Day 22: Nightbus to chumphon

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The above was meant to be a pun about Nightbus to Cairo but I realised when writing it that no-one would know but I’ve stuck with it because I’m stubborn.



We woke and were out a lot earlier this time, purely on the basis that we had to meet the checkout time. We used a Grab (Thai Uber) to get a lift to the train station where our night train would be travelling from. We had booked through a travel company, who organise the transfers from Bangkok right to Koh Tao (Our next stop) which is really the only way to do it as these companies buy all the tickets for these journeys months in advance. We paid for a Left Luggage to hold our luggage for us and then got to work on the tube. The tube was nearly identical to the Delhi system, using coin shaped tokens. We went to the River side shopping centre, which was exceedingly posh. A lot of things that we couldn’t afford, which when you’re with Meg and a large supply of intricately designed rugs can be a bit of a challenge. To her credit, she showed incredible strength and reserve not to spend all our finances on rugs and trinkets, and I’ve in no way made sure to keep this in here so she sees it when she proof reads it for me later on (brownie points for me.)



We then went on to the Paragon centre, which was another shopping centre, with an added multiplex and a Sea Life centre. It was weird. Three adjoining centres all with a different theme. One had a whole level dedicated to a huge food court. It was almost scary just with the amount of food options, and the system worked by putting money onto a card, and then using the credit on the card to buy food from various stalls. This went pretty well for myself, buying a chicken curry with rice and a crab stick (6/10).



We then decided to experience Thai Cinema. The multiplexes on the top floor were all from different companies. There was 4d, 3d, imax, VR (we didn’t see this until it was too late.) It was expensive, costing us 1000 baht to experience. We watched Alpha (7/10. Weird weird film.) before heading to Lumphini park for a walk. This was a weird situation, as throughout our travels we had not seen many places that had hosted runners. Everyone seems to run around parks. There was a specific running route which ran a lap around the park. Alongside were weight assisted machines for working out. We walked alongside the sea of sweaty joggers, before veering off and wandering alongside the pond. At this particular pond the Water monitors seemed to have doubled in size, a couple of which looked more like adolescent Komodo Dragons, and were fishing in the lake. Once we had completed the lap and passed the evening Zumba sessions. We made our way back to our train station and waited for our train. I sourced us some lunch (well I say lunch it was crisps and fruit). Our train was supposed to leave at 19.30 but didn’t leave til closer to 8. We had two beds on the train, which were set up later on. Meg had downloaded a couple of films to keep us preoccupied and at the earliest opportunity we had shut up shop and were attempting to get our heads down. This wasn’t helped by the annoying French group of teenagers a couple of beds down that had taken it upon themselves to watch their films at full volume, and then laugh loudly at everything happening. But what are you going to do. The bed itself was very comfortable, which helped.



Steps: 15,678



Top Tip: Thailand is more expensive than you think it is.

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