choo choo .....

---

I’m currently on an 11 hours overnight sleeper train from Bangkok to Surat Thani. I feel like I'm Harry Potter on my way to Hogwarts but I'm actualy heading to Kho Phangan for the Full Moon Party - a bit different! The Full Moon party is basically a massive dance music festival on the beach that attracts people from absolutely all over the world. The first Full Moon Party was in 1987 but this is the first time it has landed on New Year’s Eve, so it’s pretty special! There’s expected to be around 70, 000 people.

I’ve been dreading this train journey since we booked it because all the flights were fully booked. We had to settle for 2nd class train tickets from a travel company. I was a bit concerned because the joint train-bus-ferry ticket was extremely cheap. It cost less than the train to Dundee! The reality is every thing in Thailand is just generally very cheap, almost too cheap to be true. This little man has just been around to make my bed so I’m writing this from my little cabin haha. The train is hilarious; it’s full of bag-packers from all across the world. There’s some sort of underwear theme going on in my carriage and every one is walking about with pants on their head, including the ticket conductor!

Today we did a lot of sightseeing in Bangkok. We visited the Wat Arun temple in the morning and I nearly fell down it haha. It was extremely steep walking down, check out the photos! The temple is covered in mosaic and is an impressive piece of architecture. We also explored Wat Pho which is another temple. It is home to a 46 metre reclining Buddha. It’s coated in gold and is one shiny Buddha! Thailand is a very religious country and the people are devoted to their monarchy. It’s really strange to see pictures of the King every where and monks wandering the streets. It’s also common to see people praying in the streets.

In the afternoon we went on a private boat tour along the canals. We saw the riverside life of Bangkok and all the floating markets. I absolutely loved seeing all the wooden river-houses on stilts and seeing how the Thai people live. It was so peaceful. They didn’t seem to mind all the tourist boats driving past. All the little Thai kids waved to us which was really cute. It reminded me of the children’s programme ‘Rosie and Jim’ and how I always wanted to live on a barge and paint my own boat haha. Maybe one day!

---