For most of its life Ko Samui was an isolated, self-sufficient island community. It didn’t even have a road until the late 1970s. It could take an entire day to walk the less than ten miles from one side of the island to the other. An economy originally based on subsistence agriculture, fishing and coconuts has been replaced with one based on tourism. There are now more than 2,000 hotels covering the island’s 150 square mile radius, and in 2017 they saw more than 2.5 million visitors pass through. This is putting tremendous pressure both on the area’s infrastructure (2.5 million people generate a LOT of waste!) and the local culture as they struggle to remake themselves from a simple farming and fishing community into a place everyone wants to visit.
The waters surrounding Ko Samui are a beautiful turquois blue, and so shallow our ship had to anchor far out in the bay. We had a 30-minute tender ride to shore and were looking forward to visiting what we thought was going to be an elephant preserve where we might have an opportunity to ride the elephants.
We visited a home-based coconut factory, an elephant camp (their version of a zoo – and we didn’t get to ride the elephants), and a local waterfall. We were shown how rubber is extracted from rubber trees and turned into useable rubber products (rubber trees were first introduced to Ko Samui in 1899 and for a time rubber was an important part of their economy but overplanting and decreasing rubber prices has led to a decrease in the rubber business). Lunch was served at a kind of funky bar place set just off the beach, and then it was off to the Big Buddha, a 39-foot gold painted Buddha that sits at the top of a 100-step staircase adorned with the body of a dragon on either side of where handrails would normally be. It wasn’t quite what we were expecting, but it was okay.
Lots and lots of coconuts 
This is how you crack a coconut… 
The women sit on this chair to grate the coconut. 
Monkeys are used to pick coconuts. Doesn’t look like a great life to us. 
Coconuts are used to make souvenirs. 
We didn’t get to ride the elephants, but this guy did! 
The elephant we met was very friendly. 
Getting up close and personal. 
We were treated to a cooking demonstration. 
Namuang Waterfall 
Tapping a rubber tree 
The rubber is cooled and made into mats… 
Big Buddha Temple 
Big Buddha staircase 
Those little things in the picture are actually people! 
Beautiful end to the day… 
JodockWorldTravel 