Rained in at Ko Chang

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We had a long journey ahead of us and set off nice and early. A 2km walk to the bus station, 2 hour bus journey into Bangkok, a stressful 10 minutes trying to work out where to get the #511 bus from the Southern Terminal to the Eastern Terminal (someone took pity on us and helped us :-)). Finally got on the bus which took about 45 minutes to navigate across the city, enabling me to spy lots more shops, yeyyyy (Chad not so impressed). By this time, Chad and I were starving and spied a KFC... yum :-)

The good thing about travelling in Thailand is that they have many tiers of fares for buses, etc and we usually take the 2nd class option which is a government bus. Considering how cheap the fares are, the buses are actually really comfortable and even have air con ! We would take the 3rd class option but that's the one that stops off everywhere and takes a lot longer, otherwise I'm sure Chad would make me slum it more!

After a 6 hour journey and a really dodgy vampire movie, we finally arrived in Trat. We checked into a cheap guest house and after a quick visit to the night market for a bite to eat we hit the sack.


We headed off on the ferry to Ko Chang the following day and was greeted with torrential rain. I know it is supposed to be the rainy season but it has rained non-stop! We checked into a hotel on White Sands Beach (SP Place - a/c, tv,etc - 500bht) which is very close to our most popular shop - 7-11, the taxi dropped us off outside the shop and the rain was so bad that we didn't do our usual checking out places we just found cover!. We haven't been doing much here as it has rained every day but it has been nice to just chill out, watch sport, movies, news and read our books. I even had a few runs along the lovely beach a few times in between the rain. I have been neglecting my keepfit regime :-( We did actually have a bit of sunshine the other day and both got quite sunburnt.. doh ! We even caught a few waves in the sea with our lilo and also saw some dude surfing, this is a first for us in Thailand! Chad tells me the currents have been really bad, it's recommended not to swim in the rainy season here ( Oh dear, no swimming for me then :-) ) but it still amazes us that some parents let their youngsters out on their own, they wouldn't get away with that in Oz. We've seen many local thais watch on in dismay, it is embarassing to see they are more concerned than the parents.

We head off to Siem Reap next, this involes crossing into Cambodia at Poipet. The whole border crossing is apparently riddled with scams so we will have to watch out. Next journal from Cambodia........hopefully! :-)

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