Arrived in the city of Angels at 5am in the morning after a journey and a half. We were determined not to be beat by the touts and Rip off merchanges this time (see earlier Khoa Sok to Koh Phangan). Having bought separate tickets for the boat (leavingat 1pm) the bus to Surat Thani (leaving at 4pm) we got off and were accosted. Still we persevered and got in a tuk tuk with a thai/english couple and demanded to be taken to the Government bus station- agreed 20bt...

How do you get to these places? This time - we climbed on to a mini bus - not quite a tourist one, but not the public one - it stopped quite oftent picking up thais along the way. We got dropped off at a travel agents paradise - touts, and travel experts everywhere. The con was on and having travelled 3 hours on a bus knowing there was 4 hours on the boat and we didn't have any where to stay we needed to get sorted. We hadn't realised that Surat Thani was not th...

Actually it was Khoa Sok - but it was very confusing and when we got on the local bus at Phuket - just to get of the blinking island we weren't really sure where we were going, how long it would take, what we would do when we got there - but then that's backpacking! We eventually arrived after realising that when the man said "bus stop 30 minutes" that it literally meant the bus stopped for 30 minutes (no wander everyone else got off), in fact our bus ...

And into Asia we go - which is interesting for the kids as it is the first place that is really different from home and where we've been. We've landed in Patong which is a bit like Ibiza - but without the high rise, rows and rows of beach beds, hawkers every 5 minutes, jet ski and the smell of petrol. But somehow because its thailand and the coast still looks beautiful it didn't seem to matter. No 2 asked if this was a poor country and No 1 feels a bit insecure...