Koh Lanta and Bangkok

On the morning we were due to leave for Koh Lanta, this time Jake was ill. We decided that we would get the ferry over anyway, which took approx 3 hrs, and left Phi Phi after three days. Koh Lanta is much much bigger than Phi Phi and because it is a very Southern island it has a heavy muslim influence. It is not as pretty as some of the others but it has lots of sandy beaches and the weather was great whilst we were there. We treated is at a mini holiday because knew the  next few weeks we would be doing lots of travelling in a short space of time. When we first arrived we were taken to the resort we had chosen to a Bamboo Hut, we could see straight through the walls so we decided to move to another hut which was much nicer, for hardly any more money we even had a TV. There was an amazing pool where we were staying which looked out over the sea, which had beautiful sunsets at night. We also met lots of people and spent alot of time with them. The first couple of nights were spent with Tom and Megan, during which we had our first Thai massage. They are really quite painful and even though Jake told his elderly woman to go softly he still ended up limping away! The same night we went to the market down by the Pier and had dinner in a restaurant where we picked our own fish and had it BBQ'd. When they left we moved into the beach hut they had been staying in which was even better and had it's own private pool, although we were paying less. After five days of relaxing we booked a night train to head up to Bangkok. We took a three hour bus to get to Trang. Whilst we waiting for the train we decided to explore around the town, we were the only Western people so everyone was staring and waving at us, which was felt really strange. At the market we bought a whole pineapple which they sliced infront of us to eat on the train. We also went to the local supermarket to try and buy some snacks, we got excited when we saw they had chocolate but it tasted disgusting so we ended handing it out to Thai children - which they loved!

The train up to Bangkok took 15 hours. We both had a top bunk but the air con made it freezing. We arrived in Bangkok at 6am in the morning and booked a room for one night. It was really strange coming back to Bangkok after being down the islands for three weeks. We decided to wanted to try and get to Cambodia as soon as possible and spent the day trying to organise how to get there. All of the travel agencies were extremely expensive and we had read that the ones in Khao San Rd often involved scams, eg) stopping at places to make you spend money. We were also very cautious because there are hundred of visa scams on the border which coaches are involved in. This involves making you pay double the price for you visa and unoffical check points. In the end we went to the Bangkok bus depot ourselves and booked the bus for a quarter of the price. Then we arranged a Tuk Tuk to take us to the Grand Palace which we hadn't managed to see last time.