13/10/11 - 20/10/11

The train pulls in half an hour late and we hastily clamber aboard still fuming at having to pay for new tickets.

We stumble through with our bags and locate our....BEDS! On a train?!? The carriage was lined with bunk bed style cubby holes, with a couple of leather straps to stop you from falling out (not to strap you in though..) and a curtain to protect your privacy.

We awoke the next morning in our seperate bunks feeling that the whole train-bed-experience was surprisingly comfortable despite being woken up a few times from the cold and the lights being left on.

Just after 7am the train pulled into Surat Thani and we stumbled off to buy tickets for our next train to Nakhon Si Thammarat. The man at the ticket desk informs us that the train we want is actually the one we've just left! A hurried begging with the conductor to hold the train for a second whilst Katy hastily buys tickets and we get back on!

The train trundled through countryside of small, craggy, forested hills, rising above flat grassy water-logged plains littered with palm trees and the odd tin corrugated shack on red muddy paths; intermittently stopping for long periods for no apparent reason.

Nakhon Si Thammarat is a place most travellers pass through, but it sounded interesting in the book, so we decided to stay for a couple of days. After finding the nearby Bue Loung hotel - a dreary depressing residence down a small side alley whose interior looked like an old run down hospital rather than a "hotel", we started to see why...

A walk to the end of town via the old city walls, northern gate and Sala Pradu Hol, past the clock tower and PhraSua Muang Shrine leads us to the massive Chedi, Wat PhraMahathat. It is impressive particularly surrounded by dozens of smaller versions in sombre stone slab that make them look like huge gravestones - the effect is reminiscent of Recoleta cemetery and Katy is in her element taking just as many photos as she did there.

After being nearly locked in, we walk round the back streets in the muggy heat trying to find Ban Nang Thalung Suchart Subsin. It is a tranquil oasis of rustic bamboo shacks amidst overhanging trees where children playing announce our arrival. A shy woman speaks to us in moderate English and directs us to the small shadow puppet museum which is all rather twee and a bit boring - a sparse collection of various figures and characters from popular shadow puppet plays. The interesting bit is a demonstration of how the figures are made using sharp metal tools carving into cow leather, followed by a thoroughly charming and humorous shadow-puppet show just for us.

Walking back through town we see remnants of Tamboon Deuan Sip - a festival held around this time of year to honour dead relatives and friends. We get passed by a few processions of floats with people walking alongside chanting with saffron robed monks aboard. As we stop to take photos at Ho Phra Isuan, a car pulled up and wound down its window - it took a couple of seconds to register, but as soon as the question left her lips; "Heelllloooooo, where you going?!?", I knew I was looking at my first real-life "Ladyboy"......

Hot, tired and hungry, we found the local night food stall. With a dollop of rice on a plastic plate, we chose 2 of the tastiest/safest looking dishes and plonked ourselves down at a wobbly tressle table with cheap metal cutlery (spoon and fork), an array of unnecessary condiments, a tin camping cup filled with ice and a jug of water at the table whilst trying to ignore the flies and not think about the hygiene. The old lady spoke not a word of English, so I've no idea what we were eating but it tasted great and burnt my lips. Small but filling portions of dinner for 2 just over a quid. Ace.

One of the main resons for staying in this wierd town was to get to Khao Luang national park or at least Nambon Krunching waterfall for a nice day out, but we were soon disappointed by how much of a hassle this turned out to be. We located the "bus stop"- a line of Songthaews (pick-up trucks with seats along the inside walls of the back) with drivers waiting idly by. Apparently nobody can understand where we want to go or even if they have heard of it, where it is. A child with a few words of English helps us locate a shared taxi going in our direction. An hours drive later and we stop by the roadside and are pointed in the direction of another shared taxi, who wants to charge us 400Baht to get the rest of the way - about 20 mins further down the road. WTF?!?! We'd just paid 90Baht to get this far!

The taxi is half full with locals who look on bemused at the ensuing scene of driver and tourists having equally futile discussions which neither party can understand. The scene attracts the attention of a pink-bib wearing taxi official who saunters over with all the air of "You see this bib? it means I'm in charge here...." He sucks on a wet cigarette that dangles between his rotten teeth as he surveys the scene from behind his aviator shades - which along with the army trousers he's sporting probably reinforce his notion of authority. The commotion is joined by another guy acting as mediator and 2 schoolgirls who'd only been roped in cause they could understand a few words of English and who now looked like they'd rather be anywhere else. The dude in the bright pink bib leers at us with barely concealed contempt and offers no assistance whatsoever.

After establishing that we there was no way that we would be getting any further without paying the alleged 400B required, we eventually gave up and sulked off to get a Songthaew back to Nakhom Si Thammarat. One eventually arrives and it's the same driver who dropped us off in the first place. He looks at us quizzically and begins to ask in Thai why we are here. For some strange reason a woman on a scooter - who miraculously speaks near perfect English - pulls up, and clears up the whole mess and then wierdly invites us back to hers...we declined the offer and piled into the back of the taxi. By the time we got back we felt hot, tired and disgusting and thoroughly fed up - a waste of a day that we could do without and now realised why most people just pass through....

