One Day on Koh Yao Yai

I already told you in yesterday’s post, that I’m sharing more information about our day trip to Koh Yao Yai today. It was a fun journey I’m happy we made! You probably know, that we wanted to make more day trips when in Phuket, but since we were in the north of Phuket we didn’t have that many opportunities. Luckily Koh Yao Yai was on our list from the beginning! 🙂 Koh Yao Yai is one of the Koh Yao islands; the other one is Koh Yao Noi. This group of islands is located in the middle of Phang Nga Bay, equidistant to Phuket and the Krabi mainland. Most people travel to Koh Yao Noi; it ‘s the smaller island of both, but it’s more developed. That’s the reason we decided to visit Koh Yao Yai instead.

How to get to Koh Yao Yai

You can either drive from Phuket or Krabi. Our trip started in Phuket since we were staying on this island. 😉 When in Phuket you have to go to the Bangrong Pier in the north half of Phuket, east side. Longtail boats and speed boats are leaving from Bang Rong Pier to Manoh Pier Koh Yao Noi and make a stop on Koh Yao Yai. The transfer with a longtail boat is a little bit cheaper; it ‘s about 150 TBH while a transfer with a speed boat is about 200 TBH. But the speed boat is faster than the longtail boat. So you have to decide if you want to have more time on the island or if you want to save a little bit of money! 🙂 We opted for the first option. The boats are leaving once an hour, the last one from Koh Yao Yai left around 4 pm. The times change from time to time, so you should check them before.

What to do on Koh Yao Yai

The best thing to do on Koh Yao Yai is just to enjoy it. There are no activities. You can rent a scooter right after your arrival on the pier for 200 to 300 TBH a day! They’ll give you a map of the island and show you some of the best spots to drive to. We drove to the Thiwsonbeach Resort, parked the scooter and walked all the way up To La Ma Bay. It took us about 45 minutes, but was totally worth it! After we had come back to the resort, we sat down and had something to eat – it was delicious and the iced coffee was a much-needed refreshment!

So whenever travelling to Koh Yao Yai, you shouldn’t want to do a lot of activities. It’s very calm on this island; they have only a few small stores – you can’t even call them stores -, only one ATM and a few restaurants. Since there’s only one ATM on the whole island, you should bring enough cash with you! Only a few restaurants, especially the ones of the hotels and resorts, take credit cards as well. Koh Yao Yai is the perfect destination for everyone who wants to relax and to do nothing at all! It’s amazing how pristine, calm and friendly this island is.

The only negative part about Koh Yao Yai: the Thais seem to use the whole island as a trash can.. It’s sad, but I already mentioned before that there is trash on the beach and the streets, almost everywhere. It’s the same with Phuket, and I heard similar things about other islands in Thailand.