Well this day albeit only a few hours old already has been a very long one. It started yesterday at about three in Ayutthaya. We managed to grab a tuk tuk, with some old lady, and headed to the train station. The mandotory tourist charge was applied to the fare and we jumped off into the station. We thought the train was going to be at four, but the information people told us the next train was at half three, it was about twenty five past at this stage so she said hurry hurry buy ticket. In we went thinking, this is great we get there nice and early.... 40 baht later we had two tickets on a third class two hour train ride to Bangkok in the blistering heat.... exciting. It actually wasnt bad. Regina got a seat straight away and I got one shortly after, nice hard plastic. All the windows were down, unlike in the 2nd class we got up to Chiang Mai, so it was quite pleasant in the carriage. Got into the main station anyway about half five. Our plan was to ask the tourist info the best way to get to the southern bus terminal so we could get the goverment bus to the ferry over to the islands. They told us we could just leave from here on one of the tour groups. Sounds dodgy and everyone warns against this, but the tour group is one of the two good ones that do operate.. Lompayah or something like that. We bought the tickets and went to get some food. While we were waiting the six o'clock national anthem and respect to the king thing took place, everyone stand up. Then not long after, when I was just looking down into the crowd I noticed a woman come up to a group of about six buddhist monks... old guys, proper old. She handed one of them a bag of stuff, from the shop like, and as soon as she left all the other monks gathered in around the one monk with heads like a bunch of young lads in a school yard looking at what he got. You could almost hear them giggling and saying "whatcha get tommy, whatcha get???".

Well, it cost us 1600 bath each for bus and ferry, and the taxi to the Khao San road to get tickets and the actual bus. It was now about eight o'clock and the Khao San road was buzzing, people everywhere eating and drinking and coming and going. Again we managed to avoid seeing any sleazy things... thank god!!! Regina went into the office with half the rest of the world to get the tickets. I waited outside with th bags. Just then a young enough looking girl came out of the office crying, she was holding an animal cage/box with a teeny little kitten in it. People started asking what was wrong and she said they wouldnt let her take the cat on the bus. A man was standing nearby with his dog who he obviously wanted to bring on the bus too. Then a man from the office came out to talk to dog man, and the dog man said it was his problem and not the companies. The office man tried to explain that the dog couldnt go on the bus because of allergies, and couldnt go in the hold because it would be too hot and exhaust fumey. He insisted it was his problem. The office guy insisted the dog could die. I moved away at this stage, the talking of dead animals was enough for me to move on. I saw the man later with no dog, but the girl managed to smuggle her kitten on board. She found him floating in flood waters somewhere and rescued him, she wanted to take it to a shelter on Koh Samui where she was working, happy ending I hope. The worst encounter of the area was the cute little rat running around trying to jump up on a small wall and failing miserably until he finally managed to dig his claws in. Off we went anyway at about nine. We stopped somewhere during the night, nice of them to turn on the lights and the stereo to wake everyone. Very groggy at this stage, Regina as usual passed out the second her bum hit the bus seat, I endured most of the night awake watching a movie with no sound (I had seen it before anyway). At about five we pulled into the dock area in Chomphun. At about seven, this is AM at this stage of course, we got on board and headed first for Koh Tao and then on to Koh Phangan. We were pretty hungry so went for breakfast... I got a full english, it had a half a sausage?!?!?! I didnt complain, too hungry. Off to our hut in a bit, should be interesting. Weather is gorgeous here, place looks it too. Lots of pictures on the way I hope and plenty of more stories no doubt....