Monday 5th December: The last two days have been spent travelling non stop (26hrs in total)! Our train from Kanchanaburi to Nakhom Pathom was due to leave at 2.50pm but was delayed by 80min. Luckily this didn't throuw us out too much as our connecting train wasn't until 7.30pm. So we arrived at Nakhom Pathom around 6.45 and went off in search of a 7 Eleven for supplies (the food on the trains is really expensive and crap). We got directions from the locals and luckily it wasn't too far - we felt a little vulnerable because it was dark, we had our backpacks and the neighbourhood looked more than a little dodgy - not another foriegner in sight! We found the store ok and got to the train with plenty of time to spare. The train was nowhere near as nice as the one we took from Chiang Mai - it was fuller, dirtier and way less inviting to sleep in (cockroaches!) I slep ok, but in the morning we discovered that it had been raining all night and something on the train leaked - the cloor was all wet and thus so were our bags - and Jess's bed! We made it to Surat Thani in piece though and were herded like cattle with the other tourists to the bus terminal. We purchased tickets to Krabi (on the West - Andaman Sea coast), I was a little worried becasue there was only one other couple on the train and they were busy buying pot from the driver! While waiting for the bus we met this incredibly bitter lawyer from NZ. He had just been to India and said it was the most awful, dirty and unhyginic place he'd ever been. We think he was having a mid-life crisis - he shared with us his very interesting views on NZ's apparently feminist lesbian government - lol.
The bus trip seemed really really lon, especially beacause I really had to use the bathroom! Halfway to Krabi this weird American guy got on and sat next to me. He reckoned that he'd been travelling Asia for 17months, but I didn't believe this because he knew nothing (like even less than us) about the way things work here.
We finally got to Krabi (and the toilet) and booked our passage to Koh Lanta, plus one nights accomodation at the cheapest place (300b./night) - The Last Beach Resort. We had another quite long drive and then two ferries and another drive to get there. The lat drive was so rocky (we were in the back of a ute andwas amost a 4WD track) that we though we should remove 'beach' and make where we were going the 'last resort'! Luckily it is really nice here. We have our ow bungalow on the beach and have been swimming and suntanning all morning, until about 10min ago that is when the heavens opened and it just poured!!Everybody on the beach made a ad dash for shelter. The resturant and bar here are nice (which is good because they are our only options). We spent last night playing Connect 4 and Jenga at the bar with two guys Wood (spelt phonetically) and ??? who work here. Unfortunately the only games we won were the ones they let us! I think they get a lot of practise?
Tuesday 6th December: Very stupidly got sunburnt yestday - it hurts and will probably peel which sucks. I spent most of yesterday reading (finished Morgans Run). Jess and I had a bit of a feast for dinner - garlic prawns, green curry, mixed vegetables and rice- it was great! We then ended up playing cards with the local Thai guys again for a few hours. They knew alot of card tricks, but Jess and I thought it was their job description to entertain guests etc until one of them, Wood, asked me to go and 'sit on the beach and look at the ocean' with him. I had to inform him that I really was quite comfortable there at the bar! :)
Have spent today so far at the beach (in the shade!). Its a beautiful day and hopefully there won't be any rain. We're thinking now of not going to Phi Phi and maybe doing a four islands snorkelling tour instead. We'll have to see though as Jess has to exhange money - she's borrowing off me at the moment but I don't have enough for the day trip.
Wednesday 7th December: Yesterday we just lazed the afternoon away (again). I read Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and then sat on the beach and watched a storm roll in. It was quite spectacular, all the lightening and thunder and seeing the rain close in on the bay. We pretty much ate dinner and then went back to our room, neither Jess nor I felt like socialising with the Thai guys again, and plus we had and early start in the morning.
Today we went on the 4 islands tour. We left at 9.30 and our departure itself was a bit of a debacle. There were 8 people going from our resort and when the boat pulled in to the beach it chose a really rocky spot so we had to wade out with our bags on our heads to stop them from getting wet (the waves were up to my chest) all the while kicking our toes on rocks! It was a half hour trip to our first stop - a cliff island where we could snorkel off the boat. It was pretty dissapointing. I've seen much better coral at home and the marine life was average - as was the clarity of the water. We hopped back onto the boat and went to our next destination. Initially it looked equally unimpressive, but then we were informed that we would be going into a cave and were given life jackets. I think its easier to swim without a life jacket so didn't use on (which was good because there weren't enough to go around anyway). We all swam into the mouth of the cave (us and like two other boat tours - it looked like a ship wreck evacuation!) It was pitch black in the tunnel apart from the pathetic torches that our tow guides had (just think about the cost of insurance for an excursion like this at home!) - we pretty much just swam any way we could, not seeing anything. Ir was a bit scary at first, but absoultely awesome because you could hear the echoing of the waves against other cave walls. We eventually saw daylight and came out into a lagoon and beach (just like in the film 'The Beach'). The lagoon ws completely surrounded by cliffs and the only way in or out was through the cave. It was beautiful!
After the cave we went to another place for snorkeling, it was better but still not brilliant. Then we sat on a beach to eat lunch. Jess and I got talking to and NZ couple (whats with everyone traveling in couples??) who had been working in Aust. for a few years and after Thailand were off to the UK to work (like me!) They said that this year is London's coldest in 60yrs - am getting worried now!
The trip back was a bit rough and we got drenched again. I noticed the steering system on the boat too - it was random, a wheel on a stick with rope attached which went out both sides, around pulleys and then to the longtail motor. It looked very homemade!
jss and I have just discovered that we don't have enough money with us to bay our food and accomodation bill. Ooops! Luckily the guy said yesterday that we could pay for our tour when we got to town and a bank, hopefully this will apply to our bill as well.
Forgot to mention the 'disturbance' last night. People partied late at the bar ad from about 2am we could hear loud talking in the bungalow behind us. At about 6am it escalated into screaming and yelling. It was a French couple and they were having a full on domestic. We heard a glass smasha dn it sounded as if he were hitting her, then someone threated to call the police and it died down a bit.
