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Published: March 20th 2011
HE SAID... We left Ao Nang at 11.30am in an air conditioned minibus to travel to the Tha Lane pier to catch a ferry to
Koh Yao Noi. We arrived at 12.15pm, but the ferry we were meant to catch had been cancelled, so we caught a local speedboat instead. We left at 1pm and arrived at the island at 1.30pm. We caught a
songthaew (small pickup truck/ute with seats in the tray) to our bungalow retreat which was located just across the road from the beach. We lunched at 2pm. I had
yum pla hmik (Thai style squid salad) and Ren had
goong pad kao pod(stir fried prawns with baby corn). The food was great. We finished the meal with coffee and watermelon shakes.
We considered hiring bikes to ride around the island and we also considered hiring a double sea kayak to paddle round the shoreline. However, our plans were cut short when a storm hit the island in the late afternoon. We had seen it approaching during the day and it was upon us quickly, but it didn’t make any difference to our enjoyment. We swam in the choppy sea and met a beautiful black dog that
we temporarily called Rex. We showered and then headed back down to the beach bar to relax. The rain arrived as we sat on the beach with pina coladas and cold beer - it was warm and the rain was refreshing. The bar staff tried to erect an umbrella for us but it quickly blew away in the wind.
We had dinner on the beach at 7pm. I had
pad thai talae sod (rice noodles stir fried with seafood, dried shrimp, egg, bean sprouts, tofu, chillies, fish sauce and peanuts) and Ren had
goong gaeng phed (prawns in spicy red curry). It was fantastic. This place was an absolute haven, and we loved the island’s isolation and remoteness. We sat on the beach after dinner and sipped adult drinks while we waited for the fire show. It didn’t arrive until 10.45pm, but it was worth the wait. His warm-ups were full of faults and mistakes, so we thought he would sustain a few serious injuries during the performance. He didn’t - the show was brilliant. He even refused our tips at the end, but we insisted and he obliged. This had been a fantastic way to end an exceptional
day - it was our fifth anniversary, and it was a great way to celebrate with great travel companions. We retired from the beach, sat on the deck of our bungalow and laughed into the night. We eventually had to crawl into our mosquito net and crash at midnight. The bungalow rooms weren’t air-conditioned, but it didn’t matter. We had an electric fan blaring all night.
We woke early at 6.15am and strolled down to the beach to catch the morning sun as it rose over the islands that dotted the Andaman Sea. Rex and a friend had started their day chasing crabs. We had a cold shower and headed to breakfast at 8am. I had muesli with fruit and yoghurt and Ren had an omelette. We both finished with a coffee shake. This place may have been basic, but it had the best atmosphere. We were falling in love with Koh Yao Noi.
We jumped into a longboat (anchored on the beach right in front of our bungalows) and headed out on what was to be a very different island boat tour to the one we experienced a few days earlier. We visited secluded lagoons, swam at
secluded beaches and snorkelled on secluded reefs. We lunched on
khao pad gai (chicken fried rice with chilli) packed in small plastic containers and finished the meal with fresh pineapple and watermelon. The food was great, the scenery was amazing, the company was fun and the two crew members were fantastic. There were other tourist boats around, but nothing like the numbers that were churning out of Ao Nang. We pulled into a secluded beach for one last swim before our journey back to Koh Yao Noi. We arrived back at 4.15pm - it had been a brilliant day. I could easily come back here - it is such a fantastic place. And it really doesn’t matter that you can’t buy alcohol from the island shops (due to the Muslim influence). We could still buy alcohol at restaurants and beach bars.
We decided to have dinner on the beach again. I had
pad thai talae sod (rice noodles stir fried with seafood, dried shrimp, egg, bean sprouts, tofu, chillies, fish sauce and peanuts) and a
nam tok (Thai style spicy beef salad) while Ren had a
goong gaeng keaw wan (prawns in green curry) with steamed rice (even though
she had ordered a red curry). It was fantastic (as always). We relaxed on the beach mats and chatted into the night before retiring at 10pm. It had been a long day and I’d caught a bit too much sun. It was my first sunburn for the trip, and I was red all over. It mattered little though - the day was memorable, and one of the best travel days to date. 😊
We woke early at 6.15am and strolled down to the beach while we waited for breakfast. I had muesli and a coffee shake and Ren had fried eggs on toast and a watermelon shake. We headed back to the bungalow for a cold shower, packed our bags and then jumped into a
songthaew for a very short trip to the jetty where we caught a ferry to Phuket. We left at 9.30am and the sun was already intense. It was going to be a very hot day. I caught up on my writing on the hour long ferry trip.
