Advertisement
Published: September 9th 2009
Since our last blog.....
We said goodbye to Susan's sister who had popped in for a short visit on her way back to England on the evening of the 2nd and then headed to the train station to get the night train to Surat Thani in order to ferry it over to the islands. The journey was pretty long and not quite as plush as expected but we got beds and covers and a chance to chill out a bit.
We arrived at Surat Thani around 5am and got a bus to the docks where we were herded on to the ferry with the other tourists. The journey was about an hour and a half over to Koh Samui. We found that the island has changed quite a lot since me and Susan last came in 2004. It is a lot more touristey with lots of honey moon friendly resorts. Of course it is still beautiful, we were trying to stay at the same place we stayed at in 2004 and somehow ended up next door (similar names) but at least this had warm showers and air-con - some improvements i can live with! On our first evening
we went for a rather expensive but lovely meal at 'The Shack' - a restaurant we had frequented on our last visit to the island. The food was as amazing as we remembered, the only alteration was that the owner had put on about 2 stone - I can't blame him with a menu like his.
Over the next few days we lay about on the white sands a lot, taking in the beautiful scenery and also visited the islands main attraction - the Big Buddha - it is BIG! We also treated ourselves to a night in the Reggae Bar! An old favourite we were glad to see hadn't changed a bit - Andy threw himself in there with great enthusiasm! Three buckets later we were dancing the night away to the Bob Marley tribute band and 90s pop music!
Unfortunately the day came when we realised we needed to get off our backsides and move onwards if we were to get to the border before out visas expired! So after 4/5 nights on the island (we're not sure!) we were back at the ferry dock. This time the journey to the main land wasn't quite so
pleasant! The first leg of the journey was spent on the top deck where we were continually sprayed with sea water until we had to change boats, thinking we were wiser than the other passengers we took the lower deck this time...wrong! This part was about 2 hours long, from start to end it was the bumpiest journey imaginable. We rode right into a storm and I'm pretty sure this was the most scared either of us had ever been in our lives. As the boat smacked down on the sea with a bump that took us all out of our seats over and over again all I could think was am I going to live through this and do they have life boats?! I was trembling so badly I thought I wouldn't be able to walk when we stopped. It was like the worst scene out of a sea/storm related blockbuster!
Anyway...
We're now safe and back on dry land (phew) in a town north of Bangkok called Kanchanaburi, today we've seen the bridge over the River Kwai and learnt all about WWII from SE Asias perspective. There were many POW camps here where prisoners from all
over were kept to build the Thailand-Burma rail track in the most hideous conditions. The rail line is called Death Railway as so many of the POW died to make it. We've also been to the Erawan National Park to a 7 tired waterfall which was pretty spectacular. Tomorrow we move again to a town called Sangkhlaburi.
More soon...
E & A. xxxxxxx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.123s; Tpl: 0.036s; cc: 11; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0522s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Alys
non-member comment
yay photos!
Hey guys. Great to get the lastest installment. a nice distraction from the dissertation! Really glad you got some photos up now. Elli, I'm loving the tie dye outfits! Fab! Take care, Loads of love, Alys (and Stu) xx