Hi everyone,

Day 8 started early with Tony shouting "Good Morning!" on the train. We arrived at Samsen Station earlier than expected - a 1st for Thailand time! We went back to the same hotel we stayed in before and said goodbye to Tony, who had been a great guide.

We then had 4 hours to kill before we could check in so we had breakfast and wandered down Kho San Road yet again! We had a bit of an errands day in Bangkok.

In the late afternoon we met our new leader Jun and the 4 new additions to our group, making us a group of 16 now. After we learnt about the next part of our trip, we all went for a group meal, in a non-airconditioned resturant, it was hot hot!!! We finished the evening off with some buckets on Kho San Road.

Day 9's morning was spent shopping on Kho San Road picking up some bargain clothes. Then we met up with Tom & Lizzie, two people from our group for lunch and then headed to Chinatown. It was like stepping into China, with people everywhere and shop after shop of Chinese tat! We lasted under an hour there then caught a tuk-tuk back. We got caught in the crasziest traffic jam ever, with cars pointing in all directions and a ute getting squashed by two buses either side of it!

Late afternoon we headed to Bangkok railway station to catch the overnight train to Surat Thani. We had definatly moved down in the overnight train world, this one had no air-conditioning, not nearly as clean and no western toilet! But we survived!

Lots of love, Hayley & Rose x