One of the old nicknames for Samui is the “Coconut Island” due to it’s many plantations.
These days the tourism business has resulted in many of these coconut plantations being bulldozed to make way for resorts. But, there are still many coconuts left and you can join tours to learn more about the industry.
During our trip we visited a plantation to see monkeys harvesting the coconuts. They climb up the trees, twist the coconuts round and round until they fall to the ground. One monkey can collect at least 400 coconuts in one day. Be careful, they can bite!
We also visited a factory where they processed the coconut juice. We had a demonstration on how they ripped off the husks. We had a go ourselves but failed miserably. An expert can do 500 coconuts in one day. Everything is done by hand. We next visited a shop where they made products from coconut trees.
- Posted from my iPhone
Andy
09/07/2010 at 3:30 pm
Not sure if it has on Samui as well, but around the town Surat Thani there are several schools where the monkey are trained for the harvesting job. Probably the most famous of these schools is the one of late Somporn Saekhow, I visited there just few weeks ago. They even have a website…