Day 11 - Penang to Koh Samui, Thailand

---

Very early start - we left the hotel at 5am in a minivan headed for the border. The van took us all the way through the Malaysian and Thai border and about 2 hours into Thailand. Slightly interesting at the Malaysian border as one of the passengers from the minivan wasn't allowed out of Malaysia because he shouldn't have been there in the first place!

Once into Thailand we boarded a bus for 6 hours to the port where we caught the ferry to Koh Samui, this took 2 hours. On arrival in Koh Samui the next mode of transport was a truck with 2 benches in the back. The truck had around 17 people in it & wasn't a big truck! Our luggage was strapped to the roof and Tony was standing on the back holding on. Road safety is a very foreign concept here!! The truck took us from the west to the east of the island, taking around 45 minutes. Over 12 hours later we arrived in Koh Samui :-)!

We went for a walk along the street which is very touristy and quite expensive compared to what we had come from. We ha a quick look at the beach which looks lovely.

After a shower we went for dinner. I had my first experience of pad thai (thick noodles, vegetables and chicken) which was delicious, up there as one of my top meals of the trip so far. We then had some lovely cocktails in a lovely bar. And then after a long and tiring day, home to bed!

---