the island of Koh Samui.  We were all astounded by the electrical poles and cables. The place was a tangle with them. Everything seemed adequately supplied by power however I have no idea what would have happened in the event that one dwelling had a problem. Imagine unscrambling that! 



Finally we returned to the Westerdam, I was certainly sated for Buddhist temples for the rest of the trip. 


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