Thursday 21 January 2010

Samnak song tam bo naam thip cave, Kanchanadit

Samnak song tam bo naam thip cave, Kanchanadit

After our recent trip to Surat Thani, just a bit over a week ago, we not only visited the Donsak Orchid Garden on our way back to Samui, but shortly before that, on the highway to Surat Thani or in this case coming from Surat Thani and on that side of the high way, there's an exit that leads to the 2nd Buddha foot print in Thailand, about which more later, and on that same road, leading to the 2nd Buddha foot print, is another small exit to this unexplored and interesting Cave temple.

This is how the exit to the cave temple looks like from the road. They're currently working very hard to bring this Temple up to scratch and attract more visitors, so right now it's beautifully unexplored and almost untouched.
The entrance to the cave system, the passing main monk showed us the lights leading up to the entrance and opened them up, which at night most certainly looks pretty good, right now, when we visited it didn't have the impact it will most likely have at night. The amount of stairs to climb is very reasonable.

Next to the cave entrance is this very serene looking Buddha statue.

Inside the cave are plenty of stalagmites and this Buddha statue.
There's work done all over the place, including inside the cave, hence the hammer in front of the statue. Once completed I would like to see the caves again and wonder what they exactly have done with the lightning, since it looked promising.

A view of the stalagmites.
Definitely a complex to visit before they complete the work, now it's raw and very interesting, although, I would like to see it in a while with the work in progress and wonder if they will attract many visitors. The potential is there.

It's easy to find, coming from Surat, just watch out for the sign pointing you to the 2nd Buddha foot print in Thailand, it's just a few kilometres before the turn to the Donsak ferry pier where the ferries to Samui leave. According to my wife it's still located in Kanchanadit well known for it's local seafood restaurants.

Well worth visiting, on your way home to Koh Samui, enjoy before the hordes discover it.

Camille


3 comments:

martyn said...

Camille I've seen a similar type of cave structure on the road from Loei to Udon Thani called the Erawan Cave and like you I was most impressed.

Please remember...'The amount of stairs to climb is very reasonable.'...we're not all fit diving instructors, some of us carry an asthma inhaler and a packet of Wonder Red cigarettes.

You mention... 'Well worth visiting, on your way home to Koh Samui, enjoy before the hordes discover it'....I tend to find that these type of wonderful sites get discovered by very few tourists and are visited by touring Thai's as a rule. The westerner with his high tech camera doesn't know what he's missing. Nice post.

Camille Lemmens said...

Hi Martyn,

The amount of stairs to climb is reasonable indeed, just 20 or so, unlike the post that is up now about Wat Phra Pudthabat Sisurat with about 200 or so stairs to climb!

I really would love to keep visiting this cave and see how it develops, they were working hard on it!

Andy said...

The cave looks quite similar with the cave at Wat Tham Singkhom in Khirirat Nikhom, on the other side of Surat Thani province. So this cave looks very interesting as well, the merge of the natural beauty with the Buddhist use is quite special. I remember seeing the sign when driving from Surat Thani to Khanom, for the next time I will try to do the detour for these two attractions.