Back to Bangkok

Today we said goodbye to Koh Pha-Ngan. Possibly the best place we've been so far on the holiday. Cookies had the nicest view, and nicest fruit salad with yoghurt, The Masons Arms had the nicest roast beef and gravy dinners, as well as lovely staff, and it also had the Full Moon Party. I'm yet to let loose and go on a mad one, based on a mix between lack of sleep, lack of comfort, and the incident on Phi Phi island involving my toe! Maybe thats why I didn't enjoy the Full Moon Party as much as I was expecting. It was fun though, just not as much as the hype would have you believe, in our experience.

So we said goodbye to the staff at The Masons Arms and actually got a lift off one of the barmenand got on the boat away from the island. We were told we were going back to the mainland, but we went to Koh Samui to pick up more people, and then headed on to the mainland. The was full to the brim so there was no seats inside. We had to stay out in the sun for over 2 hours. I got badly burnt on my face, arms and legs, even though I kept applying factor 50!! Dave also forgot to put suncream on his legs so developed a nice pair of red leggings later in the day.

When we finally got to the mainland, we were ushered onto a bus. This bus was to drive us about an hour to the train station. It was fairly straight forward, however, a bolt of lightning struck across the street from us!! It was so cool. The noise off it! It hit a telegraph pole on the side of the road. I'd never seen lightning up close and personal like that, and I don't intend on seeing it that close again any time soon!! Scary!

We arrived at the train station anyway, and boarded out train. It was cramped enough but we got by. Once the train had begun its journey, we started to relax. A guy came around taking orders for dinner in an hour or so, and then breakfast at 6am, just before we arrive in Bangkok. You paid in advance, and he basically woke you up for breakfast. Neither the dinner nor breakfast was anything special, but for 200baht (less than 4 euro), what do you expect!

After dinner, it was getting "late"! Not late for us, but late for the locals. We were wondering how we were goign to get any sleep on the uncomfortable, cramped chairs, until a guy came around with a metal rod and start fiddling with something above our heads. Suddenly, a bed folded down from above, and he then converted the chair we were sitting on to another bed!! So we had bunk beds! Fair enough. I got top bunk.

We were having a few beers and watching a film on my laptop when we were told to turn it off, as 10pm was the curfew time where there was no noise allowed afterwards. There was police on the train so we decided not to argue! The beds were actually decent enough, and we got a relatively good sleep.

We were woken at 6am for breakfast, and got into Bangkok after 7. A taxi man was waiting for us outside the station and took us to our hotel. This would be our home until we fly to Oz. After our experience with this place the first time, the plan was to just sit in our rooms with a few beers, watch telly, and relax. Haha this was not the case. We ended up every night in the MBK, a huge shopping centre with hundreds of shops, restaurants and a cinema. We even went back to Khaosan Road to revisit all the old spots!! Back to the Irish bars, the horrible street vendors, the smell of urine from every alleyway, the anorexic cats, the pushy stripclub guys trying toget you into ping pong shows, or offering you ladies! Haha how we missed this place! It was fun going back the one night but I wouldn't like to be surrounded by it all the time, with no escape, like the last time in Sawasdee Inn.

We stayed here anyway until the 26th, and it was off to Australia with us!! It felt like we were in Thailand for a year and we'd never get to Oz, but here we were in the airport!! Finally!! Civilised society awaits!!

Photos