Cooking With Poo

What the heck - I couldn't think of a catchy title for our epic travel day (and night) from Bangkok to the southern islands, so I threw in my pic of the bestseller wall at the big Asia Books store. Now I finally know what gives Thai food that unique ....nah, let's not go there.

So long-term budget travel means you may end up enduring a long journey like the one we had today - 650km using many different modes of transportation. It started innocently enough with a taxi ride...

...to Hua Lomphong train station where we waited for the E85 19:30 train down south (I think this train will eventually get you all the way to Singapore, but we're only going as far as Surat Thani).

With all the protests and unrest going on in Bangkok (another 5 dead yesterday), traffic jams in and around Bangkok have been pretty nasty - so we gave ourselves about 2 extra hours grace time to get to the train station. We ended up hitting virtually no traffic problems so we arrived way to early - so out comes the book (what a good mama !).

We were lucky enough to find seats during our long wait, but many fellow travelers were sitting on the floor. But oh no, not the monks. Again, they get front row reserved seating. I swear I saw them getting foot massages and manicures too - I gotta get me an orange robe.

We booked our train journey about 6 weeks ahead, so we were lucky to get sleeper berths (2nd class, A/C). In our opinion, these are 'must haves' for overnight train rides with kids. It's much better to arrive fully rested at your morning destination - and it's kind of fun. 

(I swear Owen purposely blinks on the count of 3 - he seems to have his eyes closed in most pictures)

I was wise enough to run out and grab a few big Changs before the train departed - nothing like a couple of cold beers to help settle in for the long ride.

Satisfaction turned to frustration when I found out that buying any more would mean paying the grossly inflated mark-up of about 250% to the several on-board drink vendors. It felt like the 2014 remake of the Great Train Robbery.

But what the hell - we're on vacation!! All smiles again. And it turned our we weren't the only ones suffering. We listened to a very humorous attempt by a German (with absolutely no leverage) to bargain down the price of a bottle of beer.

"sir, it is 180 baht"
"I'll give you 100 baht, that is much more than it costs in the stores"
"sir, it is 180 baht"
"ok - I'll buy two for 250 baht, but that's my final offer"
"sir, it is 180 baht"
"ok - how about 150 baht, but that is my final offer"
"sir, it is 180 baht"

He gave up (ran out of 'final offers', I guess). I'm not sure why, but I was feeling a bit of schadenfreude as this man (a German with beer flowing through his veins, no less) clearly could not bring himself to fork over the asking price. Sometimes you just gotta pay the piper, I thought, as I sipped my cold can of beer.

At about 10 pm, the attendant comes through the train car and with Thai efficiency (usually an oxymoron) converts all of the seats into bunks.

And it's time for bed. 

And, miraculously, both kids managed to sleep until we arrived in Surat Thani just before 9 am. I, on the other hand, did not fare as well and had a fitful few hours of half-sleep.

But the voyage is not over yet - we alighted the train and were promptly directed to a bus, which would take us on the next 90 minute segment of our long journey - to the ferry pier on the east coast of Thailand's Isthmus of Kra (look it up, it's your geography homework for the day)

But of course there was one more opportunity to cram us into yet another vehicle - can't even describe this one, but essentially it was a shuttle bus/cart designed to deliver us from the ferry company's arrival station to the actual pier itself.

And finally we're on board the boat - tantalizingly close to palm-fringed islands and crystal clear waters.....

....providing this 40 year old used Chinese ferry (with a lot of rust) can get us there without sinking. 

I get the feeling that these are the kinds of boats which you read about too often in places like the Philippines and Indonesia. Well, a few rubs of the St. Christopher medal around my neck should get us there. 

This is beginning to look promising....

Oooh....boat envy!!

And not a moment too soon!! Our kids were beginning to get a little batty - there's some pent up swimming frustration that's about to explode with these two. Neither kid has eaten a real meal in about 16 hours, but both of them are begging to skip lunch so they can go straight to the beach. But no, mean daddy will make them eat. 

A bit of a screw up by our hotel meant that our pick up at the pier never panned out, and while I was pretty upset (very rare, but it does happen after 18 hours on the road), all was forgotten when we looked out of our room window to see this view.

And someone else was pretty happy, too!! He just ate his lunch so I was going to tell him he wasn't allowed to swim on a full stomach and needed to wait one more hour, but even my sense of humour doesn't go that far. 

He kept mumbling something to himself about "paradise" and "best place ever", so I think both kids will be happy here for the next ten days. 

It almost makes you forget about the 18 hours it took to get here.