An Island Interlude: Ko Samui Part II

Our second full day in Ko Samui (also known as Day 11) started early with our tour of the island.  I'm going to let the pictures do a lot of the talking since our guide was not that great.  She was very very pushy about our time at each location without paying attention to what the group wanted.  It was annoying, but OK, until we all got hungry.  I have to say, if there is one thing I would recommend to all tour guides it is make sure your group doesn't get to the point where food is more important than the tour - it just makes for bad attitudes all around.

But anyway.  Our first stop was at a Chinese temple.  I wish I could tell you more than that but our tour guide didn't say much more than that.  It is beautiful though, right?

I love the sparkly dragons that appear on every staircase in temples

 Our next stop was the Golden Buddha.  Self-explanatory.

Another sparkly dragon!

 At each of those stops our tour guide gave us 20 minutes to wander around... Most of us were ready to go after 12 minutes.  Oh well.

Next she took us to a viewpoint.  Here we spent most of our allotted 15 minutes talking with one of the other people on our tour (since really, what else are you going to do for 15 minutes at a viewpoint?).

After that we went to the Grandparent Rocks.  Bet you can figure out why they're called that!

Grandmother Rock

Grandfather Rock erect

Turn around and there's Grandfather Rock flaccid

 Our next stop was to a Mummified Monk.  This was the point most of the people on the tour were ready for food.  We had started at 8.  It was now 12:30.  The tour was supposed to last until 4 or 4:30 and there was no stop planned for lunch.  It was frustrating.  So while we were at the Monk stop we saw a pancake guy and what ended up happening was most of the people in our group took a few pictures and then spent the rest of the time at this stop standing in line waiting for a pancake (I had a sausage but I think most people were too suspicious of the sausages to eat them).  Lieke and Kimsha were still waiting for their pancakes when it was time to head back to the van so I went back and told the guide that they just needed another 2 minutes (the pancakes were literally already being made - 2 minutes was generous).  Well, she got really hussy with me but hey, what're ya gonna do?

Our next stop was at a waterfall.  Unfortunately our time here was too short to actually go swimming (although we were all wearing our bathing suits in anticipation) but we did get to dip our feet in the water and relax for a bit.  Also, you know those fish that are advertised at some salons?  The ones that nibble at your feet... well... those were in the pool where we were resting our feet!  They tickled but I did not notice a significant difference in the softness of my feet.  :)

The view on our hike up to the waterfall

We crossed a rickety bridge

Our final stop was in Na Thon town.  Here we finally had an opportunity to have lunch (it was 2:30) and walk around a bit.  There wasn't much to see.  I think there were 3 shops, all selling the same overpriced things, and a fruit market which was far from impressive.

Overall, I'm glad we did the tour.  I know it might not sound like it from this post, and there were definitely some issues, but at the same time we really got to see the whole island and it was fun for me being with Lieke and Kimsha.

After we were dropped off we had about 30 minutes until another van was coming to pick us up to take us to the ferry to Ko Phan Ngang!