There were children playing games of football up to their ankles in mud, tourists riding around rice paddies on the backs of huge beasts and a woman showing off her trophy after being crowned the fastest rice planter in the community. What strange land was this?
Less than an hour’s longtail boat ride from Phuket, where mass tourism continues to put a dampener on the vibe of the island, there’s a place where the locals aren’t interested in filling nightclubs and restaurants with busloads of tourists. Koh Yao Noi has something to sell, but on this small, Muslim island you’re buying into responsible tourism.
I was coming to the end of a 14-month stint in Phuket. There are great times to be had on that island. From one day to the next you never know whether you’re going to be buried up to your neck at a sand spa; hanging out with the ruffians at Phuket’s answer to a Max Power car show; or riding the waves at one of the island’s night-time surf jams. Life was good, but sometimes I wanted to hide from it all and escape the people, lights, noise and traffic, which was why I’d decided to make the journey across the water to Koh Yao Noi (Small Long Island).
The day began early morning at Bang Rong Pier in Phuket. The short trip to Koh Yao Noi, one of a pair of islands in Koh Yao district that actually fall under the provincial blanket of Phang Nga, cost 150 baht (about £2.50) each way. In Phuket, any tuk-tuk driver worth his salt will take passengers to Bang Rong Pier, in the northeast of the island, for about 400 to 500 baht.
Arriving on Koh Yao Noi was much like rocking up to any pier, bus terminal or train station in Thailand: there was a rabble of tuk-tuk drivers keen to help a confused foreigner out for a couple hundred baht. Travelling through the island, there was an overwhelming sense that 20 years ago this is what Phuket must have been like all over.
The first order of the day was to attend a low-key ceremony being held somewhere in a muddy rice paddy. Koh Yao Noi covers about 45 square kilometres, making it one of the bigger small islands around Phuket. Last year the islanders only managed to harvest rice paddies spread over 400 rai (640,000 square metres); this year, as an excited Thai man told me, the farmers hope take it up to 1,600 rai.
“Young people aren’t interested and have become too busy to bother with rice,” said Promchote Traivate, director of the Phuket Tourism and Sports Office and consultant for the Koh Yao Ecotourism Club (www.kohyao-cbt.com), a group established in 2002 to support community-based tourism in Koh Yao.
Koh Yao Noi used to produce plenty of rice to support and feed the 5,000 people living there, but locals saw the neon lights of opportunity shining in Phuket and left Small Long Island like moths.
“We don’t make much money growing the rice; we grow it to eat. But we want to bring tradition and culture back to the community,” said Mr Promchote.
As he was speaking, a group of about 15 boys and girls who live on the island dove into the gleaming mud of one of the rice paddies, jammed two wooden poles in the ground at either end and began the dirtiest game of football I’ve ever seen. With water and mud spraying in fountainous glory all around, groups of farmers, stood head down in the surrounding rice paddies so all that was visible were a pair of legs and a sunhat, carried on with their planting chores, occasionally looking up to watch the match.
Aside from being the most fun possible for any child (I was bursting with envy), the mud football served a greater purpose as the trampling and stomping of feet helps prepare the ground for planting rice. Nobody was keeping score, but after about 20 minutes of covering themselves head to toe in gooey sludge, the kids called a timeout and charged in the direction of a makeshift swimming pool dug in the ground and full of rain water, dunking themselves in it to clean up.
This is what tourists visiting Koh Yao Noi can see. The locals do what they do, spicing it up a bit for foreign visitors, but not enough for the experience to be contrived.
The kids had a blast and a local woman named Ja Aoi walked tall after fending off opposition from 15 other farmers to win a rice-planting competition. Another part of the ceremony saw a group of tourists riding buffaloes bareback as the animals slowly trudged their way around rice paddies, supposedly as part of a ritual to attract good vibrations for this year’s harvest, but who wouldn’t get a kick out of riding around on the back of a buffalo?
It’s not all for show, however; Koh Yao Noi is a self-sufficient community with a secondary school attended by about 1,000 children and a small hospital, where the day before my trip a Hong Kong tourist who had been attacked by a stingray was treated by a doctor receiving instructions from the mainland via live video feed.
Most people on Koh Yao Noi are either farmers or fishermen. Tourists are welcomed with open arms and the Ecotourism Club has built homestays and set up a variety of activities for visitors.
With 25 homestays, the community currently puts up about 250 people a month, usually Thais or Europeans, who stay for anything from two days to a week. A night in one of the accommodations will set you back 250 baht. As well as the homestays, about 20 mini-resorts (500 to 1,500 baht a night) run by locals have sprouted and joined the club.
The developers of the project are keen for visitors to choose one of a range of packages comprising two or three days on the island, including meals with a homestay family and an itinerary crammed with trips and tours and sightseeing. The cost is between 2,000 and 3,500 baht per person based on a group of four sharing, including all meals, transport and activities.
Around the island there are plantations where visitors can learn the ins and outs of making rubber, while elsewhere it’s possible to see the process of cashew nuts being collected before the seeds are removed and smoked over a fire to be eaten or else used for cooking.
Ever the entrepreneurs, the Koh Yao Noi community has a shop where travellers can buy everything from cashew nuts and their seeds to handicrafts such as hats and baskets.
With lots of fishermen on the island, tourists can go out and catch their dinner before returning in a blaze of glory to grill the day’s work. There are tours to see shrimp and crab nets in use, while at night the hooks are baited up for not mere fish, but squid.
It’s not essential to hunt down your meals, however, as there are several restaurants around the island (about 300 baht per person) as well as small, local shops serving food. I had lunch at one of the homestays on Pa Sai Beach (Sandy Beach). The spread was a glorious ensemble of sweet, sour and spicy, as only the Thais can put on, with mounds of fish, pork, chicken and vegetables.
Coconut-collecting monkeys and eagles are common sights among the island’s wild inhabitants, although seeing an eagle caged up was unexpected.
For anyone keen to unleash their inner-warrior there are Muay Thai lessons at KYN Muay Thai (www.phuket-krabi-muaythai.com), where a one-week course costs 2,000 baht with accommodation from 400 baht for a single fan room up to 2,200 baht for an air-conditioned family room.
Travelling around the island is easy enough. There are motorbikes (250 to 350 baht a day) and trucks for hire (1,000 baht a day), or else bicycles (350 to 400 baht a day) are available and there’s the possibility of walking. Kayaking (500 baht a day) is another option and the guys over at The Khao Bungalow, run by eco-tour specialists Sea Canoe (www.seacanoe.net), are the experts in the field.
The people of Koh Yao Noi are gagging for visitors to come and support their community-based initiatives. Travellers can get a slice of rural Thai life while the islanders make enough money to support themselves and keep the good times flowing.
Although the community went to great lengths to put on a show, the highlight of my visit to Koh Yao Noi was always going to be watching a motley crew of children jumping around in the mud. Had I not been ill-prepared and wearing jeans and trainers, I would have been in there with them reliving my childhood, but instead I returned to Phuket relatively clean in terms of body and mind.
