Have officially had the worst train journey of my life!! Be prepared for a rant............ We decided that the train was the best option to get to Bangkok since the airport was awkward to get to and the flight times were rubbish. So we planned the timings of the taxis, ferry, bus, tuk-tuk and trains to get us here this morning for about 9. The train journey would take 12 hours and we were going to get a sleeper train, leaving at 8pm last night (sleeping in 2nd class berths). We couldn't book ahead with the train because they didn't do online bookings and there were no train booking offices on ko Samui. We looked at the train seat availability and there were loads of seats so we thought it'd be ok. After a fairly tiring journey to the station invloving much determination to avoid being ripped off by people who lie to you about absolutely everything just to get you to go in their taxi/bus/etc (some of the stories they come out with are astonishing!) and the fact that the ferry didn't go to where we thought it would - we got to the train station in plenty of time to catch one of a selection of 3 trains to Bangkok (contingency planning there - 3 trains!!) Got to the station and the only tickets available were 3rd class standing tickets!!! What kind of an un-civilized place imagines for 1 second that a person could stand for the duration of a 12 hour tarin journey during the night!!!!! I can't imagine anyone in their right mind putting prisoners through it as punishment, let alone asking you to pay for the privilege!! Anyway - we bought the tickets since we didn't have any other option and Surat Thani (the town we were in) was a bad place to stay. We stood on the platform for a while coming to terms with the shock of standing tickets existing and the reality that we had just bought 2! Bought some crisps, prunes, biscuits and orange juice (which later turne out to be orange yoghurt), for dinner. Got on the train - no air conditioning, no fan, smelly, really hot, no space, people packed on like sardines!! Fortunately we managed to look sufficiently helpless that some kind people let us share their bench. Then the journey from hell began. 12 hours of my life have never passed so slowly or so uncomfortably. Stcking to plastic seats with sunburnt legs, sweating like mad, no room to move and bright lights so you couldn't sleep. Tom had bought some sleeping pills which we took to try to knock us out - but they were no use. The train was amazing - people hung out the windows at every stop, people got on and off selling vast amounts of wierd looking food. Tom bought beer. I joined in. The train stopped everywhere - sometimes for ages!! and when it wasn't moving there was no breeze so the heat was almost unbearable! the woman sitting opposite me kept spreading this bright red paste onto leaves and pushing it into a copper tube. She then grated bits of stuff off a giant nut thing and then put that in the tube too. She then mashed it with a stick for ages, tipped it out and ate it. She did this every 30 mins. I wasn't sure who was insane - me or the rest of the train!! Her teeth were stained red and her mouth was black and she had hardly any teeth!! And she kept chewing tabacco stuff too! Very bizarre! And then at one stop someone came on selling funny inhalers which people bought and continued to sniff for ages. This is a very strange place! Oh! and at one stop people started passing things through the windows and something that looked like a small tree went through our window and into the storage compartments above us!! (I think the people on the train were buying things from the platform people) but why would you buy a tree!!??? Also - everyone threw their rubbish out of the windows - soup bowls, forks sppons, bottles - you name it, they threw it - what did they think would happen to it!!?? In the end people were sleeping everywhere all over the floor - in the aisles, under the seats, on the seats, outside the toilets!! and those who had come prepared bought old newspaper to sleep on - i wish i had - it was impossible to sleep in the seats. Absolutely mad. The train was delayed by an hour - which i guess is nothing in a 12 hour journey. Anyway - we got to Bangkok ok and caught a bus to our hotel - which is very nice (but a bit expensive - 5pounds50 a night each) think we'll move tomorrow - but we needed somewhere nice tonight to recover from the trauma. I feel tired - every part of my body aches. It's 12pm here - going for lunch - then to bed. Hopefully seeing the night markets tonght. Moral of the story: - BOOK AHEAD!