Dear Matt and Laura

Thank you very much for buying us the night train to Chiang Mai. We made a slight detour and actually took the night train to Surithani instead. We hope you don't mind too much.Since I was last in Thailand they have got rid of the bar carriage, perhaps due to previous drunken westerners. This gave us the opportunity to have a well-needed sober night, chilling in our little bunks watching Gavin and Stacey. You are right. We didn't get much sleep but it didn't seem to matter as the experience more than made up for it.Donna was initially freaked out by the toilets and having to wee directly onto the tracks, but she soon got the hang of it and even managed a standing up wee in one of the 'toilets' that was just a hole in the floor of the train.

After the 12-hour train journey we then had a long bus ride, then a ferry to Koh Phangan, which is an island that no matter how many times I write it I still cannot spell it properly. We stayed for lunch then got another ferry to Koh Tao, finally arriving at our destination exactly 24 hours after we left Bangkok.Koh Tao is a strange place. It is known for being a diving mecca so lots of people come here to do their Padi. Therefore there are two types of people around; those people who have come here to dive and the more interesting ones.

We're really impressed with the variety of good restaurants here so I have finally broken my 'only eating Thai food' rule in fabulous style in an amazing Italian with the best pizza ever. Unfortunately the rule of a good pizza meant that the second half of it, which I took home and kept in the fridge for breakfast, tasted rubbish.

I have also decided that a poolside bar with swim up seats is a brilliant invention as it means you don't have to leave your seat to go to the toilet. This leads to us to question the old myth of the stuff that they put in swimming pools that means the water turns purple if you wee. Does this stuff actually exist or is it just the best fabrication by local governments to stop people weeing in their pools?

I have discovered that giving up smoking is a hazardous life for a backpacker in Thailand, mostly because this means I no longer have a lighter to hand to open beer bottles. I now have quite a few cuts and bruises on my hands from trying to use most of the inanimate objects in the room to open beer to little success. Doing this I managed to destroy the room key last night and so might have to forfeit our £20 deposit.

Modern travelling also involves bringing a lot more gadgets than in my youth. Yesterday we did an inventory of the large bag of usb chargers we have (we have far too much stuff and are constantly looking for what we can jettison).We have come away with 2 e-cigarette chargers, 3 mp3 chargers, 2 phone and laptop chargers and 7 kindle chargers. How the hell did we end up with 7 kindle chargers? I am pretty sure that between us we don't own that many kindles.

I am also quite impressed with how much I have managed to talk about toilet habits so far without even mentioning the bum gun.Anyway until next time

Love

Jim and Donna