Bangkok to Koh Chang

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Alarm went off at 5.20am...Groan...Super-efficient that I am I packed the bags last night so we could wake up as late as humanly possible. If you call 5.20am late ! Based on the time it took us to get to the bus station halfway across Bangkok yesterday, we needed to be in a taxi at 6.15am heading for Ekamai Bus Station. We were expecting the traffic to be appalling. According to the lady who sold me the tickets yesterday we would have to contend with the city's legion of civil servants going to their offices by car. As it turns out, we covered the distance in about 30 minutes...at KSR the taxi driver has sucked in air through his teeth like a plumber appraising a leaking pipe ooooo...rot dtit maaaaaaaaaak - "the traffic will be veeeeeeeeeeery bad"...Perhaps he was trying to justify his (slight) overcharging for the ride !

It was another hour before our bus to Laem Ngop was due to leave. We were equipped with supplies bought the day before from Jet-Sip-Et - a.k.a. Seven Eleven ! We munched on our crackers and fruit juice (including a bottle of the most delicious Thai orange juice nam som, made from these tiny little green-skinned oranges...what better way to keep our vitamin C levels up ?) as we engaged in some fascinating people-watching.

I love sitting in stations watching people rush about, catching their trains or buses to wherever they are going. Ekamai Station is not exception. All buses heading eastwards leave from here, to places like Pattaya (hmmmmmmmm), Chanthaburi and Trat. Dozens of individual ticket windows sell tickets for various bus companies. Everytime someone steps into the small covered area of the station, all the (female) sellers begin their cries, like market stallholders selling their wares. Bpai tii naaaaaaaaaaai ?. Where are you going ? Time after time I have to wave my tickets at them to let them know I'm spoken for...People come and go - a young high school student, a dodgy-looking European off to Pattaya (hmmmmmmmm), a very smart middle-aged Thai lady to Pattaya as well (eh ?)...

Time flies - it's 7.30. Our bus, number 999, has pulled up in front of the station. The driver hops out and opens the luggage bay doors. The bus is operated by a government agency (aptly named the Government Transport Company Ltd - usually known by its Thai acronym Bor Kor Sor) - they operate an air-conditioned bus network that covers the entire country.

By 7.45 the 50-seater bus is fully loaded with....about 10 passengers, only half of which are farangs such as ourselves...The bus is scheduled to stop in Rayong and Chanthaburi and arrive in Laem Ngop at about 1pm. We turn into the main road and off we go ! It turns out that the bus not only has a driver but a "road-stewardess" as well (well, steward). As we reach the motorway that links Bangkok with the East Coast, he passes down the bus passing us bottles of mineral water and a box of poppyseed biscuits each. How's that for service ? Once he's done it's time for him to set up the inflight entertainment...there's a TV at the front of the bus. Apparently Thais like nothing more when on a long bus trip than to watch loud Kung-Fu movies back-to-back. Huzzah ! Oh well. The movie is a bit hammy...the jolts of the bus over the uneven motorway makes the DVD player skip so the frames freeze every 10 seconds...Alex and I pop in our earplugs, recline our seats and fall asleep.

We wake up for a rest-stop near Rayong. The driver and a few Thai passengers have a snack...By the time we leave Rayong it has started to rain. Hard. The rest of the trip is uneventful. We arrive in Laem Ngop early, at about 12.30. The bus stops right near the pier where the ferries to Koh Chang leave. A boat has just arrived from Koh Chang and we board on foot after purchasing our 50-baht tickets (about 80p). The boat, laden with a handful of passengers and a full complement of cars and lorries, leaves about 30 minutes later for the 45 minute crossing.

We are reading standing in the bows when the boat reaches Thammachat Bay on Koh Chang. We hop off the ferry even before it's come to a standstill, ahead of the convoy of lorries. As is to be expected in Thailand, there's a fleet of pickups waiting to take the foot passengers to various parts of the island.

We're off to Kai Bae Beach on the western side of the island - there we intend to stay to stay for about a week. Will be back later to tell you all about island life !

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