#55: Arrival at Koh Yao Noi

10.03.2020

Today, we bid farewell to Phuket as we leave Thailand's largest island. Our new destination is Koh Yao Noi, a smaller and less developed island in the northeast of Phuket. We check out at 9 o'clock and make our way. To save money and see something on the way, we want to take the public Blue Bus again. It runs from Karon Beach to Phuket Town. There we have to change once to get to the Bang Rong pier. Once we arrive there, we take the speedboat to Koh Yao Noi, where we have to cover the last leg with a shared taxi.

The journey goes surprisingly smoothly. We only have to wait a short time for both buses and are transported to the planned destinations for a small amount of money in 2 hours. Interestingly, the second bus is almost half loaded with food and other items that apparently are also supposed to be transported to the island. Upon arrival at the pier, the next ferry departs in 20 minutes. Just enough time to get a cold Coke from the 7-Eleven vending machine at supermarket prices.

The 30-minute speedboat ride is a beautiful experience. You can take in the islands and limestone cliffs and relax. However, we were instructed to wear the life jackets twice during the ride, which made us a little unsure. Hopefully, we only have to wear them as a precaution, not out of experience. But this ride also goes smoothly and we arrive on Koh Yao Noi much earlier than expected. We take a shared taxi that is already waiting at the pier to our hostel and are greeted there by our landlady Poom with cold drinks.

She gives us a small overview of the island with a map and then takes us to our bungalow, about 300 meters from the coast. The bungalow is nicely furnished and located right next to the forest. Poom tells us that there is a family of monkeys living in the forest, one of which is not very friendly. We'll see.

To our surprise, there is a frog in the bathroom, which we have to catch and release into freedom. After a short break to settle in, we want to go back to the beach. However, when we look through the door, we see the monkey family settling down in front of our bungalow. The family apparently consists of 6-8 macaques, including small babies. We have never lived so close to nature before! However, the monkeys immediately disappear into the forest again when we step out of the door and they spot us.

The scenery on the island and along the coast is very idyllic and untouched. The water is turquoise blue and the islands and limestone cliffs are easily visible with the naked eye. In addition, smaller islands can be reached on foot from the main island during low tide. We do just that. We walk through the sea, which has been dried out by the low tide, over huge shells and corals. There are fish and crabs everywhere. It's simply fantastic here. And to top it off, we are almost alone most of the time, with no crowds of tourists in sight.

After dinner at Poom's restaurant at the pier, we return to our bungalow. This time we don't have air conditioning, which is normally set to 25/26°C. For the next four nights, we only have a fan at temperatures of 27-34°C. Let's see how that goes.