We have breakfast brought to the room, just to get a little more sleep before our tour for the day. We need to be tendered ashore, a half-hour ride, as the harbor is not deep enough for the ship to come closer. The island is small and compact - about 35 square kilometers - a little bigger than Shelter Island. (Located at the end of Long Island, where we have our Summer cottage.)
Our first stop is the temple of the Golden Buddha. The Buddha is reached by climbing 75 steps. He is bright gold, with a variety of temple buildings around the base of the hill. Around the Buddha is a shelter with a number of bells and wonderful views of the seashore. We ring bells with large sticks as we walk around the Buddha - bringing luck to ourselves, and to our friends at home. Normally you would have to take off your shoes to climb to the Buddha, but by 10:00 AM the tiles are already too hot for bare feet.
The next stop is a visit to the temple of the God of Mercy. This is a much larger temple complex. There is a large multi-armed goddess, and a large laughing Buddha. The temple combines Hindu and Buddhist art. Our guide takes us to an indoor Buddha, with elaborate wall paintings, and tries in 10 minutes to give us the highlights of the life of Buddha.
Our bus continues around the island, stopping at “Beverly Hills” - an open-air wooden bar/restaurant so that we can have a drink (water, coke, or sprite). The coke can is barely recognizable, with “Coke” in Thai script. The language has three times as many vowels as English, and many more consonants. Our guide models the variations in saying “ma”, and I cannot recognize the subtle differences in sound and tone. The Thai script and language is totally different from Cambodian.
Our last stop on the tour is a coconut plantation, to hear about how monkeys were trained to harvest coconuts. We meet the monkey, who demonstrates his skill at scaling the tree, and twisting off the coconuts so that they fall to the ground (watch your head). We learn how to open a coconut, grate a coconut, and how to make cream and milk from the coconut. Finally, we taste coconut on our way back to the ship.
Tomorrow is a day at sea - where I hope to catch-up on the blog’s entries. After that, we will be in Singapore the following day. We have already learned that Singapore is a fine city - you can be fined for anything from spitting, littering, jaywalking, etc. After Singapore there will be three more ports before we have a few days at sea. We have received a packet of information for our overland trip to the Taj Mahal. That is still 10 days in the future. Tonight will be a cocktail party with the captain and his staff (for world cruise travelers) before dinner.
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