Day 110 & 111 - Koh Samui/Surat Thani/Bangkok

Up early this morning to finish packing and get checked out so that we can make our way to Bangkok.

After our final breakfast on Koh Samui we jump in a taxi and head for Nathon pier where we'll be getting the ferry back to the main land and then trasferring to Surat Thani train station for our train to Bangkok.

We're a bit early so find the nearest bar and kill a few hours with a couple of beers and watching to koi fish in the pond in the bar. Before we know it its time to go and get on the coach which then drives us round to the ferry, we get off the coach (but get to leave our rucksacks on) and walk onto the ferry and plonk ourselves in the air conditioned room on the ferry for the 1hr and a half trip to the main land.

Half way through the trip Si began to feel really sleepy and refused to admit that it was due to him having 2 beers early in the day ... liar liar pants on fire!

We arrive back in Don Sak pier, get off the ferry and wait for our coach to drive off the ferry so we can get on our way to the train station. The coach driver is a bit risky and is tailgating people the whole way to the train station making them move out of his way. I couldn't see what was happening but Si said he was right behind some car that decided to brake but in stead of the coach driver breaking he decided to speed up, get into the next lane and go through a red light!

Luckily we made it to the train station in one piece and by this point we were both starving cause we'd not ate anything since this morning. We saw a sign at the train station saying 'food square', we followed the signs and found out that their food square is a couple of food stalls next to the tracks. We both opted for chicken on a stick and it was surprisingly nice and only cost about 20p. We grabbed some snacks for the train as we're not sure if we'll be getting a meal or not and were both getting looked at by all the locals. Si's assumption is that they were amazed by the colour of my hair and by how tall he was.

After about an hour of waiting the train arrives and we hop on and find our way to our first class sleeper cabin (aren't we posh!) The train corridor is really narrow and Si has to duck the whole way to the cabin. I didn't realise how narrow the door was to the cabin and tried to walk in with my bag on my back and got stuck. I had to reverse, manouvre my bag off my back in the narrow corridor and shove it in sideways!

In the cabin we have 1 long seat for both of us that converts into bunk beds and our very own sink! There was a door with a latch on it which I tried to open but it wouldn'tbudge, I was later told by the food lady that it was a connecting door to the next cabin ... luckily nobody was in the other cabin at the time :)

We got to order food like last time and order our breakfast for the morning. After our tea the train man came round to put the beds up and we got settled in for the night watching a few programs before settling in for some sleep.

The train driver didn't believe in breaking gently as we were both jolted awake everytime the train stopped so may need some sleeping pills or something for the next overnight train to try and sleep through the jolts.

The food lady woke us up at 5:30am to bring us our breakfast and after breakfast the train man turned our bunk beds back into the normal seat.

We pulled into Hua Lumpong station in Bangkok at about 6:30am and followed the directions to our hotel which is about a 2 minute walk from the station.

Check in isn't supposed to be until 12 but whoever was staying in our room had already checked out so they said we could come back in an hour to give them chance to clean it. We went to a restaurant next door to the hotel and killed some time over a some coffee. After the hour had passed we returned to the hotel and checked into our room. The lack of sleep and caffine overload had made us both a bit wobbly so we snuggled up and grabbed a few zzz's.

When we woke up we had a look online for ideas what we could do for what was left of the day and decided to go to the MBK Mall as it isn't that far from where we are staying.

We head down stairs and grab some lunch from the restaurant, the biography of Slash was at our table and Si has been wanting to read it for the majority of the trip so must of been fate. We were planning on walking to the mall but it started raining just as we were leaving so we jumped in a tuk tuk that was parked outside.

The tuk tuk was definately an experience, there was nothing on my side to stop me from tipping out onto the road and Si had some small metal bars across his. It wasn't that bad at first as there was quite a lot of traffic but then there was a clear straight road and the tuk tuk driver soon picked up speed! I dread to think how fast we were actually going, then we saw some cars in front of us in the distance but the tuk tuk just kept picking up speed and heading straight for them, swerved onto the wrong side of the road and over took them all. We've both said that the Bali drivers were a bit crazy but the tuk tuk driver definately made us more nervous, at least we were in a van in Bali with a bit more material between us and the road ... we decided it was best if we got a normal taxi back later on!

Thankfully we arrived at the mall without crashing or anything and began our wandering around all of the shops. We began to see lots of designer bags and thought that they must be real as this was one of the proper malls ... upon closer inspection we were wrong. We actually walked into a shop that did 'designer jeans' and there was a guy just sat in the corner on a sewing machine in front of everyone putting together the next pair of diesel jeans :)

Clothes and bags wasn't all they had, it was electronics on the upper floors and some of the shops were even selling the white iphone 4 ... you know the one that isn't out yet ha! Si was explaining to me how they just replace the cover on the old one when bang on que we walked past a stall and saw a guy with a few iphone 4's without their covers on.

After much wandering we'd seen all of the shops and headed out of the mall and jumped in a proper taxi to take us back to the hotel .. this journey felt a lot safer.

Back at the hotel we had some tea and some beers and then headed back up to the room to plan what we can do tomorrow before our train to Chiang Mai before calling it a night.