We’ve finally found a space and time to update our blog! We are in Bangkok, in the infamous khao san road backpacker paradise, and it is monsooning outside, so we’re taking refuge in here… To fill you in on the last 10 days…wow!
We headed back to Phuket town by local bus (which looks like the ‘dala dala’ in Tanzania) and walked to the bus station to buy tickets to Surat Thani, where we would catch a boat to the island of Ko Phag Nan. And for the next 48 hours we got to experience what it is to be a tourist in Thailand, and be at the mercies of people who know a whole lot more than you, especially about making money… We wanted the cheaper ordinary bus, but got told there were none, so we bought the aircon bus ticket, only to see a few minutes later that we had been lied to! When we arrived in Surat Thani at 6pm we were called off the bus, with the only other two ‘farangs’ (white people) and lead to a ‘tourist information office’ which we later realised was just one of many tour middle man companies trying to sell you tickets to the island. We had planned to catch the 11pm ferry that night (again to save money) but were told the ferry was not going that night due to bad weather (it was raining so we were not sure whether this was a lie too), and that we must stay the night in a hotel the tourist lady could recommend and buy a combined bus/ boat ticket on the express boat the next day. After our previous experience we were reluctant, and decided to investigate a little further. We ended up finding the same hotel the lady had recommended, at almost half the price! But when we opened our bags we realised that Steven had had his only pair of long pants, as well as his flip flops stolen out his bag! We think it must have happened while our bags were in the luggage hold of the bus So we were pretty bummed about that.