At the "bus stop" the next day, I look around at the sparse office which looks more like a concrete garage with a desk at the front, fridges on the opposite walls and rows of plastic chairs. On the wall is a calender bearing the image of the King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Rather oddly, instead of "FHM Girls of the Year" calender, everyone has one of these as he is revered in Thailand, not only for being the worlds longest reigning monarch, but for bringing unity and peace to the nation and raising awareness for environmental and health issues by large volunatry donations. You get the feeling though that some of this reverence comes from his status as "inviolable", meaning that anti-royalist criticisms are not tolerated in Thailand and can result in imprisonment. The T.V on the wall shows news of the flooding (the news of which has finally reached the UK), followed by another of their bizarre T.V sitcoms - a slapstick show, replete with comedy sound affects, facial expressions and canned laughter. All of their T.V shows are terrible, with all the acting and production qualities of a................

2 solemn Buddhist monks enter, ushering in a hushed reverence that falls over the small crowd of passengers waiting in the room. I'm unable to explain why, but the monks give me the creeps slightly - in much the same way as the religious zealots of the prison colony in "Alien 3" did in the early '90's...

We arrived in Krabi - after a 3 hour journey in a cramped minibus hurtling down the motorway beeping at everything we passed - and back to some kind of civilisation with lots of bars and eateries on our busy street. Our hostel room was unbearably hot with magnolia walls and infested with little unseen bugs.

A sightseeing day began with our 8am pickup not arriving - after a few phone calls, we get put in a cab which takes us to a petrol station just outside of town to meet up with the minivan. A long boat ride through magnficent scenery to Ao Phang Nga - otherwise known as "James Bond Island" famed as he locatio for "the Man With The Golden Gun" . I couldn't be in this part of the world and not visit the iconic island, even though the tour was double the price of the nearest alternative....

The island is packed with tourists and crammed with stalls selling shells and postcards and other tourist crap, but strangely nothing JB related....and no sign of Scaramanga's hideout. After explaining the whole set up to Katy, we get the "classic" photo and pile back in to the long boat to a "floating village" for lunch. The "village" was just a collection of restaurants and tourist shops and not really "floating" at all, but lunch was a delicious selection of 5 Thai dishes that we (I) wolfed down having been deprived of breakfast. Back in the boat to the kayak station where we stayed in the longtail and drifted through the karst caves, seeing the stalagmites and strange formations, circling around the mangroves with their strange trees that grow in minimal soil and protrude their roots from the water.

The visit to the monkey temple later on was a depressing experience - a big cave filled with various Buddha statues, where outside a hoard of monkeys run amok, squawking and fighting amongst themselves, and occasionally bothering a tourist. A few dogs stagger around in the heat, barely able to stand as they are so emaciated.

The next day a predictably late minibus races us to the bus station just outside Krabi where there are farang (the Thai word for foreigners) lolling about making the place look untidy. Several bus changes before we board the 3:30 ferry make the whole journey seem overly laborious, hot and complicated. Hour or so ferry to Ko Samui where we disembark and find a songthaew to take us to Maenam beach for a quoted 100baht. When we get off I give him the 100 and he tells me 100 EACH! For a 20 min ride! I firmly tell him no and wonder if I'm doing the right thing. Katy is telling me to just give him the money as the driver is starting to look more threatening now, but I'm not backing down. After endless seconds of this stand off, he sighs and shakes his head and speeds off, leaving us to breathe a sigh of relief. After that small victory we locate our accomodation and catch the last of the sunlight by the pool with a cocktail.

We'd planned on coming here to enjoy a stress-free day by the beach doing nothing for a change. Typically, during our breakfast, the heavens opened spectacularly. Beginning with a cluster of clouds drawing in to become dark grey, soon accompanied by flashes of lightning and low rumblings of thunder - finally unleashing a lashing driving rain. Unbelievable.

Eventually though it stops, and is soon blazing hot. We fail to find a decent part of beach, it's all dirty with frothy polluted wash. We manage to get lost trying to find our way out from the beach via a hotel resort but finally succeed in finding the road and retreating back to the sanctuary of our pool and another cocktail. We resolve not to put this enormous fail in the blog. Oh wait......

The bus to take us out of Ko Samui is a pimped up affair with frilly curtains and garish interior and empty. The driver snorts and belches, hocks and gobs spit every few meters - nobody blows their nose here, it's truly disgusting. Even little old ladies gob in the street. Neither of us can sleep, the bus is cold and smelly. We're unceremoniously bundled off of the bus upon arrival at Bangkok at 4:30am and immediately assailed by tuktuk drivers. Bangkok reaks of sewage. Eventually we locate an all-night cafe bar and wait a few hours until we discover that the airport shuttle we'd been waiting for no longer runs, so we go for a depressing walk along the "backpacker street" of Kao San Road - a horrible place where loads of tourists are still up drinking from the previous night, stumbling around blathering and shouting, draped around the shoulders of young Thai girls.

We eventually purchase tickets to the airport and get straight there to get away from this dirty smelly city. Wait around for 2 hours until we can check in, then a further 3 hours until our flight to Chiang Mai. We've spent far too much time and money on this journey - we feel like novices, will we never learn?!? Bangkok Airways though are awesome, entry to lounge with free snacks, drinks and internet use - plus food and drink on the flight even though it was just an hour! The only problem was we'd already spent a small fortune on food and drink (including a 7pound pint of Guinness) at the airport unaware of the freebies!

Doh!