Big Buddha — Wat Phra Yai
A twelve-metre golden Buddha seated on the islet of Ko Fan, joined to Samui by a causeway. Steps, bells, a market underneath, and the north coast laid out behind it.
Open≈ 0.8 km
An eighteen-arm Guanyin standing in an artificial lake, with a laughing Budai and a white temple hall around it. Chinese-Thai, and the most photogenic site on Samui.
Wat Plai Laem is the most photogenic site on Samui and, unlike the Big Buddha, it is barely five years older than the resorts around it. An eighteen-arm Guanyin stands in the middle of an artificial lake, with a white temple hall and a laughing Budai on the far bank.
The style is Chinese-Thai, built for the island's Hainanese families, and the murals inside the hall are worth the walk around. Bags of fish food are sold at the entrance and the lake's carp and catfish do the rest — the reason children remember this temple and not the others. It is two minutes from the Big Buddha, so the two are almost always done together.
Buy a bag of fish food at the entrance; the carp do the rest. Free.
Same dress code as any temple; the boardwalks around the lake get slippery after rain.
On the map…
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The closest places on the map, straight-line distance.
A twelve-metre golden Buddha seated on the islet of Ko Fan, joined to Samui by a causeway. Steps, bells, a market underneath, and the north coast laid out behind it.
Open≈ 0.8 km
The morning catch sold on the beach below the Big Buddha, and a row of stalls grilling it for breakfast.
Open≈ 0.9 km
A long, shallow, muddy-at-low-tide stretch under the flight path. Nobody comes here to swim; the view across to Koh Phangan and the sunrise are the reason.
Open≈ 1.1 km
The tour page · Temples & shrines of Koh Samui · Koh Samui map
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