When I rushed out my Phuket blog entries at the end of 2011, I left out 2 highlights from the trip. The first is the visit to the Big Buddha. The second? Just wait and see

So moving along with this post, the Big Buddha is literally a big statue of Buddha on the Nak-kerd Hills. From the balcony of our hotel room, we could actually see the head of the statue! Factoid about me: I do have a weird fear of monstrous-sized things. So the thought of going just under this HUGE monument scared me more than it should. But while I was right there, so close such a big statue – it wasn’t that bad. Ha – I’m such a drama queen sometimes.

It’s a free-to-enter attraction, though you would need to get a cab or tuktuk driver to drive you up the hill. Even though admission is free, they do accept donations. As you can see in the above photo, there are some construction work going on at the base where Buddha sits. They are, in fact, building a lotus for him. So among the things they sell to collect funds for the building of this lotus base are marble slabs – that you can write messages on. These will be part of the monument.

There are other religious relics, amulets and coins that you can purchase too. I just thought the marble slab thing was a cool idea. So onward we go to reach the top!

To get to the top where Buddha sits, we needed to climb several flights of steps. And throughout the entire climb there were these pretty bells everywhere.

Here are other sights along the way up:

And finally we reach the top (wasn’t that long a climb, but I’m not exactly the fittest person you know?) Since we were quite high up, we had quite a view.

And here we are, finally at the base of the Big Buddha itself -

There are some other smaller Buddhas all around the big one:

Apart from these, there’s nothing much else to see. I guess it would be more of a spiritual visit than anything else – or like us who made our way to the Big Buddha out of curiosity, and also because we were tourists (and this is what tourists do). One tip if you ever want to come visit the Big Buddha: look out for this small stall outside the entrance (near where the marble slabs were being sold)

Why? Because this unassuming ice cream stall sells the most refreshing and awesomely delicious coconut ice cream! Seriously, this is one of the things we crave for from time to time – but have no means of satisfying the need for it

So yummy, I swear.

If you’re thinking of going here, the details for Big Buddha are:

Nak-Kerd Hills Buddha Park
Phuket Thailand

Opened from 8 am to 7 30 pm.

Admission is FREE!