Welcome back to the third and last part of the Thailand journal! I hope you got a small glimpse into the wonder that has been my yoga/meditation/food journey so far. In this part I want to talk a bit about the experiences, what you can do on Koh Yao Noi and why I definitely want to come back.

Most of my days consisted of yoga (morning or evening, I only joined once a day), exploring the island and eating. On my first whole day at Island Yoga the information desk told us that the easiest way to get around on this island would be either on bicycle or on a scooter. Yes, you could walk as well, but seeing as it was quite hot and humid I didn’t want to venture too far on foot. So I after morning yoga, I usually ate breakfast, showered and then borrowed a scooter and decided to do a “round-trip” of the island. Koh Yao Noi is not big (guess that’s why it was named the “small, long island”), it has few streets and one of them leads you all the way around the island. On my first trip it took me about one hour to go round although it has to be said that I stopped at various scenic points, some shops and fruit vendors.

At the only 7 Eleven store on the whole island (and they are very very proud of it!) I bought some coconut water, a soda and some snacks. Directly across the shop is a small fruit vendor that has varying fruit throughout the day – whatever is available at that time. I just had to stock up on that too! I mean, dragon fruit for about 1€??? Give me two of that, some mangosteen, a big bag of rambutan (they were in season) and toss in a few of those longkong too! For only 6 € I had a big bag full of heavenly fruit that I would devour within two days. 

It was way past lunchtime by then and on my way back to the resort I passed so so many beautiful, secluded and deserted beaches. All in all there were so little people on the island (or at least they were so scattered) that whichever beach or forest you went to you met only one or two other humans. I specifically said humans because you could stumble upon a cow, goat, dog, cat or other animal anytime, but more of that later. When I passed an especially beautiful beach I stopped the scooter, parked it somewhere in the green alongside the road, took my snacks, fruit and drinks with me and searched for a  quiet spot in the shade. I found the perfect place for me, sitting on a rock, digging my feat into the sand below while the soft waves crashed around my ankles and enjoyed the ocean view.

At peace with myself and rehydrated I made my way back to the bungalow. There I took a stroll, watched Youtube on my hammock outside the bungalow, played with the cats and waited until it was time to eat dinner. At first I thought about trying all dishes on the menu while staying at this resort, but the menu was huge and because it was so hot I couldn’t eat as much as I wanted to. Most of the time I had some sort of salad, curry or rice with various veggies, fruit and meat. One of my favourite dishes was the Pomelo-Chicken salad, made from the plump flesh of ripe pomelo, dressed in lemon, salt and fish sauce, topped with cooked chicken, fried onions, roasted peanuts and sometimes other veggies when the cook had them on hand. My go to drink was anything fruity, like fresh watermelon juice (my mouth waters just by thinking about it), mango juice, papaya juice and so on.

During my stay at Island Yoga most of my days consisted of the same: yoga, meditation, sleeping, strolling, merrily cruising on the scooter, eating and petting the cats. You could only swim during high tide because otherwise the water was too shallow and the beach was more of a muddy swamp than anything else. High tide was around noon and around midnight, so I hardly swam. But they had a pool which I used sometimes. It was also nice to just relax in front of the lit pool and enjoy a good book.

After all those days on the beach, doing yoga and eating amazing food I felt so relaxed and peaceful. I knew the end this journey was near but somehow I did not dread it. I had somehow learned to enjoy the moment and not worry too much about the end of my trip, the days and months after I returned home or even the far far future. I wanted to give every new day the respect and gratitude it deserved.

So I packed my bags, hugged my newly found friends goodbye and enjoyed the ocean and beach on my way back to the hotel near the airport. I could hardly wait to see my partner again. Even though it was one of my shorter trips, I found new appreciation of life and the people in it. Also, I somehow knew that I would return someday – alone, with my partner or with friends, that I didn’t know – but the feeling stuck.

If you are looking for a quiet place to unwind, let go and refocus, maybe give Koh Yao Noi (or really any other place that feels right to you) a try! You never know what you may find – maybe even yourself!

Until next time!

XO Alex

Welcome to part 2 of my Thailand journey! After my brief stay in Phuket I had to board a speedboat to reach the island of Koh Yao Noi. It’s roughly a 20 minute ride on said speedboat, it you take the longboat  (there are only a few ones throughout the day) it will take you about one hour. The speedboat ride costs about  15 €, if you go by longboat it will cost less – but as said before, the departure times for the longboat are quite irregular. If you need more information about the departure times check out this website.

