We got up this morning at 5:15 am as we were scheduled to get a bus through South Thailand at 7:30am. After a long wait at the side of the road, we eventually flagged down a share taxi destined for the port. Luckily we were one of the first passangers, but further down the road, the taxi got so full that some people had to stand on the rear bumper and hold onto the roof rack!\ We arrived at the port at 6:45am and after a delicious breakfast at a local cafe found our bus. After a little confusion with the seat numbers, we sat down and got comfy. The bus looked straight from the 1970's with old leather seats, fans down the aisle and a wierd seating area next to the driver. We were on the bus for all of 10 minutes, when we had to get off the bus and onto the ferry to Surat Thani. On the ferry, we got chatting to a fairly funny couple from Stoke. It turned out that neither of them worked legally and the bloke seemed to be constantly mashed from a steady intake of cannabis, fair play! After the ferry, we immediately started on our 5hr bus journey to Hat Yai. This should have been sound, as despite the 70's style seats, they were actually fairly roomy and the recently installed air-con system worked a treat. However after an hour of driving, we hit rain, which then proceeded to leak into the roof and drip into the cabin from the air-con vent directly above our seat! In order to stop getting completely soaked, we tried a number of solutions including using Sarah's unbrella to catch the water, absorbing it in my sarong, messing with the screws on the fitting and holding a bottle under the drip. All to no avail, the only thing that worked reasonably well was cutting open a plastic bottle and using the top as a funnel, placing it on the seat roughly underneath the drip and surrounding it with my sarong. This wasn't much help though to be honest, but it did collect over 1 litre of water by the time we made our one and only 10 minute stop. Luckily at that point a couple left the bus and we could sit on their seat at the back of the bus. The only downside being that this seat seemed to be for one and a half people and hence we were fairly cramped for the remaining 3 hours of the journey. Eventually at around 4pm we got into Hat Yai, where we were immediately shepherded to a local travel agentwho organised us a seat on at minibus to Penang in Malaysia, due to leave in 5 minutes. So after a mad dash around the local 7-11 for some food we climbed in some guys car, who took us to yet another travel agents, where we would get the minibus from. Here we waited... and waited... and waited... and waited for 2 hours before the minibus arrived. To be fair, it was luxury, very comfortable with air-con and a live version of Hotel California on the stereo and we were only on it for a further 4 hours, which went fairly quickly. We arrived at Penang at 11pm and checked into the first hotel we saw, the Swiss Hotel. The rooms were rank, boiling as they had no air-con and only had a squeeky fan powered by some DODGY electrics and smelt like dirty old men, but what can one expect for 4 quid a night? After checking in we went straight out for our first real meal since 7am, however not only did we have no ringet, but also had no idea what the exchange rate was. After trooping around the deserted, Levenshulme-esqe streets, we found an ATM and then went to a cheap looking restaurant, serving Indian style dishes, which we later worked out only cost us 2 pound 50 for the whole meal! We then decided to head back as we have another early start tomorrow in order to get to the Cameron Highlands at mid-day so Saz can enjoy her BIRTHDAY!!!