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| Asian elephants (small ears) on display | The 'Big Budda' |
A week earlier on Saturday we booked a private tour of Koh Samui. Fortunately the ute used to take us around the island was air-conditioned because the temperature outside was in the mid-high 30s. Some of the sights were pretty amazing. We went to an elephant display and a snake show. Whilst the treatment of some of the animals did not look too nice it was still amazing to see (and sometimes touch) elephants, pythons and cobras up close and personal. There is a lot of construction taking place on Koh Samui as its sheltered location makes it safe from any threat of tsunami. The Thai government is in the process of changing the law to ban beach side construction to minimise the danger poised by the tsunamis. This move should also help preserve some of the beautiful beaches that surround this island and ones nearby.
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| The snake show (a big python and some smaller poisonous snakes) | The cobra man and one of his cobras |
On the following Sunday we flew out of Koh Samui after a very satisfying six nights of comfort and excess. Twenty four hours later we were touching down in a rainy, cold Auckland where we spent the week with Emmas family. It made for a nice transition between holiday and the real world as we got to retell all of our stories and acclimatise. The following weekend we drove down to Wellington via Tauranga to begin our hunt for a flat before we get swamped by professional commitments. Fortunately it is a long weekend so we have an extra day to checkout flats and catch up with people before the short working week begins.