To Surat Thani

Wednesday 25th May 2016 – We awoke and brunched at a new place right on the beachfront. It had a cool, hippy vibe with relaxing seating and a resident puppy and ginger and white cat…two of my favourite things! We played cards and connect 4, chilled on the beach for a while and returned to our new favourite place that same evening…enjoying good food and drink with a puppy and a cat for extra companionship…my kind of place!

Thursday 26th May 2016 – Up at 8.00am we needed to get organised and packed to leave the island. Our Thai Island adventure hadn’t really turned out how we had expected. We had had a good rest, however the weather had been predominantly rainy and stormy and prices for eating out and drinking were double and sometimes triple compared to that of the mainland…I certainly wouldn’t miss the island when we left. We caught the ferry to the mainland at around lunchtime and arrived at the town of Surat Thani via ferry then bus at 4.30pm. Wandering along the Main Street we booked into Rheinchai Place Hotel. It was wonderful…one of the best hotels we have stayed in on our travels so far. Great location, clean with a telly, coffee shop downstairs and friendly staff. I felt completely at home and very happy. That night we found a fab local restaurant. Aaron had Tom Yum soup, it was delicious and I had fried local fish and washed it all down with Hong Thong…the local tipple…happy days!

Friday 27th May 2016 – Today we needed to print our documents for our visit to Myanmar (formally known as Burma). We found a local Internet cafe and luckily were able to print our visas, hotel reservations and boarding cards for our upcoming flight on the 1st June. I was really pleased…it’s so hard to get documents printed when you’re travelling so you have to take the opportunity when it arises. To celebrate we treated ourselves to a few episodes of ‘Banged up Abroad’ by streaming to our iPad. Later we checked out ‘Capsule Hotel’ opposite us. It was just like the hotels you get in Japan, literally just a capsule and a bed that fits exactly into the limited space with just a few small shelves for belongings. My idea of hell and Aaron’s idea of heaven…I think he thought it was like being in a space capsule floating out into the unknown far away flung galaxies of the universe! Aaron’s always wanted to sleep in a capsule so we agreed to stay an extra night in the town so he could fulfill a capsule dream! I would stay in our beautiful hotel, there was no way I was going to spend a night in a claustrophobic capsule!

Saturday 28th May 2016 – Up at 9.00am we had things to organise today. First we booked Aaron in for the night at ‘Capsule Hotel’ for a mere £3. After coffee and fruit we caught a tuk tuk to the train station on the edge of town and booked tickets for the next day to Ban Krut which is about half way along the coast to Bangkok. Hopping on the local bus we paid 40p each to be dropped literally right outside our hotel…I do like value for money…the equivalent journey in a tuk tuk would have been £1.50 each! We lunched at a local hotel on spinach and cheese pizza and green mango juice…it was delicious…and in the evening Aaron had planned a Saturday night in the heart of town at the trendiest bar come restaurant, ‘ Mouth to Mouth’. What a great evening…I enjoyed Kamikaze cocktails and the group of 10 guys next to us insisted on having their photos taken with Aaron, saying that he looked like Paul Walker…the ‘Fast and Furious’ actor and wishing that they looked the same! Hilarious…Aaron said he felt like a real film star the way they were giving him so much attention! We had enjoyed the town of Surat Thani much more surprisingly than the island and I would miss it a little when we left the next day.