11-13 January Loh Pared Bay, Koh Yao Yai
Rex1
Sun 26 Jan 2014 01:30
We left Ao Nang at 10am and motor sailed for 4 hours to our favourite spot in Thailand - Loh Pared Bay on the west coast of Koh Yao Yai. And to our surprise on the way Mitch and Greg caught a large striped mackerel, our first decent fish since leaving Papua New Guinea. Mitch was pretty happy because he had been fishing every day and hadn't caught a thing. Greg cooked the fish that night which we had with vietnamese dipping sauce, rice and stir fried veggies - it was beautiful. However when we met Mitch and Elle for breakfast the next morning at the Santhiya Resort Mitch had been sick most of the night and was unwell for the next 2 days. Their resort was just stunning - very traditional Thai style architecture in teak set on a cliff which had only been open for about 6 months. Greg treated them to 1 night and they paid for the second night and they loved it, especially the air conditioning, spa and view.
We delighted in 2 days of swimming, kayaking, walking on the beach and I indulged in a Thai massage on the beach every afternoon (just amazing!). We also hired motorbikes and rode around the island which was only a round trip of 40kms. We had been saying how crazy tourists were in Phuket for not wearing helmets but we weren't given any when we hired the bikes. It was a very low key island and no traffic (it was Sunday) and we enjoyed the trip despite the rough 4km dirt track shortcut we took. This island was predominantly muslim and we rode through small villages which was terrific. We had lunch at the local restaurant on the beach and Greg and I befriended the local guy who sold banana and coconut pancakes from his stall - we encouraged him to branch out and make mango pancakes, pineapple and coconut pancakes and nutella pancakes as Europeans loved them - he didn't know what nutella was so I donated our last jar to him.
As we had to wait for a favourable tide to return to the marina we decided to stay another day and visit a tiny island called Koh Khai Nai for lunch. When we arrived at about 1pm the island was almost deserted - Greg, Mitch and Elle went ashore for a drink and some lunch while Dadang and I stayed on board to ensure our anchor held off the reef in the deep water. Within about 15mins the island was besieged by tourist boats with daytrippers - snorkelling, swimming, jetskiing, sunbaking and eating. (the ugly side of tourism in Thailand) After an hour on the island they came back to the boat and said the lowlight was the rats everywhere and the tourists, but the highlight was the man with the iguanas and Elle paid to have her photos taken with them. So we quickly left the island and returned to our own quiet piece of paradise at Loh Pared Bay.