Thailand: Islands - February 2009
Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic translation made from a post originally written in French. My apologies for any strange sentences and funny mistakes that may have been generated during the process. If you are reading French, click on the French flag below to access the original and correct text:
Français Here are some new images from the peaceful little island of Koh Yao Noi, in Phang Nga Bay, Thailand. Authentic atmosphere. Nothing to do with Phuket.
I am writing this post (March 3rd, 2009), as I am about to leave Koh Yao Noi tonight. The Eden Divers minibus will pick me up later in Phuket and I will spend the night on the dive boat. Tomorrow, I'll be back in Phuket, first bubbles in the Andaman Sea !
In the meantime, here are some new pictures of the peaceful little island of Koh Yao Noi.
Koh Yao Noi : the return of the camera's revenge
That's right, my faulty camera was cooperative! 🙂.
I'm getting my hopes up. Hopefully I can take some underwater pictures! The dive cruise lasts four days. You'll know everything when I get back on March 7... What a suspense!
Anyway, I'm really glad that I chose Koh Yao Noi so I can refresh myself and acclimatize smoothly.
There is not much to do here, except boat or motorcycle rides. Even kayaking and cycling for real sportsmen or real brave (which I am not).
And that's good.
My "adventurous" life
Because I often travel alone, in far away countries, without organizing things too much in advance, I am sometimes told that I am an "adventurer". But I live very quiet adventures, in truth.
????
A little recap of my adventures of adventurer in Koh Yao Noi ...
Crossing a forest of rubber trees, with latex oozing trunks, by a small road taken at random. Apart from a few mosquitoes that devoured my ankles when I stopped to examine the drying latex carpets, no threat on the horizon.
I did not even get lost. A road in ocher land soon brought me back to the main road, hard.
So, go to the village, to buy mosquito at Seven-Eleven. Ah, this little ding-dong inimitable when you push the door! I narrowly escape bronchitis, given the chilled atmosphere inside ...
Then stop at a seller of clothes, which is also cyber café in the back of his shop, to pick up the mails and respond to comments on the blog.
On the way out, a mandatory break at the crepe maker's in the market, because a chocolate pancake at only 10 baht can't be refused.
There, I sympathize with the women seated in the small restaurant next door. And I play the tourists without complex, aiming my goal towards the children, too happy to have a camera that works.
Sequence emotion, then, on the dirt road that leads to the beach of Lom Lae Resort ... A baby buffalo and his mom, impressive big horns graze along a dry rice field.
The kid is cute and approaches me, intrigued.
The mother does not like and pretends to chase me away. She may be attached, she manages to scare me.
Little adrenaline rush. I run away, my heart beating.
Station to the coconut falls!
Other than that, not much to fear on this island. Everyone leaves his bike with the key on it and you can be a farang, a stranger, a tourist, we do not scam you on your small shop at the market. It relaxes…
Oh, all the same: you have to watch out for the coconut falls! ????
It sounds funny, but it's a very real danger. Every year, good coconuts kill more people around the world than sharks, for example.
A policeman renting bungalows
Pramot, the guy who holds Tabaek View Point where I am staying, is a policeman. He started his little bungalow business six years ago, with his Japanese wife, Kazuyo. He is a lovely talker, who goes out of his way to be helpful to his customers.
His job at the police station takes him up to four hours a day ... This is to say if the crime is developed on this island.
He came to settle here because life is simpler and easier than in Phuket, he tells me, and on top of that he gets the same salary. He doesn't like the city.
Yesterday, as I rather wanted earthly adventures as you know (bullfighting with rice buffaloes, meeting with the native market, hide and seek with mosquitoes under rubber trees), I even declined his invitation to a free BBQ party for lunch, on the small island opposite.
Pramot offers the crabs and fish grilled on the beach to those who stay more than five days at home... This was the case for a Swiss German couple and a German woman. He offered me to join them, "for free"for free... really nice.
I hope I didn't offend him too much by refusing. But as I'm going to be on a boat and in the water for four days, and I've already given myself a tour of the bay, I didn't feel much like going back on a longtail boat, to hear German conversation during the whole trip, swimming and lunch... People who looked friendly, by the way, but older than me, and with whom I didn't immediately feel a connection. Anyway, anyway...
It's always like that, when traveling alone. Everyone wants to invite you to join a group, an activity, a meal. Already the day before, I had turned down a tour of snorkeling organized by Koh Yao Bungalows (with a family of Germans, again... they know all the good stuff, the Germans!).
It's not always easy to make people understand, full of good intentions, that you don't necessarily want to have company.
