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The next journey was to Koh Yao Noi, a Thai island in the Andaman sea, which is a 30 minute boat ride from Phuket. It took an early morning flight, one very angry taxi driver, a night in a hotel, an overpriced taxi and a suspicious looking boat journey to get us to the island from Chiang Mai.
It felt like we had arrived in Sri Lanka when we hopped off the plane at Phuket airport. We where hounded straight away by over priced taxi firms and people trying to get a bit of commission off us by recommending their friends company. Eventually after getting lost in the airport, calling our hotel from the information desk and being quoted £8 - £10 for our 5 minute taxi journey by other companies, we found a meter based taxi company. However, our taxi driver was so appalled at having to take us only 2 minutes down the road that he repeatedly gave us the 'evils' and shouted at us when we asked him questions. Let's just say we didn't give him a tip!
We didn't have energy to travel all the way in one day so we stopped in a hotel near the airport for one night to relax. The hotel was nice and didn't feature bed bugs which was a big positive. But it was situated on a busy duel carriageway in the middle of nowhere and without a restaurant. So for our evening meal we had to make the 40 minute walk down to the 7/11 mini-mart. However, on our way back we spotted a hotel with a restaurant, so we ate their instead of munching on our enticing pot noodle. Don't worry the pot noodles came in handy later, it wasn't a wasted trip in the end!
The next morning we had no other option but to go with the hotels price for a lift to the pier to catch our boat. They started at £12 and we could only convince them to go down to £10. Although that sound like a normal English price for a 20 minute journey, but for Thailand that's a fortune! But we hopped in his new 4x4 with all the upgrades and paid the money, we didn't have much option. The sneaky thing was we had to pay a tourist fee to enter the pier and they made us pay that on top without telling us! The pier itself looked really suspicious, it didn't have any clear signs and we knew to be wary of the men that immediately approach you about tickets. After walking around we headed up to the only desk we could find and we ended up buying our boat ticket off the strange man who approached us when we arrived!
The speedboat journey from Phuket island to Koh Yao Noi was fantastic, with only 4 other passengers we stretched out on the boat as it sped past smaller islands. We could even see the karst island formations ,similar to Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, on the coast of Krabi mainland. It was the first time either of us had been on a speedboat, we definetly enjoyed the experience as we travelled over the top of the water with an odd crashing wave. 30 minutes is all it took to get to the island, and once we arrived taxis waited to take us to our accommodation. When we say taxi we mean a pickup truck with the back opened up with two benches to sit on and they normally wait around to fill up the truck.
Koh Yao Noi is the smaller of the two islands in the Koh Yao Province. The islands are mainly dominated by Muslims who earn a living off rubber plantations, rice farming and of course tourism. The islands are relatively undisturbed compared to the more popular options further a field. With a strong Muslim population there is a lack of alcohol avaliable, deterring the drinking crowd and instead welcoming families. The island was ideal for us and we were suprised by how quiet and untouched it was by tourism, excluding a few nicely decorated restaurants and the odd hotel.
Holiday Resort was the name of our hotel we stopped at for our 5 nights of island life over the New Year break. As Matt explained the accomodation won four Nicole and Matthew Travel awards:
1. The hotel was the worst accomodation we have stayed at to date on our 3 months trip of Asia.
2. The hotel was the most expensive hotel we have stayed in, out of the whole of Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.
3. The hotel had the best view from any of the accomodation we have stopped in yet.
4. It finally wins the award of being the dirtiest place we have ever stopped in yet.
Basically your paying £10 a night for the wooden hut you sleep in, and £17 a night for the view your hut looks out onto. But saying all this we actually had a really lovely time on the island and just ignored the dirty and broken parts of our hut.
The hut looked out onto the sea with stunning views of the near by islands and Krabi further in the distance. We spent many a night and day on our veranda, that we shared with cats, wasps, hornet and the odd gecko, looking out onto the view and we felt pretty blessed to be there. The tide times meant that the beach directly in front of us was covered during the main part of the day. But that didn't stop us having the odd dip in the warm water and catching some sun in the afternoon once the tide had washed out. We basically did nothing but chill, sunbathe, read, eat and swim in the sea for 5 days.
Our sunshine days were coming to an end with only 15 days left of these beautiful days. We have grown so accustomed to opening the curtains and the sun shining in. This realisation hit Nicole hard, as she only has 15 days left of tanning time. You would think that we would be a lovely golden brown after 4 months in Asia, but most of the countries we have visited have needed us to cover up with shirts and trousers. Our pasty white legs are desperately seeking some vitamin C before we arrive in Europe. The tanning countdown has begun!
Finally we should wish you all a Happy New Year! We welcomed 2016 sitting on our veranda with a few Chang beers, watching the locals zoom up and down the road on their mopeds trying to find a good spot on the beach to watch all the fireworks light up the nights sky.
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