Journey to Bangkok

We are in Bangkok now. We arrived at 4am yesterday. We got the overnight bus from Chaweng in Koh Sumui. I say overnight, but the bus picked us up at 12.15 pm, which took us to another bus which took us to the ferry. There was not enough seats on the bus and some people had to stand, worrying, understandably, that this would be the case all the way to Bangkok. Everyone boarded the ferry and it was a pleasant 2 hour jorney to Surat Thani. The scenery was lovely with rocky outcrops jutting out of the turquoise sea. We arrived at the ferry point where we boraded the bus, luckily able to get a seat, whereas others had to stand again for the hour journey to Surat Thani where we had to wait for our connecting bus to Bangkok.

The bus journey was actually ok. I had not been looking forward to it and we had stupidly had a few beers the night before (See Tim's post-Bophut-Chaweng beach) and I wasn't feeling prepared for a night of being squashed on a bus seat. However it was quite comfy and I managed to get a few naps in after the two films were played. (behind enemy lines and transporter 2 (I know I hadn't heard of it either). We had been told that we would arrive at Bangkok at 5.30am. We actually arrived (surprisingly as transport is usually late) at 3.45am. There were plenty of taxis wating and we hopped in one who told us he knew of a hotel which was at our budget. We drove quite far through empty streets which he assured us would be congested this time tomorrow, rendering it near impossible to get anywhere easily. He pointed out temples and where the King and Queen live and I felt quite excited at the prospect of visiting these grand places.

The hotel he had in mind was unfortunately full, but he took us round the corner to "Nice Palace" which was nice, but I'm not sure about the palace bit. We were able to check in which we were grateful for and slept in til 1pm. Bangkok is supposed to be a challenging city with lots of people and traffic.I am looking forward to seeing some temples, riding in a tuk tuk and buying fisherman pants at the markets.