Wildlife & Nature, Ko Samui

Fondest memory: These kids working at one of the elephant camps were practising their football skills. The elephant was quite useful too, a good target man but kept getting caught offside. It was rumoured that Glen Roeder was taking a look at him to replace Les Ferdinand next season.

Fondest memory: A key industry on Koh Samui is coconut growing. The coconut pines grow high and the fruit is right at the top. Monkeys are specially trained to shimmy up the trees and twist the coconuts off before sending them crashing to the ground. The tourist trail around Samui will normally take you somewhere to see a demonstration of this.

Fondest memory: While on my jeep safari we stopped at an elephant training place so that some of the people on the trip could take a ride. Besides elephants there was a variety of other fauna including monkeys and this bear cub. I am not a bear expert but as it was in Thailand am guessing it is an Asiatic black bear?
The guy on the left doesn't seem too keen.

2 more images

Favorite thing: I could not pass up adding these pictures of one happy elephant. What was interesting to me was that the Thai helpers set out the bucket of water, but that was it.... the elephant seemed to take his bath all by himself (or herself!).

Nothing like a cold shower on a hot day!

Favorite thing: One of the things we definitely enjoyed were all the monkeys out just monkeying around!

This particular monkey must have been playing on the gym here for 3 hours at a time, very boisterous!

Fondest memory: It quite saddens me to see these magnificent creatures held captive just to perform tricks and provide rides for tourists.

Favorite thing: Rent a jeep and discover the island by your own - you'll find a lot of nearly untouched nature . . .