Cathy and Gary's South East Asia Travel Pages
AMAZING BIKE TOURS KOH YAO NOI
A few of us decided we would do the Koh Yao Noi day trip with Amazing Bike Tours and what a fantastic day this turned out to be.
Koh Yao Noi is a quiet little island in Phang Nga Bay about an hour away by long tail boat from Phuket. The island is mainly populated by small Muslim villages that make a living from fishing, rice farms and rubber tree plantations.
It is a lovely peaceful place to explore, with beautiful beaches on the east coast rice paddies on the west coast and mountains in the middle of the island.
We were picked up at about 8am and taken to Bang Rong Pier on the east coast of Phuket Island. No big fancy boats at this pier just the longtails being loaded up with goods to be taken to the island, plus all our bikes.
Now I had not been on a bike with gears for over 20 years so it did take me a while to get the hang of it, riding the bike was easy but those gears did keep trying to get the better of me! However, with James being very patient with me I finally got the hang of it.
The morning was spent cycling through small villages, the local people are so friendly here, running out waving and laughing. Then we left the sealed road and went onto the dirt tracks through beautiful rice paddies with buffalo checking us out!
We also cycled through jungle tracks so lovely and cool as we had picked one of the hottest most humid days to do this tour.
There were some challenging sections, like a steep mountain, well maybe it was a big hill then. I was not going to let it beat me and I am happy to say I persevered and made it to the top. I stopped and had a rest up there waiting for some of the group to catch up.
Lunch was at a beach side restaurant called Sabai Corner Bungalows. What a fantastic little place. Lunch was probably one of the best I have had on a tour and there was plenty of it. We stayed here for a couple of hours due to the heat.
It was so nice to take our shoes off and just relax. Some of the group went swimming and some had a well deserved rest swinging away in the hammocks at Sabai Corner.
Then it was time to start cycling back to the pier to catch the longtail boat back to Bang Rong Pier. I should also mention that at the pier on Koh Yao Noi there was a lady selling ice-cream in bread rolls, they are so delicious, 3 scoops of vanilla ice-cream in a fresh sweet bread roll for 20baht!
This was an amazing way of seeing such a beautiful island, we cycled for about 30 kilometres and I paid for it the next day!! There were some hard sections but it was not enough to put me off doing another tour with Amazing Bike Tours next trip.
