Day 139 - As we walked to the beach we bought tour tickets for our afternoon. We had talked between ourselves about whether it'd be better to take a tour of Phuket or rent a taxi to visit our main interest, the Big Buddha. Although we had no desire to see the 'shopping' part of any tour we found the prices much better than trying to just see the newer Phuket attraction. You'll not see photos of our time spent at the cashew factory, honey manufacturing, or precious gem sales. However, those were nice breaks from the activity and we are very happy we chose to go on the tour which started at 1:15 with a hotel pickup and lasted for seven hours!
The pictures above are from the Karon View Point. Many buses filled the tiny parking lot but as we got out we could see the reason. It was stunning to look back from the south and see the main three beaches we'd just passed.
From there we headed to the mountain with the Big Buddha. We passed lots of small tourist attractions and stopped to see a baby elephant. Asian elephants are familiar to us and of course respected. They are amazing beasts who are self-aware and can even remember clan members who have passed on as witnessed by displays at remains in wild locations. The baby today did not have a hard life but it seemed a bit weird as it performed for the prize of some bananas to eat.
The Buddha is still under construction and covered with marble from Burma (Myanmar). What a massive construction and what amazing views from the second highest-peak on Phuket!
After we spent a half hour at Chalong Temple in Phuket old town. There were Sri Lankan relics found inside but we do have to look up more details for ourselves online.
After the factories, we went to the Weekend Night Market because it is Saturday. The tours go to watch the sunset on regular days of the week. It was indeed fun to walk around the market for one hour as day turned to night.
We got back to our hotel at 8:15 PM after dropping off most of the other twelve passengers in our van. We went for dinner fully pleased with how our day had gone.