Well, it's taken us 23 days of travelling, but we've finally reached the beach. Greetings from Koh Yao Yai, a small, serene, picturesque island off the coast of Phuket, about twenty minutes by speedboat, in the Andaman Sea. And let me tell you, folks, we've found our own little slice of paradise here.

This morning, we woke up to find Phuket Town very sleepy on Saturday mornings. It seems not much in town opens until 10 or 11, including the breakfast places and cafes. We found a small pancake restaurant a couple of blocks away and had some overpriced pancakes (more banana for me; eggs benedict on pancakes for Ryan) and mediocre coffee, and decided that was the best we were going to do.

We packed our bags and then went to the nearby convenience store to buy some snacks for the next couple of days. We had the bright idea to buy a couple of Full Moon craft beers to bring with us to the island, since we were sure they'd only have expensive commercial beer at the resort. Unfortunately, Thailand has a law that says you can't sell beer before 11am. We had to leave just after 11, so we beelined it to the closest 7-Eleven at five to, only to find that our info was incorrect and they didn't have any Full Moon at all. We instead went back to the shop near our hotel and got some different varieties of commercial Thai beers. 

It was an hour's drive to the marina with traffic, and we had to be there by 12:30 for our 1pm boat. I called a Grab at 11:15, but the first driver cancelled on us, and the second one sat for a while before texting some excuse about his car being broken down and he had no keypad so couldn't cancel the ride. More scams, yay. I hit the cancel button and tried one last time, as it was now nearing 11:30 and we were really short on time. Luckily, we got a ride this time. And then we sat in traffic for over twenty minutes at a single roundabout. Traffic on Phuket is crazy. We urged the driver to try to make up time, and he did and got us to the marina right at 12:30. Luckily, a number of other passengers seemed to be stuck in the same traffic, so we weren't even close to the last ones to arrive. Whew. 

We, along with a couple dozen other resort guests, were ushered to a small office at the marina to check in and hand over our passports and such. This was a bit chaotic and took quite some time, as there were a lot of people. Finally, they loaded everyone onto two separate speedboats, where we donned life jackets and buckled in.

It was quite windy today, making the sea pretty choppy. So when we headed out into the open water, the waves were high, and the speedboat took them as head-on as possible to avoid capsizing. This made for a very, very, very bumpy boat ride. We didn't get soaked as the boat was covered and the tarps were down. My stomach, however, was a bit less than amused by the time we pulled up twenty minutes later at the resort dock.

What we were greeted with, however, was just sheer beauty. When we booked this trip, we mostly arranged modestly priced accommodation, more suited to our style of travel. But we decided to splurge on two nights at this super-fancy five-star beach resort to wrap up our trip on a high note. And whoa is it ever fancy. Everything in this place is gorgeously designed, made out of intricately carved wood in traditional style. Every wall, building, piece of furniture, archway, looks like something out of a film set. 

From the dock, we were ushered past the beach area, beachfront restaurant, beachfront massage area (Ryan took note), and waterfall swimming pool to the reception area. The check-in process was a bit chaotic, since the resort is clearly busy right now. They gave everyone maps of the resort and a bit of explanation on how things work around here, and then told us to go explore and come back in an hour for the room key. 

We took our bags down to the beachfront area, found a table, and took turns going to dip our toes in the Andaman Sea. The water, like the air temperature, was very warm, and the sand felt good between my toes. There's another sea checked off the list. Other than that, we just read, watched the waves, people-watched, and took turns walking around the reception area to explore the facilities a bit until the room key was ready.

At 3pm, we picked up our key and hopped on the little resort trolley for the ride to our room. The resort is quite spread out, over long steep hilly paths that would be hell to walk with luggage in 35-degree heat. Luckily, they have a trolley loop system to transport people around the resort. 

We were driven to the building and turned the key in the lock to find... well, let's just say, my first reaction was "holy shit!" and my next one was that I may never leave this place. The room is, well, I'll let some of the photos I took speak for themselves. Suffice to say, it's enormous, intricately decorated with carved wood in every inch. We have a sitting area, a daybed, a huge canopy bed (okay, the canopy is actually a mosquito net but hey, when in Thailand), an absolutely insane bathroom, and every creature comfort imaginable.

But the best part is the private balcony with a view. And what a view it is! We have an 180-degree panoramic view of the ocean from here, facing west for the spectacular sunsets. The balcony has another daybed, a table and chairs, and a huge private bathtub. Yep, we can bathe in the open air while staring at the sea. 

(Incidentally, this is actually one of the more reasonably priced rooms here at this resort. There are far more ridiculous rooms here, including private villas with their own infinity pools on the balcony. We didn't go quite that crazy. The common area swimming pools -- there are two -- will do just fine. But anyway.)

Hilariously, because we'd mentioned it in the booking, the resort staff ensured that they gave us the honeymoon treatment on check-in. This meant that "Happy Honeymoon" was spelled out on our bed in a sea of flowers, accompanied by a personalized welcome note and a free slice of cake in the refrigerator. Mmmm, cake. 

After briefly exploring the surrounding area, including the restaurant and infinity pool in the upper section of the resort, we decided to head back to our balcony to have a beer and eat some cake. After all, this is definitely the kind of day when we get to have our cake and eat it too. 

Our plan for the next two days is to do a whole lot of nothing. Which is more or less what we did for the rest of the afternoon. We made use of the balcony bathtub to take a soak. We watched the sunset. We vegged. We watched the sunset some more. Did I mention how beautiful the sunset colours were? It was rather cloudy today so we didn't get the beautiful red clear skies, but in a way it was almost better with the sun breaking through the clouds.

Once the sun went down, the temperature dropped quite a bit to a point where it was almost pleasantly chilly out. For dinner, we opted out of the big barbecue and fire show by the beach, and opted to just go to the smaller restaurant closer to our room for an a la carte dinner. The restaurant is next to the infinity pool and has waterfront seating and live music.  

This resort has a QR code-based ordering system that's a bit frustrating to use, but basically means they'll bring you whatever you order to wherever you happen to be. We perused the menu for a while, saw that most of the menu options looked a bit uncreative and overpriced -- they're definitely catering to resort tourists here -- and ultimately decided to go for an old classic: Pizza. After all, we haven't had much pizza yet on this trip. I ordered a vegetarian pizza and Ryan ordered the green curry chicken one, and we shared them out between ourselves. (His curry was the better of the two). We had our dinner looking out at the ocean, now too dark to see much, but you could definitely feel it was there.

After dinner, we went back to the room to have another beer from our smuggled-in stash, at a fraction of the price that the resort charges for their drinks, and wind down our first evening here on the islands.

Okay, fine, I get it now, this is why people come here. This place is beautiful and totally worth the trip to Southern Thailand. The resort itself is over-the-top amazing, and we're totally spoiled to be able to enjoy this place for a couple of nights to wrap up the trip.

My only regret is that we wasted a day in Phuket when we probably should've just come straight to Koh Yao Yai. I'm sad we only have two nights here, as I'd definitely love to stay a lot longer if we could. But we fully plan to make the most of the little time we have here.

I hereby declare the honeymoon portion of our honeymoon officially, belatedly, underway.