Arriving at Paradise Island

According to the time table we should reach my Stop, Chumphon, at 4:13. I assumed already we were not going to be on time but still set my alarm for 4:00.

Of course the train was massively delayed and the other backpackers and I tried to find out where we were and when we were suppose to be at Chumphon.

Not an easy task if the GPS doesn't work and the doors to the other carriages are locked.
So we were sitting there, assuming we had not gotten to the place yet and waited. Around 5 a steward came around and it turned out it was going to be another hour or so to go.

Not too surprising considering that we stopped a couple of times to let the oncoming trains pass. Looks like most of the southern Thailand Line is still single track.

It wasn't all bad, so at least I had a chance to see the jungle out there in the daylight as well.
Around 6:45 we made it to Chumphon. 15 minutes to the boat that would leave at 7. The bus ride took an hour but the boat must have waited for us since we left the harbour at 8.

The view from the quay where the boat waited was beautiful. The calm, clear, blue sea touched the sand beaches which had the hilly jungle starting right behind it. I thought this was paradise, but little did I know what I should be seeing just an hour and a half of a boat ride later.

About half way Koh Tao showed up at the horizon, growing larger, in front of clear blue skies and calm sea.

The first stop was a little island off the coast of Koh Tao which looked just like out of a photo book about the best places in the world.

Next stop was Mae Haad, the main pier in Koh Toa, where I got off.

I met a guy from Holland and we decided to get some grub. It was only 10 am but I was craving for some proper thai food. A Green Curry should come in handy and so we found a nice little beach side restaurant and I had a huge portion of curry for which I had to order another portion of rice to soak up all the nice sauce!

All this with magnificent view of the bay.

Then it was off to find my hostel. The Taco Shack hostel. I asked the owner of the bar but he didn't know the place, until he looked it up on the internet where he saw a picture of the owner. A thai body builder.

He gave me some instructions and I quickly found the place. It's very basic and relatively new and the main theme is mexican food and it had good reviews on Hostelworld.

I dropped my bag and asked where I could do some fun dives and the owner suggested La Bombona, an also new, Spanish lead diving school. It was just at the other end of the small town. Unfortunately I just missed the second dive of the day, so I signed up for the early one in the morning.
It would also be the best dive site in Koh Tao to begin my diving adventure.

Back at the hostel I grabbed my swimming trunks and towel and checked out the beach, just about 50m down the road. Granted, it's not a magnificent beach but it certainly would do to check out the water and chill for a bit.

This little swim reminded my body of the lack of sleep and soon after I was dried off, I want back to the hostel for a well needed nap.

I tried one of the infamous burritos for dinner and then it was time that the Halloween party started at the hostel.

Plans were to have a few drinks at the hostel and then go off to some club, but I really wasn't in the mood for party. A few beers and a chat with they guys at the hostel would do.

Getting out of Bangkok

After yesterday's evening it wasn't as surprise that I stayed in bed a little longer than usually but check out was at 11. I got ready, checked out and had a coffee but the dough balls were already gone. I wasn't in a rush to leave the hostel and did some research on how easy or hard it would be to visit the floating markets. It turned out that these are quite a bit outside of Bangkok and I probably need a day to get there, see them and get back. Since my train was to leave at 19:30 this evening I couldn't do that today.

What else is there to do in Bangkok? I just took it easy and walked around town, mainly Sukhumvit, for a bit to find something nice to eat. Indeed I found small place with loads of different dishes where I could eat for 50 Baht.

Since it was a weekday and about lunchtime the streets were really busy and people were rushing everywhere. Back at the hostel I did some further planning of Visa and train, planes and auto-mobiles to get to the next couple of places.

The other guys from yesterday also started to recover slowly so we hung out on the hostel's porch and I waited for the right time to catch my train.

Around 6 I left for the station, where I got some water, snacks and a SIM, ate some more food.
When entering the area of the stations where the platforms are, I got a feeling of excitement. A ride on an overnight train through the jungle of southern Thailand was just about to begin.

After boarding the train and finding my seat I quickly got to talk to two other backpackers.
We left right on time but after about only 30 minutes into the journey the train stopped already and we waited for more than an hour to get going again.

The train was more luxurious than I expected it to be. The seats, fully folded down to make a flat bed (two opposite facing seats would fold down and make a bed). I had one with a window and after the steward came along and prepared the beds, I closed my curtains and had my own little cave from where I could watch the lights go by.

While sitting there, with not much to do, I reflected on the last couple of weeks, of what I had seen, of what I experienced and who I met. I also thought of home and was wondering what everyone was doing while I was rolling through the dark jungle.

Life is good I was thinking, good decision to do this trip. I also realized I am not just interested in being in cool places, it is also important and exciting to get there in style. I do like epic train journeys, alright.

After some time it was enough reflecting and I needed to do something useful, so I copied some pictures of my phone and camera onto the laptop and some new music onto the phone.

I also caught up a little bit on the blog and listened to some music but I wasn't able to sleep. Was I too excited to sleep or was the day to lame? I wasn't sure.

Finally, just before 3 I must have faded off to sleep.

