Koh Yao Noi: An hour from Phuket, 30 years into the past
Bang Bao, right, with a guest in front of one of his two homestay bungalows.
When the sophistication and pace of Phuket, its five-star resorts, its highways, its faaabulous homes, its gogo-bars and tailor’s touts all begin to seem a bit much, a bit unreal, it’s probably time to sample the Thailand that people encountered on arriving in Phuket in the 1980s.
One way to do this is to arm yourself with a dictionary and head off deep into rural Thailand, in the hope that you’ll find a place to lay your head at night and a restaurant where they serve food that is not too frighteningly alien.
Alternatively, you can take the short trip halfway across Phang Nga Bay to Koh Yao Noi.
Water buffaloes are still used to cultivate rice.
Even here, the gorgeous five-star white-wrinkled-cotton life has gained a foothold, but apart from small enclaves such as Evason’s Six Senses Hideaway and the Paradise Koh Yao, life in general goes on much as it did in Phuket 30 years ago.
People still grow rice and use water buffalo as draft animals, timber houses on stilts still sit comfortably in rubber or coconut plantations, restaurants still use little squares of pink paper instead of napkins (and there’s no sign of table cloths), and if you want breakfast at the local eatery, you need to be up early or you’ll go hungry. Mains electricity arrived just seven years ago.
You can also go local for accommodation in a Home Stay – what, in many other countries, would be called “bed & breakfast” – staying with a local family and learning a bit about how they live and, in the process, getting a much better sense of “belonging” than you’d ever get staying in a resort.
Darn, the beaches are crowded. In the distance, the fascinating islands of northern Phang Nga Bay.
The Home Stay programme started about 15 years ago in response to villagers’ worries that Phuket’s aggressive tourist industry would swallow up their mainly Muslim island ethos. Villagers decided to band together to create a kind of tourism that they could control. They would welcome visitors into their own homes, but on their own terms.
It’s been a great success, earning visits from Thai royalty and a slew of awards including, six years ago, the Destination Stewardship Award in the World Legacy Awards co-organised by National Geographic Traveler magazine.
Managing Koh Yao Community Based Tourism is Dusit Butree, known to the island’s 5,000 inhabitants as Bang Bao. He says he has some 50 families signed up, with about 75 rooms on offer. In the high season occupancy overall is about 60 to 70 percent.
Cheerful and talkative, Bang Bao used to make his living as a fisherman, and still enjoys taking visitors fishing. Part of his charm is that he is never frightened, as so many Thais are, of speaking inaccurate English. “I used to tell them, ‘This is girl crab. This is boy crab.’ They maybe laugh, but they know what I mean,” he says with a big smile.
He has also taught himself to type in English and to use email, a big step up in attracting foreign visitors to add to all the Thais who use the Home Stays.
The guest book at the highly polished home of Bang Yan and his wife Yam is full of compliments about their warm hospitality and especially about Yam's cooking.
Visitors can choose where they will stay or, if they have never been before, can trust Bang Bao to assign them to whichever family is next in the rota, thus ensuring that every family gets a fair shake. In most cases accommodation is in the family’s own home though some who joined right at the beginning, like Bang Bao himself, have made enough money to build separate small bungalows for guests.
Families also act as tour guides; many have a background in fishing, and know the sea around the island, and the secret places to go among the soaring limestone islands just to the north. Others are farmers, and can give fascinating insights into growing and harvesting rice, coconuts or rubber.
They also get to do things on their own terms. At the office of Koh Yao Community Based Tourism is a sign with four rules for visitors: “Proper and modest dress in the village community; No alcohol or drugs in the community; No littering; and No collecting of seashells or coral from the sea.”
Handmade batiks by the local Women's Group are a colourful memento of a visit to Koh Yao Noi.
This is not, it has to be said, for those who like their drinks (alcoholic or otherwise) to come with an orchid on a stick, or their coffee to be made only by Illy or Lavazza. Pork naturally makes no appearance on menus. There is one bar on the island, with live music on Fridays, in what Bang Bao calls “the Zone” – a concession to the outside world which Bang Bao does not comment further on but which, his atypically solemn face tells you, he’s not terribly enthusiastic about.
Home Stay accommodation is basic – no DVD players, no in-room Wifi. Beds tend to be on the hard side (or may consist of a mattress on the floor), and bathrooms have the basics, no more. But the homes are kept scrupulously clean and, at B500 a night per room, with breakfast, they are good value.
Koh Yao Community Based Tourism also has a variety of 2- or 3-day packages with accommodation and tours, ranging from B2,000 to B3,500 per person, depending on the number of people in the party.
The evening long-tail ferry from Phuket approaches Koh Kao Noi's main pier.
To see more, visit the Home Stay website. It’s not quite up to date, so for the current situation or to book, email Bang Bao at dusit999@hotmail.com or call him on +66 (8) 6942 7999.
Ferries to Koh Yao Noi leave from the Bang Rong Pier on Phuket’s east coast. The large longtail boats cost B120 per person, one way, and take about an hour. The speedboat ferries cost B200 per person and take about 35 minutes.
The island can also be reached by ferry from Tha Dan pier in Phang Nga (B200) or from Tha Lan pier in Krabi (B150). Short journeys and small prices for going so far back in time.
