NOODLE NONSENSE: September 2012 - Phang Nga and Koh Yao Noi

Here are my two highlights from the month of September...

Day Trip - Phang Nga…For some reason, I was determined to drive up to the Phang Nga Bay viewpoint and see what all the hype was about after reading about it and my friend Lindsay saying that she took a day trip to see it. What I didn’t really realize at first was that the views I was reading about were the same ones that I had seen on my trip to James Bond Island and on the boat ride to Krabi. Anyways, I still wanted to drive up and see if I could find anything interesting. So one Saturday morning, Court, Nanc and I started the journey. We biked off of Phuket and about 2 hours later reached our lunch destination that Jamie’s Phuket Blog had informed me about. It was seriously off the beaten track and as we rode through a poor stilt village, it made me thankful that I lived in Phuket and also made me feel completely spoiled. We were the only ones at the restaurant and I walked out on the fish farm docks to pick out our lunch from the nets. We definitely treated ourselves to a feast….YUMMMMM

Restaurant


View from our table at lunch

Village

Catching our lunch

After lunch we continued on to drive to Wat Suwan Kuha, the Buddha in a Cave, that I was determined to find. It actually turned out to be pretty cool. Nanc didn’t enjoy it too much due to the massive presence of monkeys but I thought the large caves and the shrines and the big Buddha were very unique.

After that we rode over to some national park but didn’t stay long because of the rain clouds we could see coming in. As we rode back, we tried to find THE Phang Nga Bay viewpoint but I don’t think we ever found it!! Well actually we did follow the signs but the viewpoint we found wasn’t that impressive so who knows if we were at the right one….

Made it back to Phuket in time for Bliss’ Annual White Party in Surin….Such a fun night dancing in the rain with all of our friends who came up from Chalong for it

and then it POURED

Koh Yao Noi…Why we waited so long to go to Koh Yao Noi, I’ll never know! I guess we didn’t realize how easy and cheap it was to get to and beautiful it was. I thought the views of Railay Beach, Krabi were the most beautiful in the world, but the views of Koh Yao Noi might have them beat. Koh Yao Noi is said to be one of the last untouched/undeveloped islands in Southern Thailand with only about three hundred Thai residents, a complete hidden gem. We probably saw a total of 4 other tourists there our entire weekend, which was amazing. Court, Nanc and I biked over to the Bangrong Pier on the eastern side of Phuket on a Saturday morning in late September, put our motorbikes onto a longtail boat and a short $5 ride later, we were in paradise. Found a little bungalow on the water to stay the night in and spent a good amount of time laying in a hammock sipping a mango shake enjoying the views.

Sunday morning, Nanc and I explored the island a bit, found some beautiful rice patties and after many wrong turns and off-road driving, we found the hidden paradise of Paradise Beach. If you are a typical falang (white person) and want to go to Paradise Beach, you take a boat from the Koh Yao pier to get there but since Nanc and I were not normal white people, we did it the way the Thais do and off-roaded for two hours until we got there. I can't even count the number of times I had to get off the back of the bike and walk/hike because the hills were so steep. Two white girls in sundresses driving on "roads" that trucks struggled on - the looks we got from the locals were priceless. I could have stayed forever! Such a beautiful, relaxing weekend.