The ferry ride was fun and the weather was great. So no bumpy butt hurting speedboat ride, yay! I boarded on the Bang Rong Pier on the east coast of Phuket and landed on Koh Yao Noi Pier. Taxi-like vehicles were already waiting on the pier to pick up tourists and bring them to their resorts. As you can see below, the “taxis” were more like small open trucks. But the ride was comfy, breezy and the view was AMAZING! You ride alongside the shore and through the forest and because this vehicle is so open, you feel as if you were amidst it all.

After a 20 min ride (we had to drop off other tourists along the way), we reached the resort I would be staying at for the next 7 days. Island Yoga is a wonderful place with lots of little bungalows, yoga rooms, a restaurant, beach and nature all around as well as many furry companions (cats) that like to enjoy the warmth that radiates of the walkways between the buildings. 

I checked in and was brought to my own little bungalow. I chose to stay in a private bungalow with a ceiling fan (no air con though). You could also stay in a dorm-like room and could choose between no ventilation at all, a ceiling fan or a room with air con. I wanted to stay on my own because this was meant to be a journey of quiet meditation, yoga and lots of introspection – so it would only distract me to have room mates all around me. But if you travel with friends or want to connect more, then the dorm-like rooms are a great option!

It was already quite late in the afternoon when I finished unpacking and so I decided to just take a walk and explore the area instead of hurrying to the evening yoga class. If you want to see some videos of the area as well as some scenic views and waves crashing on the beautiful beach you can do so on my Nextbeat page! Just check out my Thailand room. I hadn’t seen anything of this island other then the parts I passed when riding the taxi so I decided to have dinner at the resorts restaurant. As you know me, every trip is a food trip for me, no matter the initial purpose of any journey. You will NEVER find me fasting or dieting while traveling. I love to enjoy the local food, customs and way of living/eating way too much to punish myself like this. So this Thailand trip was no exception. I ate and ate and ate until I couldn’t eat anymore. Whenever I saw something that looked or smelled good and I even had the tiniest of space in my stomach I would order it! So here are some pictures of what I ate (just a small selection because, y’know, not everyone is into foodporn, haha). Everything was good, fresh, had lots of veggies, meat and fruit and was quite spicy sometimes. And ooooohhhh, the fresh fruit juices. They were to die for 😍

Refreshed, sated and joyful after watching the sunset from my table, I returned to my “home” for the next week. The Wifi connection was a bit tricky sometimes but on this day it was good enough to Skype with my partner, attest my arriving safely via WhatsApp and ended the day with a few Youtube videos to unwind. Yes, it was quite hot, even at nighttime, but the windows were open all day round so it was bearable. The only downside were the hordes of mosquitos (well, I knew that beforehand, but still). Every bed had mosquito netting and I was wearing insect repellent as well as putting tissues with insect repelling oils (like citronella) on my mattress. But nothing helped and by the end of the trip I would look like I had the measles…

I slept rather well and woke up early next morning in time for Morning Yoga. The morning class is a more powerful yoga style to wake you up, stretch your body and up your strength as well as your stamina. Because summer in Thailand is really hot we sweated a lot. Like, a lot a lot. But doing exercises while listening to the sounds of birds, the wind rustling in the leaves and the cats meowing under the elevated bungalow floor was so refreshing and so soothing that it is hard to describe. After one and a half hours of training we felt pretty tired but also very elevated. 

I knew then that it had been the right decision to come here. It was what my body and soul needed. Right after morning class you can have breakfast. All of us were sweaty and very hungry, so we just went to have breakfast as is and showered afterwards. Breakfast never tasted this good. It was buffet style and you could choose from some egg dish (like sunny side up, scrambled, omelette, etc.), fried rice or noodles, salad, veggies, fruits, bread, sweets and many more. Fresh water was available for free all day round, tea as well. After stuffing our faces we headed for our rooms to shower. In every bungalow you have a tiled room with a shower head on the wall, a small basin and a toilet. The wet room had no windows but small rectangular openings on the upper side of the walls facing to the garden. Fresh air could come in and the steam could get out. There being no glass windows you tended to have “visitors” in your bathroom. Most of the time it was either bugs, insects and/or geckos. Honestly spoken I would have rather had more geckos in my bungalow because they would have munched on the stupid mosquitos and other insects…

After my shower I decided to explore the island a bit. But more of that in my next and last post! So if you want to see more scenic pics and explore this little island with me, stay tuned!

XO, Alex