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Touring with Sam, fantastic experience!
When we woke we decided to have a quick stroll down the road to find some breakfast (we didn't pay for the Brekky at the hotel). We ended up at Euro Deli which is on the backstreet of the hotel, not far from Bangla Rd. Once we had satsfied our hunger we walked back to the hotel to wait for Sam our tour driver to pick us up.
We had been recommended Sam over a year ago but last time we were in Phuket he was busy and we missed out on a tour with him. Determined not to miss him this year we booked him about 5 months before we got there!! lol. For those of you who have toured with Sam before, you will know he had a Toyota Corolla. He now has a brand new Fortuner which was a beautiful car to tour in.
Anyway, off we went, we had some idea of what we wanted to see and left the rest up to Sam.
Siam Cobra Show
First of all Sam took us to Siam Cobra Show at
our request, as we didn't get to see a snake show last time in Thailand. We were there just after they opened and got a guided tour of all the snakes in cages and were told what they were and which ones were dangerous etc.
Then we were lead to the arena where we were given the opportunity to have our photo taken with a python which was pretty cool.
After that we were introduced to Jimmy the snake handler who was doing the show (just for us as noone else was there yet!).
There was another guy on the microphone giving a running commentary and egging Jimmy on.
It was pretty funny, the guy was saying in his best dramatic voice "Come on Jimmy, Kiss him Jimmy, you can do it, Whoooaaaa!!"
I couldn't help yelling out "Jimmy is Ting Tong (crazy)!". Not too sure if this was appreciated or not but we had a laugh!
Jimmy did his thing with 4 different types of snakes, all of which seemed very eager to bite him in the balls as he got them fired up by waving his hands and legs at them. Lucky for him
they didn't succeed! Apparently the last snake wrangler that worked there saw an early demise - so they told us anyway.
Shan was a little worried at one stage when Jimmy had 3 Cobras out at once and they kept turning away from him and looking our way.
When he got out the King Cobra and had it reared up and kissed it, we were certainly very impressed! Scary stuff, you wouldn't catch me doing that sort of stuff, even though the guy with the microphone asked me if I wanted to try!! I politely declined!
Big Budda
From the snake show Sam then took us up to see Big Budda up on the mountaintop in Phuket. This Budda can be seen from most places in Phuket and the size of it is absolutely amazing! It is being built from donations and from what we remember of it last year, they have certainly done a lot since then.
The Statue is made from concrete on framework and is then covered with marble. The Budda itself was covered in marble and they are currently in the process of doing the lotus
flower that the Budda sits on.
We saw the eyes of the Budda that are made from Mother of Pearl, there apparently cost about 1 million baht each!! They will be added once the rest is completed.
The photos I took of the Budda just don't do it justice, it is Massive!!
On the way back down the mountain Sam stopped at a small local restaurant where we had an early lunch.
Shan had spring rolls and I had pork and veges which was aroi mak (very delicious). The fruit smoothies that we drank were awesome too and quite filling.
Sam had eskies in the boot of his car and kept asking us if we wanted water all day. His knowledge of Phuket and its history was great too, he was very informative.
Phuket Butterfly Garden & Insect World
We then headed through Phuket-town where Sam showed us some of the historical buildings and streets where the locals shop. Just up the road was the Butterfly Garden where we went for a wander through while Sam had a nap in the car.
This place was one of Shan's
highlights of the trip. It was very tranquil in there and it was a nice experience walking in there and having the butterflies land on you and fly around you.
At the entrance you get given a small dish of banana honey mix to feed the butterflies. You can also buy some fish food to feed the fish in the pond inside.
There was a big assortment of butterflies here and also rooms where they breed them and hatch them. Some of the caterpilars were certainly very strange, very different to what we get at home in Aus.
Inside they also have a room with Tarantula and Bird Eating spiders, Scorpions, massive Centipedes. Shan kept her distance and I don't blame her, they were all however in glass cases but if you dont like creepy crawlies...well.....
Gibbon Rehabilitation Project and Bang Pae Waterfall
From there Sam took us up to Thalang where we got to walk up to the Bang Pae Waterfall. Finally we found a waterfall we could get to!! LOL.. It was about a 15 minute walk up there and there were some thai people swimming in the pools
in the small river on the way up. Once at the top there wasn't a great deal to see as there hadn't been much rain, so it wasn't flowing very fast.
We slowly walked back down to the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project at the bottom near the entrance. This place really pulls at your heart strings! The Gibbons that get brought here are usually from people that have taken them from the wild as babies. The only way they can do this is by killing the mother and father. Usually only 1 in 3 baby gibbons survive the capture process, so for every Gibbon you see on the streets in Thailand used as tourist attractions, about 10 have died or been killed.
Also once a Gibbon reaches maturity at 6 or 7 years old they can become aggressive, they are then often abandoned or killed!!
What the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project does is try to pair up the Gibbons with others and eliminate human contact to enable them to be released back into the wild. This can take many years and some Gibbons that have been traumatised so much as tourist attractions in places like Patong, often made to
smoke and drink, can never be rehabilitated.
Seeing this made us so sad, these beautiful creatures, having been treated so badly!! During our time in Koh Samui and Phuket we saw about 5 Gibbons in captivity on the main streets with the "owner" trying to make money from tourists having their photo taken with them.
We decided we wanted to help, even in a little way, so when we were told about the adoption/sponsor option, we jumped at the chance!
We have sponsored a Gibbon named "Songkran" for a year, which means we paid a meager 1500 baht (AUD$60) to help look after him.
He arrived at the Project on 13th April 2004 when he was approx 6 months old. Being the date of the thai new year, he was named Songkran. He was one of four young gibbons the project received in just a week, all from Patong Beach where they were being used for photos with tourists.
Songkran now shares a cage with 2 other gibbons, Bam Bam and Nat. Once old enough to start a family of his own, it is hoped he can be successfully released.
As part of the adoption
pack we got a photo and T-Shirt as you can see in the photo.
After we left here Sam took us back to the Holiday Inn via the northern beaches on the west coast. It had been a very enjoyable day.
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