And just when we thought our bus journeys couldn't get any longer, we signed ourselves up for an 18hr combi bus-boat to Koh Phangan! The added advantage of this one (or so we thought) was that at least it was on a VIP all singing all dancing bus - wrong again! What we actually boarded was a rather funkily decorated double decker, with some rather odd curtains and lighting. Not so bad we thought, at least they're going to show English films - wrong again. ...

And just when we thought our bus journeys couldn't get any longer, we signed ourselves up for an 18hr combi bus-boat to Koh Phangan! The added advantage of this one (or so we thought) was that at least it was on a VIP all singing all dancing bus - wrong again! What we actually boarded was a rather funkily decorated double decker, with some rather odd curtains and lighting. Not so bad we thought, at least they're going to show English films - wrong again. ...

And back to Bangkok.......A definite improvement bus wise - clean, cool and quicker than we were expecting, with the now familiar cola and cake too! Our first day back was spent finding accomodation, which is suprisingly difficult when there are so many to chose from. We opted for the sensible tactic of dumping the bags with one of us whilst the other looked around. Although the weather was definitely cooler, still torturous with rucksacks on! Rich hunted us out ...

Unfortunately not a great deal to say about this place! There are most definitely no westerners and all but no English spoken (apart from the damn tuk tuk drivers!) A nice town to see a truer example of Thai life, but very difficult to get by in when your pronounciation is non-effective! We basically used our time to rest and recoup - another 6hr bus journey brought us here, and a 4hr one awaits us to return to Bangkok.....

Another day another bus journey - although this one will surely be remembered as the one from hell! Thanks to the ever helpful staff at the Chiang Rai bus station we boarded at 9.30am expecting a 6.5hr journey - what we actually got was a 10hr cross country tour of every bus station from Chiang Rai to Phitsanoluk!!!!! Needless to say we got off a little dazed and confused and without the use of our legs! Our trauma continued as we'd arrived at a differen...