Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
30 November
Surat Thani > Kho Sok National Park
MARK: Sleeping on buses is near impossible for me. Kim manages slightly better, but even with the leg room in the front row seats, neither of us managed to really sleep. When we arrived at Surat Thani at 6am we felt quite drugged with tiredness. Everyone off the bus, Kim and I grabbed our bags and headed down the road for the local bus station. On the way a well dressed gentleman approaches us and asks where we going. We tell him "Bus Station" and he says no problem he'll show us where it is. Alarm bells are ringing… SCAMMER ALERT. Just before we get to the bus the chap ask us if we have tickets - obviously we don't and he says we can buy them from this shop we had just past. We asked him why we couldn't buy them on the bus like in the rest of Thailand and he says because Surat Thani is different and we have to buy them from this shop. So we go to the shop and a lady tells us that we have 2 options: Minibus at 200 baht each leaving in 20mins or a bus at 160 baht each leaving in 1hr20mins. She explains that the bus station isn't open yet and the first bus leaves in 1hr20mins… not wanting to hang around we paid for a Minibus. Ticket bought I tell Kim to wait at the shop and I went off to where the buses were parked. I found the driver of a bus marked Khao Sok and asked him when he was leaving and he says "20mins"… How much I ask? "110 baht"… SCAMMED!!! I head back to the shop furious, and find a man (shop owner) trying to sell Kim accommodation… I calmly tell him to give us our money back as they are a bunch of liars and we can actually buy tickets on the bus which is leaving in 20mins! He gets stroppy. I get even more stroppy back. And he relents and hands us our money. Happy we bust the scammers, we head to the bus, buy tickets and hop on for the 2hr ride to Khao Sok National Park.
KIM: the man screamed dodgy. Well dressed, impeccable English - for anyone coming to Thailand in the future, these are the clues!! Do not, EVER, trust anyone who can speak better English than the Miss Van der Westhuizen (std 6 afrikaans teacher..Blonde poppie!) They will always ALWAYS scam you. Fact.
2, 3, perhaps even four hours later we arrived in Khao Sok. I have no idea how long it took, or if we were robbed en-route. We were beyond passed out. Missed all the scenery and made a decision never to take an overnight bus again.
MARK: We'd pre-booked accommodation at Morning Mists resort and when we arrived they picked us up and took us to our home for next 3 nights. Exhausted from being awake for 24hrs we crashed for the remainder of the day, only to stir around dinner time and then head back to bed.
KIM: Morning Mist is rated number 2 out of all Surat Thani on tripadvisor. Rightly so (and that's not just because Surat Thani province is a s***hole), the service and food there were amazing. Ok, so the bed was a little hard, but for the area it seemed it was a bargain at 650 with a cute little balcony with cushioned loungers that Mark slept blissfully all afternoon on.
I lunched alone admiring the view and becoming more engrossed in my lame James Patterson book, before joining Mark in an extended nap.
- comments