Koh Yao Noi (long and little island)

After living the high life on Koh Lipe; we took our show to Koh Yao Noi. Koh Yao in a small island situated in Phang Nga bay. The beaches on the island aren't anything special but the people who live on the island make-up for that. Everyone is super welcoming and helpful. There aren't many places like Koh Yao Noi left in Thailand. The picture to the right is of the place where we stayed. The name of it is Pasai Cottage and you can see Eric walking out to beach, which is an excellent place for a game of botchie ball.

The picture below is from the beach around the corner from Pasai Cottage. Pictured is Eric getting dominated by a tight rope. I got on the thing as well and "oh man, it ain't easy!" It gave me a whole new found respect for carnies.

As you can see in the picture below, I can't even balance myself on the thick rice field retaining walls. That might be a good indication that I should probably stick with my day job and forget about becoming a carny.

Unfortunately, I was only able to spend a couple days on Koh Yao Noi. However, on my last full day on Koh Yao our friend named Gai (pictured to the left) showed us a new extreme sport that can be played in the rice patties. We never came up with a name
for it, but an appropriate name could be "Cacti Javelin." Pictured to the right you can see the innovation Gai has made. He has shaved off all the spines on the outside and made two incisions. He's pulled back the incisions and created a handle. The middle part is left alone and can now be referred to as the javelin part of the cacti. In case you can't tell from the pic. javelin is light, but extremely durable. The idea is to hold the handle and chuck this Cacti leaf as far as possible. The two sides will then rip sending the arrow-dynamic javelin Cacti soaring through the air. When I say soaring I mean it, we were chucking these things about 70 yards through the fresh island air.

These two pictures are of us chucking the cacti javelins. Actually, I failed on my first attempt, but when I tried again I chucked one about 60 yards and the thing stuck straight into the ground. It was pretty cool. After all, not many people can say they've tossed a cacti 60 yards. The picture to the right is of Gai showing off a monster toss. Click on the picture and look at the flying spec sailing through the sky. It will give you a good idea of how far we could bomb these cacti javelins.

After our sheer amazement over the crazy new sport we had learned we headed out further into the rice patties. Gai is an excellent tour guide. He explains everything and loves to talk. Further back in the rice fields we stumbled into some farmers who Gai knew. They were in the middle of building a well for the buffalo that roam the rice patties. I never thought watching a well being built could be so entertaining. For that matter, I had know idea how people built wells. However, if you asked me to build a well, I could probably do it. I might not have a future in the circus as a tightrope walker but building wells could be an option. Anyway, this was one of the most interesting and action packed days we had on our vacation. I enjoyed every second of it and learned a lot. Being outside with all the birds, plants, buffalo for entire day was a great and peaceful ending to my vacation. A day like the one we had on Koh Yao Noi really made me realize the simplicities of life should never be taken for granted.