Natural Museum Lamai, part 2

Here are some more pictures of the Natural Museum in Lamai.

After my post of part 1 of the Natural Museum in the Temple in Lamai, I thought it to a good time to post some more pictures about this fascinating place.




There's a big cabinet displaying all kinds of various Thai bank notes through the 'ages'. There are quit a few that I remember, even the 10 Baht notes and also a wide variety of 50 and 500 Baht notes. Interesting to see, in my humble opinion.

These 3 vases are also on display. Chinese I would guess, they're beautiful but unfortunately there's absolutely no information on them whatsoever.

There are a few (push) bicycles on display as well, to my rather big surprise. Than again, some of the things on display will most certainly raise a few eyebrows, rather obscure to say the least but I think that's also part of the charm of the place.

An intricate weighing system, similar to one that my wife's Mum used to have, a long time ago.

This is a very interesting set of items. Have a good look, see anything strange? Did you notice their iron or steel tongues sticking out? These figurines are all used to split the coconuts open, so the coconut flesh can be taken out. This is some real good and original Samui tradition on display. Similar items can sometimes still be seen in use in real life nowadays, although the 'tongues' aren't attached to such beautiful tongue holders. Most of the time it's just a steel rod connected to a piece of wood.

As already mentioned in some posts, Samui used to be Thailand's main coconut provider, until a few years back, tourism took over as the main financial provider for the island.

A funny anecdote about the coconuts is this one;

In the older days, not even too long ago, all the 'good land', being land with lots of coconut trees on it, was given to the favorite sons and/or daughters and the less popular off spring 'got stuck' with the worthless beach land. In the more popular areas like Chaweng, beach land goes nowadays for anywhere between 30 to 50 Million Baht per Rai.

Hope you enjoy these pictures and make sure to visit this Natural Museum in Lamai.

Camille