Want a nice, off the beaten-track island less than 30km from Thailand’s second busiest ariport?

KO YAO NOI and YAI are big rugged islands off the eastern coast of Phuket in the mouth of Phang Nga Bay. When you are staring out to sea from popular Railay and Ao Nang at that big mountainous island you maybe think is Phuket, you are in fact gazing at these two.
Yai is the bigger, larger than Lanta and nearly the size of big Ko Chang,. It is the less settled and visited. Noi is smaller, around the size of Phangan, has a bigger local population than Yai and about a dozen tourist operations. It can be described as off the beaten track and genuinely laid back, with nice scenery and a very friendly local population.

ISLAND MAP

AREA MAP


Most of the budget travelers’ bungalow operations are in a roughly 5 km strip on the east coast taking in HAT PASAI, LONG BEACH and HAT THA KAO as you head north. These beaches start about 5 km across the island from the arrival pier from Phuket which is near the main village of THA KAI in the south west of the island. A good paved road circles the southern two thirds of the island with several cross routes and offshoots. It’s a nice place to explore by hire motorcycle or bicycle. Only a short section of this route, west of the northern most pier town of Tah Kao was what I considered seriously steep for a bicycle rider. The rest is real easy, which is interesting for a mountainous looking island.

I stayed at COCONUT CORNER right at the northern end of Pasai Beach where the road does indeed take a corner around the inside of the headland separating it from Long Beach. This is a typical old style travelers’ place with a handful of bamboo thatched bungalows and a small restaurant right on the corner and across from the beach. I’ll put a detailed description of the place at the end of this article for interested punters.
The local guy running Coconut Corner is a bit of a character: greets guests 8am with how are you tomorrow? and 8pm with gutten morgen!!. Sounds corny, but as David Lettermam from The Late Show says: it aint the material, it’s the delivery
Well sure, but if you figure out which one Letterman thinks he’s got, let me know.
Coconut’s owner has an eclectic taste in music, ranging from current pop thru dance/boys wid attitooood/techno/blues to 50s-70s stuff. Don McClean aint too rare, but you don’t hear Buddy Holly too often these days. I also loved his coffee cups with the picture of the ‘59 Caddy Eldo convertible. Which has got to be the most spectacular production car of all time.

SABAI CORNER (aka Sabai Cottages in some of he guidebooks) is probably the best known of the Yao Noi bungalow places, with bungalows built up the steep rain forested headland 3 minues walk from Coconut. Looked pretty nice to me, all the cheaper 500s gone when I was there. Their beachside restaurant is okay, a bit more expensive than Coconut Corner, and does not take top advantage of the offshore karst island views because of trees. Jeez, where’s the local chainsaw dealer?

Maybe 600m further north, on Long Beach, was the blue roofed HOLIDAY RESORT who’s restaurant definitely did take in those views. So did all but the least expensive bungalows, built on a slight slope up from the road level. I hired my bicycle from this place, and I gotta say the big overweight local running the show is a sweet guy, giving me a nice ice cold drink gratis on return, and not caring a damn that I plonked my very sweaty self at one of his slightly upmarket restaurant tables. Their hire bicycles at 150 per day, were in pretty good condition. They also hire motorcycles, as do just about every bungalow place plus a guy at the pier.

Between Sabai and Holiday are a couple of bars, the one closer to Holiday tending to attract in late arvo an interesting mixture of locals, long stay travelers, blow-ins like me and island expats. They put on a pretty good buffet dinner here. I spent a fascinating couple of hours talking to a local expat resort owner about the cut-throat island politics and business deals.

A couple of other accom places looked pretty nice to me.
About a km south of Pasai beach towards the main village of Tha Kai is a side road heading south - look for the KOH YAO LAMSAI RESORT AND SEAFOOD sign. This place about 2-3 km down the road, right at the end - you will have to continue maybe 50m along a rougher track. The restaurant with very reasonable prices is perched on the seaside rocks with superb views across to big Ko Yao Yai, and their bungalows starting at a 600 ask are on a steep slope above and look like they would have similar maybe tree interrupted views. There is no beach, but you can swim any tide off the end of their combined pier/fishpens directly out from the restaurant, and there is a nice, totally secluded beach about 200m north-east, a small section of which looked like it would have sand even at lowest tide, something not so common on Yao Noi.
I walked down to Lamsai Resort via the beach from Coconut Corner in a bit under an hour (would be difficult when the tide is getting up) and rode it on a bicycle next day in about 15-20 minutes via the roads.

