Floating Markets and journey to the islands

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After leaving my hostel on Saturday I travelled across Bangkok in a taxi to meet the guys that'd be travelling down Thailand and into Mayalsia together. We had one night of luxury on Saturday in preparation to takle the following nights 12 hour train journey. Sunday morning we travelled bu minibus to see the salt fields, a coconut factory making various things out of coconut...as you can imagine this was fascinating!!! We then went across to the floating markets which really did live up to the iconic images you see of Thailand. They are literally canal-like set up with numerous boats selling pretty much anything from food such as mango sticky rice, fried bananas, fresh fruit and veg, soup.. the list goes on! They were also selling flowers, clothes, ornaments and even knives. We took a boat through all the stalls eating copious amounts of food. I really enjoyed the markets but they are becoming more touristy than local which is a huge shame.

Later that day we all boarded the overnight train to Suratthani. We armed ourselves with Thai beer and food to survive the journey but suprisingly the train was fab. You are given designated individual seats which are large enough for a fat american! Then at about 10pm the guards come around and convert them into bunk beds with curtains. Each train also has something called a 'disco carriage' which is as it sounds. It was a carriage with disco lights, VERY loud music and a group of 10 british 'lads on tour'. Needless to say I was in there briefly before hitting the hay. We arrived at the station at 5am then waited 2 hours for a bus then ferry across to Koh Pha-ngan. As if the journey hadn't been long enough on several forms of transport we had to hop into a 4x4 to travel off road to our resort. One very bruised bum later we arrived at our resort.

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