SHE SAID... We caught a minibus for an hour to Tha Lane and boarded a public speedboat for a twenty minute ride to
Koh Yao Noi in Phang Nga Bay for a taste of a small island. The fact that there were only two other tourists on the public boat made our hope rise that we were leaving the tourism machine behind. When we moored at Koh Yao Noi it was love at first sight!! 😊
We had come to Thailand too late in the piece to enjoy the Robinson Crusoe-esque barefoot-friendly islands that made Thailand such a popular destination in the 1980s...or so we had thought. When we arrived at Koh Yao Noi there were squeals of delight - we had near secluded beaches and absolute QUIET - an unheard of luxury in southern Thailand so far on our trip. So I’m going to start this blog by asking that you excuse the superlatives I will no doubt use...it is hard to talk about this place and not use cheesy words like paradise. We were quite beside ourselves with joy!
Koh Yao Noi is the smaller of the two Yao islands, and despite its proximity to Phuket it has managed to avoid overdevelopment. Services on the small coconut tree fringed island are basic-ish, but they more than met all our key
needs: comfortable lodgings, gorgeous water views, great and plentiful food, drinks and entertainment. We stayed at
Koh Yao Beach Resort on the lovely Pasai Beach. Our charming bungalow was 100 metres from the beach and our hotel’s bar was on the beach. Koh Yao Noi is a predominantly conservative Muslim Island so we could only buy alcohol from restaurants and hotels. There was even a code of conduct board on the street that asked tourists to dress conservatively, not consume alcohol on the streets and not remove shells and sea life from the beach. I thought I would never leave our bungalow porch with its deckchairs only an arm’s length way from the swishing coconut trees above us and the gently breaking waves not far from us...but we had a whole beach to explore! The resort also came with a family of very cute cats and kittens, all eager for pats and cuddles and any stray food that may find its way over to them. I think I took more photographs of the felines than I did of the island. 😊
The main source of income here is from agriculture and aquaculture. We saw tiny fishing villages and thin
tall rubber plantations where the trees were ceremoniously ‘cupped’ with a black cup collecting their bleeding latex. The villagers were extremely friendly and seemed happy to share their island with us. The village life here consisted of the local fishermen mending their fishing boats, kids playing on the beach, and loudly chatting passengers on motorbikes that passed on the narrow road that followed the coastline. We felt a million miles from crowded Ao Nang and light years away from Bangkok! The isolation, peace and quiet were perfect and we revelled in it in happy silence, and sometimes in not-so-silent yelps of elation and cheers-ing. The atmosphere was laid back, the scenery was stunning and walking along the soft sand on that first quiet afternoon made it one of my favourite places in this part of the world...a very happy-making place indeed. Another one for my favourite islands list.
Our food here was lovingly prepared by our resort owner and her extended family...we had our breakfasts and lunches in the picturesque restaurant hut overlooking the beach. However, dinner was served right on the beach!
On our first day we sat on the beach while we digested our lunch of
yum pla hmik (Thai style squid salad) and
goong pad kao pod (stir fried prawns with baby corn). We considered going kayaking but an afternoon storm was coming through so we just decided to walk along the beach and sit in the sea for an hour or so to cool down. The local beach dog (we christened him Rex, as he was king of the beach) came for the walk with us and then even came into the water with us and swam between Andrew and me, entertaining us with his doggie antics. He was so friendly and welcoming. However it turned out he was just killing time waiting for the sand crabs to come out of their holes at dusk, and he then proceeded to spend hours chasing them. Our group adopted him and Rex adopted us right back. 😊
The storm eventually broke through while Julie, Andrew and I were sitting at the Beach Bar (which consisted of a mobile bar, some mats, a few bamboo stools and tables on the beach). We sat in the rain with our first round of cocktails and beers until Rony (the Beach Bar manager and brother of our resort’s owner)
brought a large beach umbrella out for us. Not being a beer fan, I normally overlook the Chang and Singha beers in favour of cocktails, but the cocktails were so ordinary here that I had to resort to drinking beer! Nadine and Jessica also joined us for drinks and we sat in the darkening beach listening to reggae, drinking, gossiping, laughing and then laughing some more. Before we knew it, it was dinner time, and the resort staff brought our pre-ordered meals out to the beach for us. Dinner was
goong gaeng phed (prawns in spicy red curry) for me and