Back on Long Beach TABAEK VIEWPOINT BUNGALOWS are situated up a steep slope with great views of the bay and offshore stack islands. This budget place gets good reviews on travelfish.

Travelling north from Long Beach, it takes a bit of a hike around the headland , but where you first hit Hat Tha Khao, THA KAO BUNGALOWS have a handful of nice cheapies tucked into the corner of the beach. They can also do you hire bicycles.



BEACHES are not Yao Noi’s strongpoint. They look real nice opposite Coconut Corner, Sabai Corner, Tabaek, Holiday Resort and Tha Kao Bungalows at high tide but are very rocky low tide. There are a couple of exceptions - at the southern end of Sabai Beach, opposite PASAI COTTAGE is a nice section of sand even at lowest tide. Pasai Cottage looked a pretty nice place, with widely spaced attractive bungalows. It takes maybe 10 minutes to walk down here from Coconut Corner.

There is supposed to be a nice private beach belonging to a flash resort KOYAO ISLAND RESORT on the headland right at the north end of Holiday Resort’s Long Beach.

Major work was going on just north of here, putting in what seemed to be at least 30 high end bungalows, artificial ponds, swimming pools etc on a steep little knoll on the headland. I believe this is the new EVASON HIDEAWAY RESORT - there is a link futher down this report.

TEMPLE BEACH (Hat Sai Taew) is north of the little village at Tha Kao, the east coast pier village about half way up the island and approx 3km north of Holiday Resort. Take the first paved road to the right after the main road turns inland past the pier, and turn right again down a track which runs to the left of a group of huts. This follows a canal a short distance and then goes over a hill to a budhist enclosure. Walk thru the enclosure to the beach. There was always a handful of ferangs at this nice spot, which is a bit shallow low tide but has sand right into the water. There are some nice casuarinas for shaded sand back of the beach.
Total walking time past the pier maybe 15 minutes.

If you turn to the right, AWAY from town when you come back off Sai Taew’s access track alongside those huts, the paved side road soon deteriorates into a dirt track which continues north thru the forest for about 4km up and down a few mild hills to terminate at a DESERTED NORTH EASTERN BEACH, quite long but a bit rocky at lower tides. This is just to the south of the bay containing the upmarket KO YAO PARADISE resort which is accessed from a separate, apparently killer 4WD-only road which comes in from the central western island. I didn’t try this one - I hate bicycling killer roads where I usually manage to jam a wheel in a rut and fall on my head.

Even better than Temple Beach is the LOVELY SAND SPIT on KO NOK, a small double-karst island about a km out from the south east corner of the Yao Noi, with sand and deep water right offshore all tides. I hired a kayak from Coconut Corner for 300 a day and paddled the 3km or so from there in maybe a half hour (I am a novice kayaker). There is reasonable coral/fish off the beach here.
A Brit guy about 4 pick-axe handles across the shoulders with a racy looking sea kayak was packing up his tent when I arrived - he had hired his gear at Ao Nang near Krabi and done a detailed cruise around both Yaos, sleeping where he found a nice location for his tent. He was off to explore those amazing karst islands in Phang Nga bay next. This sounds a great way to check these types of places - I gotta get me into a long distance kayaking program! He said the west coast of big Yao Yai was amazing with heaps of pristine unsettled beaches.and some great mangroved estuaries. Who said there were no new places left in Thailand? And within sight of Phuket!

Note that this island is okay for DAY-TRIPPING out of Phuket. A middle aged Malaysian couple caught the songthaew up from Phuket town and then the ferry with me - the were pounced on by a guy hiring motorcycles at the pier. I met them again early afternoon leaving Temple Beach - they’d had a nice cruise around the island including a good lunch at Holiday Resort. The roads are good, there is very little traffic, the various villages are nice to check out (the main one, Tha Kai, has several restaurants, quite a few shops including a 7-11, internet and a small produce market for some good fruit bargains) and scenic countryside/coastline which is a mixture of farming, fishing and forest. There are FEW DOGS!
Note the last ferry back to Phuket leaves at 1500.


