Koh Samui today. It was another sunny and hot day with temperature in the 90's.
Historical/Background Info:
This is a
new port for us. This is Thailand’s second largest island (Phuket is larger)
and lies in the Gulf of Thailand off the east coast of the narrow strip of land
(Kra Isthmus) extending from mainland Thailand to Malaysia. Ko Samui’s economy now is based primarily on
a successful tourism industry, as well as exports of coconut and rubber. It is known for its beaches, coconut groves,
and dense, mountainous rainforest. There are many luxury resorts and posh spas
on the island whose population is nearly 70,000. The island is 15.5 miles long
and 13 miles wide so as you can see it is small. The island receives nearly 3
million tourists annually. Ko Samui is approximately 375 miles south of Bangkok.
LAST EVENING
Neeraj is new to the ship and Regent cruises.
TODAY
This was an anchor port with tenders provided by the port, not our ships life boats. They were much nicer and bigger. At least a breeze could come through. It was a long ride (over 20 minutes) to shore.
My tour was a Thai food cooking class
Our tour bus. A small one but nicely air conditioned.
Bob, our guide, was excellent and funny guy. Tribute to the King of Thailand. The Thais revere their king.
First stop was at a market.
Dried fish
Veggies
More dried fish of several types
Meat. And yes, there were flies here.
There frogs on top of frogs (alive) in the center. Small snakes on right and turtles on left.
YUK!! Snakes! They eat about anything.
Doves
Meats
Pigs feet
This is a long shot of our next stop. "Big Buddha"
Fishing boat. They fish at night and have lights to shine on the water to attract the fish.
More nice looking fish.
Nice looking lobsters and shrimp
Second stop was at the Big Buddha Temple
I did not climb up all those steps to get close up of the Big Buddha.
Not sure what this was to be.
Third and last stop was at the Nora Beach Resort & Spa. Our cooking class venue. Some fruit punch to greet us.
The chef demonstrating how the first course was to be prepared. It was deep fried stuffed crabmeat in a crab shell.
There were two people to a cook station. I asked Cynthia, had seen her but never knew her before today, to be my partner. First we had to each mix us the crab meat with some minced pork. The chef said to make it look like mashed potatoes. Then we added coriander, garlic, white soy sauce, oyster sauce, pepper, sesame oil, and an egg yolk.
After it was all mixed up we put it in a crab shell. Then they collected all of them and took them to the kitchen to microwave first then deep fry. We got them later after the next course.
This was what the cooking station looked like.
Chef Rick
My side kick, Chef Cynthia.
Chef showing us how to prepare coconut chicken soup.
This is the final product of the soup.
Recipe
Here we are eating the soup. It was good.
Next up was fried noodle Thai style--"Pad Thai". These are the ingredients.
This was a more intricate dish for cooking.
I think Cynthia and my version was the BEST. Unfortunately, did not get a photo of the deep fried crab as what they brought out to Cynthia and I we did not think was ours. So we never ate it.
Beach at the resort. I managed to have the resort reception girl to get me hooked up on the resort's internet. So I got all the above photos uploaded in just a few minutes before we departed.
This was another tour group's bus. Pretty wild!
Back at the tender pier at 4pm and on the tender back to the ship.
Did not get back to the suite until 4:30. I am glad I did this tour today as I enjoyed the cooking class and our guide. Cynthia, my cooking partner, was great choice I made. I will have to thank her husband for sharing her with me today.
After showering, I started working on posting the photos and writing captions for the above. It is now 6pm and we are having cocktails in the suite while I finish the post up.
Tonight's Compass Rose menu. We're having the veal piccata. I hope tonight's dining experience is better than last night.
There is a pre-dinner show, the violinist, starting now. Not going obviously for two reasons: I'm not dressed yet and we do not care for violinists. After dinner is Beattles Night in the Horizon Lounge. Not doing that either. There is a movie in the theater also. Not doing that! We lose an hour's sleep tonight as setting clocks back an hour.
That's ok as tomorrow is a day at sea in the Gulf of Thailand enroute to Singapore.
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