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Published: April 28th 2008
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Perhentian Islands
The view from our hostel Right, get a hot drink ready because this one may be a long one but it's definitely worth reading!
After Kuala Lumpur we made the bus journey over to the port for the Perhentian Islands, arriving at Long Beach to rain! We settled in our basic huts right next to the beach, and set up camp with a coffee and a book, because the rain was there to stay. The next day was also a wash out.
On the third day the sun returned! So making the most of it we headed to the beach, layed out our towels and were promptly burnt, reducing our sunbathing to one day, as we hurt too much to go out the next day. So maybe the Islands were a small disaster really, but at least the burn is going brown, and we don't stick out too much with everyone here in Bangkok for being too much like a milk bottle.
Sorry there's not much more to say on the Islands, it literally was just an island for sunbathing so apart from that we didn't do much else!
Its what happened after that's worth reading...
So on Sunday we departed
for the Thai border town of Sungai Kolok, with the intention of getting a train or a bus to Bangkok, which should have taken us about 22 hours, but most of it was going to be spent sleeping. At least at night ... that was the plan.
We got to the train station and there were no seats available apart from third class ... that really is bare bones (see photos!!) The seat for me and Claire was really a seat just for one, there were four of us to fit in one little section, with just a single fan cooling eight of us! No matter how hard we tried there was no way we were going to sleep, there was nowhere to rest your head, no where to put your legs... nothing.
To be honest though once we'd gotten over the initial shock there was something almost enjoyable about the novelty of it all, hawker sellers were coming on to the train at every station and selling freshly cooked food, we tried some and it was delicious, it all smelt great too! Every few minutes someone was coming round offering cheap drinks, including beer. We were all
Our 'cabin'
So this is where we're sitting, looks crampt but there's still one more person that needs to sit down there too stuck in it, all seven of us (a French and a Belgian guy have joined us for now too), and so there was a sense of all being in this together.
By 10pm it was shattered. We arrived at Surat Thani, which is about a third of the trip up, only to be told we were stopping for at least 6 hours .... maybe even a day. There had been a train crash on the line to Bangkok (there is only one line in each direction; north, south, east and west), and all the trains were stacked up on the line, and no one knew how long it would take to clear the wreckage.
At first we thought this was a bit of a scam really, but the ticket man also said this was true. So we got a partial refund of 73 Baht ... we had bought the ticket for 300, and were told we had to get a bus instead, which would cost 650 Baht! (And I can see nothing on the news right now about a train crash...so we're still a bit suspicious).
So a bus it was, finally departing at 11.30pm. After twenty minutes, the driver and his buddies decided it would be a good idea to stop and eat. Cheers guys, thats what we paid you for! By the time they had finished and started up the engine ... the engine started to smoke. It was broken. We had broken down. We needed to wait for a new bus.
'One hour, just one hour'. Well we waited an hour. And a couple more. And at 2.30am, still with no sleep, the train finally rolled into the car park, we climbed on, on our last legs, we'd had nothing to eat either by the way, and went to sleep.
We arrived in Bangkok this afternoon about 1, we had slept pretty easily on the bus! There was one more twist in that we were promised to be dropped off at Khao San Road, but instead we got dropped outside the city, the driver insisted he never said he would drop us there. By this point, we were not too happy with them, and we made sure they knew we hadn't been happy, without being rude.
So now we're in a hostel just off of Khao San Raod, its pretty cool here, all set up for backpackers. On Wednesday we go to Chiang Mai, but for tonight, definitely a beer! Or lots of them.
We'll put the photos on soon as possible, haven't got the camera on me right now, but you can see the story in pictures!
Hope you're all good at home,
Rich and Claire xx
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Becks
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Bloody Brits!!!!!
Haa haa!!!!! Man you make me laugh, talk about Brits on holiday expecting everything to run smoothly!!!!! The beauty of travelling I feel is to expect everything that could go slightly wrong will!!!! sounds like you had a bit of an adventure though, just think what would happen if it all ran smoothly guys wouldn't be half as exciting, plus its more exciting for us to read about!!!!!!!! I don't think I'm spelling smoothly right here!! anyways by the time you get back good old fat face could have whole new crew every one is leaving, I'm the only one staying for now, I feel a bit left out, maybe i need to move to!!! Managed to get anouther exhibition lined up in august. Its a chi art festival so should be loads of interesting stuff!!! Went to twickernam and watch my wounderfull team play, i feel so utterly proud of London Irish, even though they lost, they were playing basically against the french side, and nearly won all the had to do was get one last try and they would have been in the final!!!!!!!!! the most criminal thing is they arn't allowed to play in the heiniken cup next year because they didn't win enough games!!! Oh and i'm still extremply jelous that you are going to see england vs nz!!!!! just to see the huka would be amazing enough but to see nz do it in their own country!!! BLOODY HELL MATE!!!!!!!!! anyway must rush, keep drawing claire and keep writing rich, love to you both xxxxxxxx becks