Monday, late morning tendering at the tropical beach/jungle Ko Samui. Our last port excursion.

Dinner last evening was a Thai buffet. Highlight, for me, was the fruit. Star fruit, jack fruit, dragon fruit, papaya, pomelo, passion fruit, juju, guava…… Most of these were on my plate.

Twelve meter Buddah, a highlight of Ko Samui

Ko Samui has about 70K people and about 2 million tourists a year. Pukhet, in the South, has 400K people and 16 million, yes I asked again, tourists a year. Ko Samui was crowded enough.

Coconut farming is the second industry here, second to tourism. They use the trained monkeys mentioned earlier for harvesting. Work normal hours, fed rice and bananas, and are part of the family.

Water buffalo at the area near the above Buddah

Formerly a fishing village, now much of it, except the coconut growing area, looks like a beach town. There are many beaches here, some, like the Four Seasons ($2K a night and V. Putin’s place), high end. The beach we visited was nice but not as nice as Da Nang

At the beach KB got to dip toes into yet another water – quite warm it was.

Thai iced coffee on the beach. Quite a process to make, sweet, and good for an occasional treat. Expresso, condensed milk, foamed milk and ice. Lots of stirring during the processing.

Elephants at the waterfall.

Monument to the Southern Chinese who peopled some of this island.

Tuesday, a day at sea. Bridge tour, quite extensive. Got to understand a bit about how navigation systems work and rules of the road and communication.