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Tuesday, March 21 – Phuket, Thailand
We are back in Thailand today on the island of Phuket off the western coast of Thailand. We will be tendered by the locals today as required by their local regulations. Although our Port Talk indicated it might be a 30-minute tender, it turned out to be about 10 and in/on an airconditioned boat. However the walk from where we off loaded onto the pier to where the busses were parked was almost ½ mile.
We are on Bus 3 this morning and doing the included tour. Our first stop is at a cashew nut factory. It was very interesting to see a cashew tree with the nuts and fruit on the tree. The cashew nut forms first, then a fruit looking a bit like a pear forms with the nut at the base of the fruit. Although there are mechanized ways of removing the nut from the shell, this factory does it by hand, one-at-a-time, to ensure they get whole cashews. No wonder they are so expensive. The other factor is that the inside of the shell is poisonous.
Of course there was a shop and they have multiple flavors of cashews as well as the normal.
On we went to Wat Chalong Temple. Supposedly one of the largest and prettiest and it is certainly visited by a lot of people. It dates back to the beginning of the 19th century. The pagoda that is at this site contains a splinter of what is believed to be a bone from Buddha.
On our way to the next stop, we caught glimpses of a BIG sitting Buddha on top of a hill. A little research told us it is 45 meters high and 25 meters wide. It is concrete that has been faced with Burmese White Marble. We could see it from the ship as we were getting ready to anchor.
The final stop
for the day was at Promthep Cape. It is famous for sunset photos as it is at
the southern tip of the island. We weren’t there for sunset so we didn’t see anything
photo worthy. Other than the elephant shrine. All sizes. Thousands have been
placed here. I could not find anything about the why? But it was rather
fascinating.
WOW!! Reminds me a lot of when we were in Thailand! The cashews were attached to "yellow peppers"! So glad you are having such a good time.
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