BANYAN BAY VILLAS – GETTING REAL IN KOH JUM

Hello loves and happy easter! Here is another post from Thailand, also our last one. This one is definitely my favourite because of all the photos and also because this island I am going to write about was the most authentic and Thai that we visited during our trip. It is also the place where most of my memories go to.

Koh Jum was the last island on our trip-plan and the place we were supposed to go to after Phi Phi Island. While we were in Phi Phi we received an email from a lovely woman who owns Banyan Bay Villas and she asked if we were interested in a visit. Of course we were and it was such a great coincidence since we were already on our way to Koh Jum where her villas are located!

To get from Phi Phi to Koh Jum was a little harder than to get to all the other islands. There is only one boat every day and you have to book it in advance, this is because not many people visit that island. So we booked the boat which was the smallest little wooden boat and jumped on board with another six people. While sitting inside the passenger cabin the exhaust gases from the engine room down below started coming up into the cabin, I thought I was going to fall asleep and maybe never wake up again! We had to go up and sit on top of the boat instead which was a bit scary because we could have easily fallen off anytime!

Anyways, after two hours we arrived to Koh Jum without knowing how to get to the villas where we were supposed to stay. One of the drivers told us to follow him so we walked a bit until we found his pick up which with he drove us to the place. While driving through the island we saw only locals, their wooden houses and their shops and it all was so beautiful! Not at all how it was on the other islands with more tourists.

In the end we arrived to Banyan Bay Villas and got introduced to our beautiful wooden villa. It was huge with a big terrace, a view over the ocean and the big white princess bed made me feel like I arrived to heaven! After some minutes the owner came up to our terrace with a bottle of wine and three glasses and we all sat down to get to know each other.

The first thing she told us was to relax, have fun and to enjoy our stay. There were no obligations to make a post or to write anything about her villas. She told us over and over how we are probably all the time taking photos, working and not having time to enjoy our vacation. It was so true – for the whole trip we were just shooting, editing photos and going all mad, trying to capture every single moment. We arrived there just after a collaboration with another resort and even though we loved being there we actually didn’t have any time to enjoy it, because we always tried to take a better photo and to update our Instagram using slow internet. Her telling us to relax and enjoy really opened our eyes, we were also here for holidays! We were so touched by her loveliness and kind thoughts as well, she basically invited us to give us something, and she did! She gave us the most beautiful days in this beautiful house on this amazing island and we will never forget that – or her! In the end we couldn’t resist taking photos, because this is our biggest passion, but we did it in another way. We didn’t go to the beach to shoot perfect beach photos (ok maybe we tried a little) but we also went to visit the places and to get to know the island and to actually capture how it really is in Koh Jum!

The next days we took a scooter and drove around the island, we went to the smallest little coconut beach which was completely empty, visited Freedom hut, ate Thai food at Mama’s kitchen and visited all the locals who were all so happy and excited to show us around! Koh Jum is a very untouched island where not many tourists came yet, maybe it is because the water is not as blue as on the other islands around, but that is also because the sand is more yellow in Koh Jum which makes the water seem darker. Although more and more resorts are opening up on the west side of the island and I’m sure Koh Jum will be more trendy in a couple of years, there was still the long beach on the north west which was very empty with only a couple of small cute resorts and of course our favourite bar “Sabaidee” owned by a guy called Joe who we hung out with a whole night. He has a little bungalow for 300 bath with no electricity but with a nice bed and just by the beach. We were considering staying there for an extra night but in the end we decided to leave the island and spend our last nights in Railay, also because it was Klemens’ birthday and we wanted a little more people around.

As a conclusion – Koh Jum is a fantastic island for people who want to just relax, read a book on the beach and sip coconuts. The people go to sleep early and there is no party going on, maybe in the resorts but nothing else. The beaches are, as I mentioned earlier, not as beautiful as in Phi Phi or Railay for example, but definitely better than most places. The food is great, the locals even greater and it is just so amazing to see all those happy locals living their life on that small island. It is truly inspiring! <3