…Day Trip To Long Island.

Some good friends said “We’re going to Ko Yao Noi on Monday.”

“Why don’t you come with us?” they said. “It’ll be fun” they said. “Thanks. Sounds good” I said.

“We’ll pick you up at 4:30” they said. “WTF” I said. “Are you people crazy?” I said.

In my world each day has only one 4:30. It occurs two and a bit hours before Beer O’Clock. Instinctively I knew they didn’t mean that one.

So, miraculously, I was up and outside the front door early enough to check the Big Dipper was in the right place, and Orion’s belt was shining, even if I wasn’t. We drove across the country to the Andaman Coast to a jetty near Krabi. But I can’t tell you anything about that as I was not allowed to drink coffee until we were almost there.

Some coffee might have helped me make sense of the mélange of the Thai and Italian conversation with a smattering of English. Scrunch down in your seat and pretend you’re not there, was my solution. Seemed to work.

Then we discovered the 7am ferry was really 9am, which meant I could have had at least 100 extra Zzzs. Well, this is Thailand. Always expect the unexpected.

Here’s some photos from the jetty taken somewhere around sunrise…

And here’s the group photo, minus me, because I’m not into selfies. Might break the camera.

After which about twenty of us in total jumped onto a rather short longtail boat and headed off to the Little Long Island, which is kind of what Ko Yao Noi means. Just to the south of there is Ko Yao Yai … the Big Long Island. Not that either of them is really large, but they are long.

And they are both about an hour from either Phuket, or in our case Krabi, the first ten minutes of which was rather pleasant, and the rest rather wet. The sea didn’t seem to like being disturbed by a passing boat and it kept leaping into my side. Well, it was pretty windy and the waves looked somewhere between big and menacing.

So I decided to switch sides, which resulted in twenty people screaming at me to go back. It seems my non-too-impressive seventy-something kilos was going to unbalance the boat. Seriously? It all seemed relatively safe until they told me that.

Cutting through the sarcasm, I can tell you it was a great trip. Bouncing along, trying – and failing – to keep dry, which really didn’t matter in this climate, and constantly wiping spray from my eyes. Exhilarating.

Here’s a few en route and arrival pix…

From there it was a quick songthaew ride…

…courtesy of friend’s brother-in-law to friend’s sister’s restaurant, Talaytong Seafood…

As they say, location is everything, and this really is the perfect location. Shame it wasn’t sunnier, but at least it wasn’t wet. Of course, we had to eat…

…but I’m not sure if it was breakfast or lunch. Brunch, I guess, as we had to be back on a boat at 1pm. Not before a short tour of part of the island, but I can’t show you much as the view was quite restricted from inside the songthaew.

However we did head up a steep hill to a place called the Rice Paddy Viewpoint & Restaurant. What did I say about location? Stunning. An almost 360° view around Phang Nga Bay…

…again needing some sunshine.

And back to the boat and more drowning. Had to sit inside on the way back as the front of the boat was getting some serious soaking… but only after being shouted at again for sitting on the wrong side!

The view was sporadic, as in, now you see it now you don’t…

…but nicer as we reached the mainland with a spot of sunshine.

A hectic trip, but thoroughly enjoyable. I thought I already lived in paradise … now I’m not so sure.