After Phi Phi we needed a change of scenery and we found our perfect hideout up in the hills of Koh Yao Noi.
Our journey over from Phi Phi was a long and expensive one. We had thought we could get a boat straight over to Koh Yao Noi but were mistaken, from Phi Phi the boat only went to the southern port on Phuket, with a pricey taxi being the only option to then get to the northern one. From there it was a 30 minute speedboat to the island and a short songthaew ride to our resort.
Hill House was well worth the wait after a long tiring journey, we arrived to the most beautiful setting up in the hills and only a 5 minute walk down to the beach.
Koh Yao Noi remains one of the few islands in Thailand that retains it’s natural beauty and has not been overly developed. While there are various resorts and restaurants around the perimeter, it’s a fraction compared to most islands. This is even more surprising being that it is only an hour from Phuket.
Wildlife is in abundance, being a national park, and we saw everything from monkeys and hornbills to flying mantis’s and other scary bugs.
Most of our days were spent in the hammock, well I was, Greg got the lounge chair. My most memorable day was when the thunder rolled over and huge bolts of lightning’s struck into the distance, the rain hit the roof so hard it sounded as though it would break it.
Our room unfortunately was open, it was a fan room with nothing connecting the walls and ceiling apart from large wooden beams, so we had many beasties and even cockroach or 2 visit. Luckily for Greg I’d somewhat gotten over my uncontrollable high pitched squeals of horror every time I saw a roach.
Our plan was to relax and that’s exactly what we did. It was hard getting about the island without a scooter, restaurants were few and far between, so we rented one for the 4 days of our stay.
We had actually visited at perhaps the worst time, the start of low season, so many of the restaurants and businesses were shut down while families went on their vacations after the busy high season, so it was a struggle to find anywhere open!
We saw a few ‘attractions’ if you can call them that, we visited a holy spring, and a hidden beach, although beautiful they really weren’t anything to write home about. Although we found a dog on the beach so some fun times were had. The beaches on Ko Yao Noi were nice, not pristine but more natural which isn’t a bad thing.
Where We Stayed
Hill House is a beautiful resort. We stayed in the cheapest bungalow, at £16.50 a night. It was towards upper end of our budget and was only a fan room, so it was very hot. However it was brand new and really nice, with lovely friendly owners. With such a fantastic setting and huge comfy bed, we were pretty happy. The free breakfast was awesome, mango sticky rice is yum!
9/10