Bangkok

It was nice to rest in the little capsule but it was even nicer to use the hot shower in the hostel. After that and some fried dough balls and a coffee I left the hostel in order to do some shopping. My desired item was a new camera and while at it maybe a new power bank. From the internet I knew the best place to look for such items in Bangkok was the IT Mall just two Subway stations north of Sukhumvit.

Leaving the hostel I felt a bit sad to have to leave behind the nice Alobar in Kathmandu. The 3Howw Hostel was nice and clean and had great little capsules and showers but somehow until this time the Social aspect was missing. No big roof terrace where everyone met in the morning, people coming to the kitchen, not replying to "hey, how are you" and leaving again. I missed my new friends and the Alobar a bit.

But hey, I'm in Bangkok now. It's a big, proper city with loads of high rise buildings with big neon signs and many, many cars and even more mopeds.

So I took the subway and went to the IT Mall, which turned out to open only at 11, so I had another hour to walk around. One thing I should work on is to remember what means thank you in Thai. It took me a couple of days to get this into my head in Nepalese and now it's the same story again in Thai. "Kab buhn Kah" or something.

Once most of the shops were opening and I found the Camera floor I started looking for the exact model I wanted to get. The Panasonic Lumix TZ40, to replace my TZ10 with dirt in the lens. It was hard enough to find a shop (of the more than 20) that actually sold Lumix, but even then none of them were selling the model I was looking for. I found however a shop that sold the TZ60 - top of the line model. Hmmm, should I keep looking, should I ask Basti bring over the Camera I order to his house to Vietnam in 5 weeks, OR should I get the bigger model. I did some research from the coffee place with internet from earlier and decided to go for it. The camera should not be costing more than 14000 Baht.

The price offer started at 12500 Baht and I hoped to haggle him down, but there was no movement at all and it was the only vendor with that cam on offer. Well I went for it and so far (3 days later I don't regret doing so). Also found a power bank on offer and was happy to have spent all that money on electronics.

Next stop was Bangkok main Station as this was close to the main sights of the golden Buddha, Wat Poh, and the royal Palace. While there I purchased my train, bus, ferry combi ticket to Koh Tao for the next evening.

I was getting hungry again and on the way to the golden Buddha found a great little place that was very proud of it's ducks. And right so.

Ideally the power bank was pre-charged and my new camera was able to be charged through USB, so I could even use the time waiting for and consuming the food to charge my new camera.
Then I could use it at the temple of the Golden Buddha, just around the corner from the Duck place to try it out. It was great to try out some of the cool new features. I hope you will also see some improvement in the pictures, there should be some more artistic photos and some better night shots coming soon.

The Golden Buddha has a interesting story behind it but I can't be bothered to write this all down here in the blog, so please ask me next time you see me and I'll tell you the story. :-)
From there my path led me through Chinatown, which didn't have many Chinese shops but narrow little alley ways. Here it started raining, I mean pouring down. Luckily the little alleys and tent-like covers between the buildings on either side offered some protection but it was certainly a good idea to pack away my new acquisition.

I found shelter in a little Mall and had a beer, as the only other option would have been Starbucks.
After the rain stopped (about an hour later) I walked on through a little park to Wat Poh, another palace with loads of Buddhas, including the largest reclining Buddha in the world.

The temple area was really amazing and it was just around the time for sunset so I got some nice pictures out of it. After that I had to check out the infamous Khoa San Road. Not my cup of tea really but it was worth a walk through, maybe I'll come back at night again.

From here I went towards the next train station "National Stadium" to go home and on the way got the victim of an attempted tuk-tuk scam.

A seemingly random local guy tried to give me some advice about cool places to go around the area and told me just to take a tuk-tuk with a yellow license plate. After this friendly guy left a tuk-tuk driver with a yellow license-plated tuk-tuk showed up who suggested to do just this tour. What a coincidence. When I walked on, the area where I was headed for suddenly turned into a zone full of rioting protesters and so on.

Well, I made it out of there, but it's sad, that because of these kind of scams I don't trust so many local people, while I'm sure there are a few nice ones between them that really only want to have a chat with a foreigner.

When I finally got home after a long day out, I met John and Kevin (a new guy) sitting in front of the hostel having a beer. Somehow my plans for the evening changed and I joined them for a quick trip around town. Yvonne from the States also joined us, so we had a girl in the group which would prevent at least some of the dodgy attempts to get us into the strip bars.

Filled with confidence of this thought we headed to Soi Cowboy, the local red-light district and walked down to check out the different places. Pretty attractive girls with very short skirts or pants were lined up along the front of the bars but when we went inside one of them, the girls dancing there were not attractive at all. Their sad, depressed faces certainly not adding to the whole atmosphere.

At least they had cheap beer and a quite good cover band that mainly enjoyed playing Dire Straights.

After the beer we went to the next bar, which was more of a Bar-Bar with no dancing poles. However, the majority of the guests were elder guys with one or two young girls. We had a couple of drinks there and then headed to some sort of club called "glow" on suggestion of Yvonne.

It was pretty small and the music and prices were "clubbish" so I was kinda glad when we got out of there and had a beer with some locals who were still sitting in food joint on the way home (it was about 3 now). It was impossible to fight the guys for the bill, they wouldn't let us pay their or even our beers.

After this long day/night I had no significant problem falling asleep as you can imagine.