Our first Thai train journey – an experience!!

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So we left our last blog with us eating noodles outside the train station. We made our way over to the train station and once inside bought some snacks and drinks for the train, including diet coke which is actually really hard to get as there is coke zero everywhere which people keep telling us is the same – but as you can imagine Sarah does not agree with this!! Thai people seem to think she is a bit mad!



We then boarded our train, before being able to get on there were lots of people washing down the outside of the train, so we wrongly assumed it would be just as clean inside! Our first challenge was actually getting to our first class booth, the corridors and doors were very narrow, not built for western Farangs with backpacks!! We eventually found our little booth, little being the operative word! It was a tad smaller than what we had imagined. The ‘room’ was in day mode with a sofa, small corner sink, little folding table and some hooks. We had lovely pink curtains on the main window and internal window so made ourselves at home, along with the ants and cockroaches! Tom was freaked out by the insects, Sarah went into girl guide/duke of Edinburgh/festival mode and was practically using wet-wipes to clean after seeing the shower (we had planned to shower on the train due to not being able to check out late, but upon seeing the shower promptly changed our minds!), antibacterial hand gel to clean surfaces and jungle formulae bug spray around the room. A woman then came around trying to get us to buy food and drink off her, at first we were adamant we did not want anything, but then Sarah got talked into buying some fruit, which was a total rip off at nearly £3, and despite being beautifully chopped was not very nice so ended up mainly in the bin, but we did get to try dipping pieces of fruit in a sugar/salty chilli combo – weird!



After going to use the toilet soon after we set off Sarah realised we would not be drinking the 4 cans of diet coke and 4 cans of beer that we had brought for the journey – the toilets were again of a Reading festival standard!!! To keep ourselves occupied we played a few games of cards, with the pack we’d bought earlier from the market and munched on some popcorn we’d bought at the station. Every so often someone would come by and try and sell us stuff, until we decided to lock our door so they could no longer get in, instead they would shout outside our door, but we’d ignore them and they’d move on to the next compartment. We had air con in the compartment which was good in a way as it was not stuffy, but it did really cold, but luckily thanks to a bday present from Mum Sarah had a new boodie to wear and thank to a bday present off Joel, some new socks to keep her feet warm (Tom didn’t seem to feel the cold).



After about 2 hours an attendant came around to turn our sofa into bunk beds. We decided to put our bags on the top bunk as there was no where really to keep them, and Tom wanted to ensure they were kept bug free! We both squished into the bottom bunk, with Tom announcing he was going to stand guard and protect Sarah for the night and not sleep!! Sarah, unbothered by this declaration decided to fall asleep. In the end we both slept on and off until our alarm went off at 6.30am, we then got up and got changed. By 7.30am we still had not arrived at our station (we were due to arrive 7.06am, and although we knew we hadn’t missed it we were a bit confused as all the stations seemed to only have Thai writing on the signs so we had nagging feelings that we may have done! Eventually we found someone to ask who reassured us it was ‘next stop’ (it wasn’t – but at least we hadn’t missed it). The train seemed to be going through jungle areas which were really interesting, we saw lots of water buffalo. Sarah also saw what she thought was an elephant statue, although thinking about it, this does not make much sense for there to be a statue in the middle of no-where so it may have been a real elephant ? Although we’re not sure we could be that lucky to see that?! So it’s one of those mysteries that we’re not really sure what it was.



We eventually arrived into our station at 8.30am, so had missed our first boat. Luckily it was really easy to arrange to get a bus to the pier and get a catamaran. We then had to ring ahead to the place we were due to be staying on Koh Phangnan (more of a challenge as we could not seem to get through for ages and did not understand why). Eventually we got through and were told they would try and meet us at the end of the pier by the 7/11.



We then got straight on a bus for about an hour and a half to drive to the pier, then straight onboard a catamaran to the Islands. Tom felt ‘queasy’ not sea sick on the boat, so had to treat himself to a coke and kit kat!! The boat first stopped at Koh Samui and then on to koh Phangnan, taking about 1 hour 45 mins in total. As soon as we got off the boat we were greated by Chai from our bungalows (so did not worry about having to find the 7/11) and were taken to his Songathew (pickup truck with benches in the back) for a ride to our bungalows. About 15 mins later we turned off a normal road onto a sandy track and before we knew it we were at paradise!

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