NIGHTMARE JOURNEY TO CHUMPHON

22/10/07 - 23/10/07

We arrved in Rayong late afternoon, only to discover that despite what Lonely Planet says (it once took us to a bank instead of a consulate!) there are no buses south from here... so we had to head back to Bangkok. We have now realised that unlike at home, where you only really have one choice (and price) for how to travel between locations... there are loads of different companies and you need to ask around for the cheapest. We found the cheapest and set off... only to brake down about 5 mins down the road (you get what you pay for and all that!). But, no, it was fine... around 30 mins later we were picked up by a second bus, which despite having to stop for another 30 mins further down the road to re-arange seating (as they were now over-booked) got us to Bangkok in one piece.

Didn't really fancy another night in Bangkok so when we arrived at the northern terminal around 10.30pm we took a cab straight to the southern terminal where we booked on to the last bus to Chumphon, a place Hazel had read about (in the lonely planet... should we be worried?!?), which is the mainland jump off for Ko Tao. As our bus wasn't until midnight we had some time to kill... and what better place to kill it than in a ockroach and rat infested terminal... nice! Luckily, despite the number of 'interesting' locals around, they all seemed very harmless and the friendly bus man promised to come and get us when we were ready to board.. until then I just sat with my feet up on the seats eating unhealthy snacks from the 7-11.

The bus actually left around 1am and was really amusing as it had disco lights and random blasts of dodgy music with each announcement of where we were stopping... although despite this I managed to sleep pretty much the whole journey... so much so that we nearly missed our stop...