GETTING THERE

FROM PHUKET - there are 5 ferries per day from BANG RONG pier about 30km north of Phuket town. cost is 100 baht, trip takes about 90 minutes. You can check the timetable here at Andaman Island Hopping's excellent webite.
Best place to sit is on top of the cabin for nice views of the islands - the seating area often gets a tarp across the front and translucent roller blinds at the side to shield passengers from spray if there is any chop and can be pretty claustrophobic.
There are regular songthaews from the day market area in Phuket town to Bang Rong, cost 70baht - this also takes about 90minutes.
From Phuket airport you would need a taxi - judging by the 400baht cost airport to Phuket town, you would be looking at something like 250-300, less if you get a metered taxi. Distance would be 20km max and the roads are not real busy in this part of the island, so maybe 20-30 minutes.

When the ferry arrives at the pier, tuk tuks are waiting to take passengers away - cost to Coconut Corner was 70 baht, which annoys the proprietor no end, saying it is way too high.

FROM KRABI - two boats per day leave AO THALEN pier about 30km north of Krabi town - check the above link. Cost is 100 baht, about one hour to 90 minutes. Only one departure time in the morning, but there were 2 boats, one from the main Tha Kai pier and one from the smaller east coast pier at Tha Kao. Some nice stack island and coastal views here too, so sit up top if you can.
Songthaews take about 90 minutes between Krabi and Ao Thalen for 40 baht. They leave from near the big Vogue department store, pretty close to where the white Ao Nang songthaews terminate.
Going INTO Krabi on the return journey, the songthaew stops at the KRABI BUS STATION about 3 km north, good news for people wanting to push on south or east. An enterprising lady from the travel agency here comes out and offers normal priced boat tickets to LANTA and PP including free transport to the pier, which is south of town. This saves a lot of mucking about in town, plus precious time which is a bit tight for people wanting to catch the morning ferries.

FROM PHANG NGA - there is one boat shown on the above website. Apparently this is a really spectacular trip passing thru some of the best karst island areas of this fabulous bay.
BTW, I read somewhere that some of the Yao Noi resorts can organize daytrips to some of the less visited southern Phang Nga Bay stack islands by long tail or kayak.

TO PHI PHI - a couple of the resorts including Sabai Cottages from memory had signs up about speedboat trips direct to PP. Not cheap.

MAP - travelfish has a map and gives pretty good descriptions of most accommodation here


COCONUT CORNER

I got me a traditional thatched bamboo, metal roofed bungalow with bathroom for 350, which I thought was right on the money. It was not too squeezy for two and their gear, although shelf speace was limited (a fair few hooks). The double bed had firm but fairly comfy mattress and pillows and the mozzie net was in good condition. Although adjacent to the road, traffic noise did not bother me, and I’m a bit sensitive to this. Not much traffic here, particularly at night.
There was a reasonable sized portable mirror that you could move from main room to bathroom hooks.
The toilet was a squat one, no toilet paper supplied but towels were. Water flow was very good except once at 1800, when it disappeared! Maybe the whole island was having a pre-dinner shower.
The verandah was a nice place to spend time, with a hammock and a big park type bench. A broom was supplied. The grounds were pretty clean, but my sub verandah area just failed the NO CIGGY BUTTS, NO RING-PULLS TEST, as do most places.
The open-sided restaurant was right on the corner where the road turns in past the headland, a good place to watch the leisurely passing parade and to scope out the tree interrupted coastal/sea views. Food quality was good and prices were pretty normal for budget bungalow restaurants with one or two exceptions - a small beer was 60baht (more normally 40-50), those ubiquitous 950ml translucent waters 30 (10-15) and Cokes 30 (15-20). There are a couple of nearby shops to stock up on cheap water and other provisions. Not booze - this island is heavily Muslim.
Coconut hires motorcycles and kayaks, the latter a third of the prices of Ao Nang and Railay across the bay. Their bicycles were all broken. What’s new - what do you guys DO to them?


