The Big Buddha: What to Know Before You Go

The Big Buddha is the thing people photograph on Koh Samui and the thing they spend the least time at. Most visits last twenty minutes, which is about right.

That does not make it skippable. It makes it worth doing properly, because the difference between a good visit and a disappointing one comes down to a single decision, and it is the one about what time you go.

The basics

Wat Phra Yai sits on a small island at the northern end of Bangrak Bay, connected to the road by a short causeway. The seated golden Buddha is twelve metres high and visible from most of the beach road below.

Entry is free. The temple is open from seven in the morning until half past six in the evening.

You climb a flight of dragon-flanked stairs to reach the platform, and the view from the top is genuinely the reason to be there. The bay opens out below, Koh Phangan sits on the horizon, and planes come in over the water on their approach to the airport a few minutes away.

Go early. This is the whole thing.

By ten in the morning the coach tours arrive and the stairs become a queue. By midday the platform is exposed, unshaded and very hot, and the experience becomes something to get through rather than something to enjoy.

Before nine you will often have it close to yourself. Before eight is better still, and the light on the gold is best in the first hour anyway.

If you are staying in Bangrak this is easy. If you are coming from Chaweng or Lamai it means leaving in the dark, and it is still worth it.

The other option is late afternoon, from about five, when the tours have gone and the heat has dropped. It is busier than early morning but far quieter than the middle of the day.

Practical things

Shoulders and knees covered. This applies at any Thai temple and it is enforced here. Sarongs are available if you have forgotten, but bringing your own is simpler.

Shoes off before entering the shrine area. There is somewhere to leave them.

Bring tissue. The toilets do not reliably have any. This is normal across Thailand and worth carrying anyway.

Take water. There is very little shade on the platform.

The stairs are short but steep. A couple of minutes of climbing, not a hike, but not step-free either.

The stalls

The approach is lined with souvenir and snack stalls, and reactions to this vary. Some people find it detracts from the temple. Others treat it as part of it, which is closer to how Thai temples actually work: they are community spaces with markets attached, not silent monuments.

The food is decent and cheap. The souvenirs are what souvenirs are. Nobody will pressure you.

Wat Plai Laem, a few minutes east

This is the part most visitors miss, and to our eye it is the more interesting of the two.

Wat Plai Laem sits around a lake, with an eighteen-armed statue of Guanyin, the Chinese goddess of mercy, rising out of the water. The architecture is more ornate than Wat Phra Yai and the setting is calmer. It is also free.

You can buy a small bag of food and feed the catfish in the lake, which sounds like a children's activity and is somehow not.

Most people do one temple and drive on. The two take twenty minutes each, they are a few minutes apart, and they are nothing alike. Doing both is a better morning than doing either.

How long to allow

Wat Phra Yai on its own: twenty to thirty minutes, plus travel.

Both temples: about an hour and a half including the drive between them.

Both temples plus breakfast in Bangrak afterwards: a very good half day, and the sequence we would recommend to anyone staying nearby.

Getting there

Wat Phra Yai is at the eastern end of Bangrak, walkable from the middle of the beach road in about twenty minutes along the road, though there is no continuous pavement so take care.

Grab works and is inexpensive. Songthaews, the red pickup trucks, run past on the ring road.

There is parking at both temples, free, and it fills up at the busy hours, which is another argument for going early.

Afterwards

Bangrak is directly below the temple and it is where the good breakfast is. King of Bread opens at seven and is where the area goes for it. Flo Coffee Roaster roasts its own beans and opens at eight.

If you have gone early, you will be back down by nine with most of the day still ahead of you, which is the best argument for the early start that we can make.

We are on the beach road in the middle of Bangrak, with a view up towards the temple, and open from ten in the morning until two the following morning if you are still in the area later.