It started at 2.30pm with a long tail boat to Ao Nang to get onto the boat we had to wade out 20 metres with our backpacks and I promise you the weight of them certainly does help to in bed those sharp pieces of coral into your feet! We finally got onto the boat only to realise we or should I say I had chosen the most central seat which caught every single splash of sea water on the 30 minute journey! safe to say I was drenched by the time we arrived and Dan wasn't far off, here I am trying to muster a smile after a change of clothes - see the culprit in the background.....
After everyone else got picked up by their connecting mini bus we sat and waited patiently.....
Eventually our driver arrived only to say we needed to wait for 2 other people who never arrived so after another half hour of waiting we set off....
we were then dropped of at the bus station where we proceeded to wait for over 2 hours for our connecting bus! Luckily they did food and we stocked up for the next leg of our journey....
We were then dropped off in Surat Thani train station where we had to wait for over 6 hours for our connecting night train to Bangkok at 11.17pm, we managed to find the worst restaurant in Thailand even the waitress was crying (I wanted to console her but it's difficult when you don't know the language!) so we hung out there eating awful food but at least they sold Singha's!
We decided to head back to the train platform and wait, luckily we found a nice man selling coffee and sugar sandwiches (which happen be an old childhood fave of mine!)
Check out the train, as more and more of these pulled into the station we began to get nervous about what our night train journey would bring and when it finally pulled in we were so excited to find our very own little cabins with clean sheets and a pillow to lay our sleepy heads on, well actually we were so excited we weren't very tired!!
If anyone know's Dan you will know this face = no sleep!
It was quite funny watching the poor train attendant trying to find somewhere to store our rucksacks because of course they didn't fit in the luggage compartments so they ended up in the walkway which I'm sure everyone tripped over ops sorry!
Eventually we manged to get some sleep and woke up refreshed and 'almost' in Bangkok (or so we thought ) unluckily for some reason as we were pulling in to the big city the train stopped for about half an hour and when it started moving it was short lived before it stopped again!! eventually we arrived in Bangkok about 11am an hour or so late!
Then we had to get a taxi across to the eastern bus station which was very slow due to crazy Bangkok traffic eventually got there and saw a sign for the express bus to Trat (our next destination) excited we booked our tickets and asked how long will it take (previously we had been told 2 hours) the lady replied 5 hours!! aggghh!! we had 45 minutes to find some food before our bus departed and Dan being the gent that he is, sent me off on a mission, whilst he guarded the bags, to find food! I tracked down a Mac Donald's and after crossing 6 lanes of traffic I secured us a healthy (mmm?) feast!
Finally on the bus we sat back and waited to arrive in Trat where were sure we'd be too late to catch the connecting ferry to Koh Chang....
But when we arrived we found a group of guys offering a taxi to catch the last ferry at 7pm (29 hours into our journey!) we were relieved although it meant the journey was gonna continue for even longer but at least we'd finally make it to Koh Chang...
The ferry departed late (no surprise there) and we sailed into the darkness for about an hour, on arriving we shared the back of the pick up truck with some other backpackers and after about another hour of driving some very treacherous roads we arrived in Lonely Beach (phew!) which we didn't know at the time but would become our home for the next 2 weeks :) so our 31 hour journey was over - thank fork for that!!
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