Ko Tako: Respecting the Sacred Pineapple

Island Cake #1

Of all the monuments I’ve visited in the Thai islands, few are as monumental as the Sacred Pineapple of Ko Tako. It might even change your life.

Found in the general direction of the Ko Samui archipelago, Ko Tako is a small yet leafy island that has grown in popularity thanks to the Sacred Pineapple. The island’s name refers to an extinct shrew that once menaced the interior at will. This toothy beast may be gone, but the Sacred Pineapple is just getting started.

The Sacred Pineapple, or Sri Sapparot in Thai, was developed by a team of highly paid artists to capture the inherent delight of the universe.

“The Sacred Pineapple is unbeatable,” says Ned Lotusblood, a self-proclaimed shaman from Ko Phangan who is visiting Ko Tako for the nineteenth time with his soulmate, Sun Bucket. “Thanks to the Sacred Pineapple, I feel so unencumbered that I fed the contents of my fanny pack to the fish. Ecstasy tablets and all.”

The Sacred Pineapple was commissioned as a new tourist attraction in 2018, with corporations like Initech donating to a construction budget of 981.7 million baht. The sculpture — which was forged from a super-expensive polymer that’s almost as strong as cement and is also being put to good use in the Thai space program — was one of several projects aimed at attracting visitors under the Dept. of Tourism’s SEXYLOVETIMES campaign. This cool acronym, which foreshadowed the recent SEXY tourism campaign, stands for ‘Standardized EXcellence, Yummy Locations, Organic Victories, Expert Telemarketing and IteMized Evidence of Surplus.’

(Inspired by marketing experts from one of Thailand’s largest corporations, the campaign was recently rebranded as SEXYLOVETIMES’s.)

Though not very big or impressive in any way whatsoever, the Sacred Pineapple is so captivating that tens of thousands of people part with huge sums of money to partake in six- or 18-month intensive retreats on Ko Tako. The most dedicated seekers go off to live with monkeys for as long as it takes.

Actual pineapple is cultivated and sold on the island, but the Sacred Pineapple is about so much more than fruit, according to seekers.

“It’s not about eating the fruit, at least not in the conventional sense,” says Sun Bucket. “It’s about planting the seed of Sacred Pineapple in your consciousness.”

Meg Morgan, an investment banker from London, agrees wholeheartedly. “It’s just glorious,” she tells me while browsing the gift shop. “Now that I’ve been to the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge, Trump Tower and the Sacred Pineapple, I feel like my life is complete. I just gave all my money away!”

“Look, I just get paid to maintain the thing,” adds Somchai ‘Benz’ Jattanapanawangsa-anchana as he waxes the ripe golden exterior. He then leans over to me and whispers that, in all honesty, anyone who truly believes in the Sacred Pineapple of Ko Tako can only be described as one thing:

To the Anti Fake News Center of Thailand, this article is a JOKE. Thank you.
To readers, non-joke posts will be back on Tuesday, starting with a trip into Trat. 🌴