pad thai talae sod (rice noodles stir fried with seafood, dried shrimp, egg, bean sprouts, tofu, chillies, fish sauce and peanuts) for Andrew. The food at this resort was so good that we decided not to eat at any other restaurant while we were here. Very very very spoilt. 😄
After dinner some of us moved back to the Beach Bar, where dance music was now blaring through the beach-side speakers. Rony’s friend was a fire twirler, so we were treated to a private fire show late in the night. We were expecting an amateurish act but it
was a seriously good show, and better than any fire show I’ve paid for. Of course the setting helped. With better equipment he could have been a professional. At midnight, when we all tottered in varying stages of euphoria to our bungalows, I wondered if we had written off the next day, but miraculously we were all ok. Andrew and I sat out on our porch and watched the coconut trees swaying in the night breeze and listened to the surf that could be heard faintly over the music from the Beach Bar. I could not have asked for a better way for us to spend our fifth anniversary! 😄
The next morning after a breakfast of
kai jeow (Thai omelette)for me and muesli with fruit and yogurt for Andrew, we ventured back out into Phang Nga Bay to snorkel and swim in the tropical sun again (around the northern part of Phang Nga Bay this time). We had a whole wooden fishing boat to ourselves, which was splendid beyond words. We first splashed our way across to
Koh Hong and anchored in a picturesque little deep cove for swimming, and then went around to the other side of
the island for some beach frolicking. We played frisbee in the water and engaged in some pretty playfully funny posing on the beach.
By now we were getting hungry so we upped stumps and journeyed to our next stop -
Koh Bia. The scenery here was postcard worthy - the fish were colourful and the beaches were white sandy strips of paradise. This was a small island with a shiny white beach that led to deep cold water on one side and shallow thigh deep warm water on the other. Our picnic lunch of
khao pad gai (chicken fried rice) was perfect, followed by a platter of fresh watermelon and pineapple. Lunch on a secluded beach just about all to ourselves! Andrew helped me to snorkel, which was a brilliant experience. The fish were plentiful and quite friendly/curious and would happily swim around you until disturbed by a boat or people entering the water.
Our last island stop was
Koh Nok. We had spotted this island from our Beach Bar the night before and had really wanted to visit it - so being here was wonderful. It only had a tiny shelly beach and a clump of trees
in the middle of the island, but the gorgeous gorgeous greeny blue water made it a wonderful place to spend the afternoon. Andrew and I decided to spend most of our time in the shallow water near our boat because not only was the setting out of this world, it was also just about deserted. While we were sitting in the water, one of our boat crew came over from the boat with a platter of pineapple and watermelon for an afternoon snack! Have I mentioned that we were being spoilt?? I don’t think I’ve tasted better pineapple (through slightly salty seawater lips)! 😄
All the sun and food made me drowsy and Andrew was sunned out, so we clambered back onto the shady boat and I had a quick nap while Andrew wrote… and the others were still sunbathing and swimming. We got back to the resort at 4pm. What a perfect outing!! Within minutes of getting back and showering, we were back at our Beach Bar settling in for the evening. As per usual, Julie, Nadine and Jessica joined us. We sat there chatting about our day, writing in our journals and having a giggle. What an
awesome group of travellers! Dinner was again served on the beach for us -
goong gaeng keaw wan (prawns in green curry),
pad thai talae sod (rice noodles stir fried with seafood, dried shrimp, egg, bean sprouts, tofu, chillies, fish sauce and peanuts) and a
nam tok (Thai style spicy beef salad) - and it all tasted divine. By that evening we were so very tired, but also so very very very happy. We sat on the beach until 10pm and then crawled into bed after drenching Andrew in after-sun lotion. What a totally awesome, wonderful and brilliant two days in absolute paradise!
The next morning we waved goodbye to our new friends at Koh Yao Noi after a breakfast of fried eggs on toast for me and muesli with fruit and yogurt for Andrew. I had really wanted to try the Thai breakfast of rice porridge with seafood, but we had boat trips every day and I didn’t want to tempt fate. We boarded a
songthaew for the short trip to Tha Moh Noh and then caught a public wooden boat to Phuket.
Koh Yao Noi...walking the beach at sunset with Thai cooking smells wafting out of
our resort’s kitchen and a smiling Rony setting up the Beach Bar for the night...that will be a very warm memory to draw on in the midst of a Tassie winter. 😊
See you in Phuket... that is, if we don’t die of utter happiness overload before then!
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KD
non-member comment
Real Surfers Paradise
That did sound much, much better than the Riviera/Surfers Paradise drivel of the previous place. I'm now very intrigued to get The Phuket Report.