Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
So we'd booked an all-in-one ticket at Bangkok train station to Koh Tao - an overnight train to Chumphon, a bus from Chumphon bus station to the ferry port and then a ferry from Chumphon to Koh Tao, this cost us 1060baht each = £22.
When we were waiting at the station for our train, there were two people who appeared to have lost their friend. They were running round pretty frantically plus they got the man at the info desk to do a voice-over asking for a girl to report to the info desk. God, imagine that, it was night time, how scary would that have been.
Up on the departures board advertised x2 trains going to two separate destinations, leaving from the same platform, at the same time - welcome to asia!! I tried asking someone who worked there which would would be coming in first but he didnt speak English and neither did the other x2 employees I asked! In the end we used some backpacker initiative and followed some other tourists who Nathan had overheard saying they were going to the same place as us... lol!
When we were planning this trip down to Koh Tao, we'd read to give ourselves an extra 5 hours, between transport connections, because travel in Thailand is so unpredictable and we'd probably be delayed. 5 HOURS - really!?
Anywho - our train did leave Bangkok on time. Wearing summer clothes, we soon realised that the air-con was like freeze-con! Luckily we had put long trousers, socks and jumpers in our smaller backpacks (easily accessable) and also the train guard went down the train handing out large shower towels which were to be used as blankets during the journey. It was still bloody freezing!
Because we had tried to beat jet-lag by staying awake all night and day to then get into Asia time, we were both like zombies and tried to sleep straight away. Depending on who you ask, me or Nath, you will get a different summery of the sleep on the train! Nathan slept well, I slept appalingly and declared I will never do an overnight train again unless we get bunkbeds to sleep in!! Sod the reclining chairs. (Note. we did try to get bunks initially but they were fully booked :( ).
The train was due into Chumphon 7 hours later. Due to spending a tad too long at some stations, we were half an hour late but we weren't too bothered because we'd been reassured the bus/ferry would not leave without as. As it turnt out, every tourist which was on that train had got the same deal as us so we were all on the same bus and then ferry :) .
The bus took about 25 mins and we had an annoyingly chatty American man sitting next to us. Luckily however he took a better liking to the people sitting on the other side of him so talked endlessly to them instead. At the ferry port, everything was really organized and straight forward. There were x2 huge boats, which took people to Koh Tao, Koh Phangyang and Koh Samui. Everyone slept, heads back, mouths open on the ferry - it left about 7:30am so everyone else probs had a long ass journey to get there too.
As we started getting closer to the island of Koh Tao, the landscape I saw was stunning. It was the kind of edge of the island, which looked uninhabited and really wild and jungle like! Loads of messy looking palm trees crammed together, like a sea of messy green leaves.
Written by Stacey :)
- comments