OTHER LINKS

Jamie of JAMIES PHUKET BLOG has an interesting report on a day visit to Yao Noi,inckuding some nice photographs here

Lomlai Resort
Ko Yao (lots of info including a nice satellite photo of the island)
Sabai Corner Bungalows
Koyao Island Resort
sadly coming soon -Evason HideAway - (fer all you high enders - for others there is a nice Ko Yao Noi Google-Earth link - that's Long Beach below the HideAway location and the headland at the southern end has Sabai Corner on the northern side and Coconut Corner on the southern)

The last 5 links were provided by Eric Haeg who alo has some nice info and photos of Yao Noi in his where'swayne blog - (scroll down to Lee's Visit Thurs Jan 18). There are some good shots taken on that lovely sand spit at twin-island Ko Nok.

Eric also provided this terrific extra information:

"After you arrive on Koh Yao Noi--and thank yourself for doing so--there are a few people you should meet and some great sites to see.

In the center of town, opposite the pharmacy, you'll find Simon's restaurant. His wife serves absolutely authentic, local,Muslim food for a low price. If you're in luck, Simon will be there too. Strike up a conversation with him...he's been living there longer than some of you have been alive.

Down from Simon's is the Koh Yao Noi Children’s Center. It was started by a Californian named Tim, but who is now referred to on the island as Ajarn. He's usually around, and can be very helpful if you want to find out what's happening around the island. You never know when someone's celebrating a birthday, there's a village fair, or a gnarly game of beach bocce going on later that night.

Head to Had Pasai and stop at Pasai Bungalows. If you've got time (and it may take some time for things to come to you on KYN), stop in for some french fries. Yes, I said french fries. I've lived in Thailand three years, and I've never had a better tasting chip. While you wait, you can chat with the owner, An. He's also a local musician and can cover some great Job To Do hits. BTW, Job To Do is a great Thai-reggae band from the south of Thailand. This is where I usally stay. It's basic, clean, and pretty cheap.

Just past Pasai are Coconut Corner and Sabai Corner. If you don't meet anyone else here, meet Colin at Sabai. To try and sum Colin up would do him an injustice. He runs the place with his own unique style--usually while wearing fisherman's pants and a lightweight, Thai-style, white, cotton shirt with a big, green ganja leaf on it. Roll one up with him--strictly DRUM of course--and ask him to tell you the story of how his brother and the BBC came looking for him after the tsunami. The ower is an Italian woman and if you're craving some Italian, this is the place to get it.

After Sabai corner, it KYN’s newest restaurant. The name escapes me, but you can’t miss it. The food in delicious, ask for a fresh catch. The atmosphere is great and it’ll no doubt be a new gathering spot for those who want to mingle. Neighboring on the restaurant’s right is Mot’s Pyramid bar. It’s simple, cheap and has great music. Mot is from Had Yai, but has been living on KYN for quite some time now. He’s a friendly guy and speaks English well.

If you've got money to burn, try Koh Yao Island Resort. During the low season, the fancy bungalows are nearly half price. The food is way too expensive, but the rooms are the best. It's a perfect place to bring a special lady friend. Gavin, the Singaporean GM, really knows how to wine and dine his guests. It's expensive, but worth it.

Farther north, is Buddhist meditation center. It’s difficult to find, but if you can do it, you’ll be proud of yourself. It has the island’s best beach and a hilltop observation deck. From there, all of Phang-Nga bay can be taken in; the sunsets are glorious and watching the approaching thunderstorms roll over the bay and its limestone cliffs can be quite a site too.

In addition to the meditation center, KYN has a gigantic old tree at its northern tip. The tree is so big it would take 25 people to hold hands around its base. If you’re looking for an adventurous trek, ask one of the locals to help guide you there. Once you’ve drenched yourself in sweat getting to the tree, you can take a dip in the nearby bay. No one will on that beach for sure.

KYN’s western side is a gigantic rice patty and holds some great photo ops during sunset. Buffalo, birds, winding dirt roads, swaying blades of rice, it doesn’t get much more peaceful than that.

Koh Yao is one of the last great islands along Thailand's west coast. If you find yourself there, enjoy."

Thank's Eric.

If you have any questions, please ask them in THE FORUM rather than below. I don't get a chance to check all threads daily, but unless I'm travelling I'll try to monitor THE FORUM regularly.