Everyday I'm Travelling

The next three days of our trip involved travelling over 900 miles (around 1,500km) from Ko Lanta to Chiang Mai. This was a five stage process involving two minibuses, a car ferry, a bus (coach) and two trains, one of which was an overnight sleeper.

Like all the other tourists leaving Ko Lanta, we could have flown from Krabi airport and been in Chiang Mai within two hours, but where’s the fun in that?!

Our first leg was from Ko Lanta to Krabi on the mainland. We left our hostel at 8:40am and arrived two hours later in Krabi thanks to some rather nerve-wracking and erratic driving by our driver. We had originally planned to wait in Krabi for the direct bus to Chumphon which left at 4pm, but rather than sit in a small bus station for six hours, we jumped on a local bus (coach) that was leaving at 11am bound for Surat Thani.

Despite taking four hours, this was definitely a “local” bus, with a couple of teenagers being employed to deliver the post at various stops on the way! But the coach was comfortable and we got to see the Thai countryside, which mainly consists of huge palm tree plantations.

When we arrived in Surat Thani, around 2:30pm, we were dropped at a small bus station, not the main bus terminal which was the other side of the town, as was the train station. We were told by the local people at the station that the best option was to get another minibus to take us directly to Chumphon, where we’d booked accommodation for the night, rather than try and get across town.

Again, this minibus was very much a local affair, with no tourists in sight. After spending the first hour of our journey picking people up, stopping to pick up two massive tyres and then spending 20 minutes at a service station for a “rest stop” (we hadn’t really gone anywhere yet!), we hit the main motorway up to Chumphon. We arrived at 7:30pm thanks in no small part to some more questionable driving by our driver who decided to bypass a rather long traffic jam and some roadworks by simply driving up the hard shoulder while everyone else queued! This was still two hours earlier than if we’d got the direct bus so was probably the right decision. The whole journey cost us about £20 each, which for 11 hours of travel doesn’t seem too bad!

We struggled to find our hostel in the dark so stopped to ask some local people, who instead of telling us, decided it was easier for me to jump on their scooter, leaving James at the side of the road with the bags, and show me! Luckily it was only a couple of minutes back the way we’d come, but it was a bit odd being led away on my own!

Our hostel room was essentially a single roomed building with a round bed and a curtain separating the bedroom and the bathroom. That said, the family who ran it though were nice and the air con worked pretty well! After checking out a local street market and grabbing some dinner, we headed to bed.

The next morning, we went to the tourist office to collect our train tickets and buy a local SIM. We had eight hours to kill after checking out of the hostel so went for a quick walk around town in search of somewhere to shelter from the heat of the day. We had hoped to hang out at the shopping mall but it turned out to be simply a small department store, so we found a dim sum restaurant for lunch and did some research using our new SIM.

Chumphon is very much a passing through town, with little in the way of tourist entertainment, unless you have time to head to the coast, which we did not. Instead, we decided to check out the local museum, which was small but interesting and explained the history of the Chumphon region. It also had an interactive typhoon exhibit, which considering storm Pabuk had passed through only a week before, was rather topical.

Being a Saturday and somewhat out of town, it was difficult to get a taxi back (travelling round Thailand without a scooter is pretty tricky) so we ended up walking a couple of miles back into town. This was useful as there were a couple of signs advertising a bar near the station, so we headed there for a drink and a couple of games of pool.

We then had some dinner in a lovely bar near our hostel, which played cheesy 80s hits and was showing the West Ham vs Arsenal match so I was in my element! After collecting our luggage from the hostel, we went to the train station to catch our overnight train. This was due to leave at 8:30pm, but was running late (as it appears all long distance trains in Thailand are!) so it wasn’t until 9:15 that we actually departed. Just in time for an episode of Ski Sunday before bed.

The overnight train was an experience. The air con was on full blast which was nice, but the train was loud, bumpy and they left the lights on all night so I ended up sleeping in my sunglasses! Also the beds were a bit short for James!

That said, the other passengers were very quiet. After about seven hours of rather broken sleep, we got woken up at 5am to let us know we were on our approach to Bangkok (although we didn’t actually arrive until about 6:30 so could definitely have slept more!)

We had two hours to kill at Bangkok station before the final leg of our journey so grabbed some breakfast and sat in the main waiting area. At 8am, a whistle blew and everyone around us stood up. Some music was played (possibly the national anthem, we think it might have been some sort of worship to the King?) and then the whistle blew again and everyone sat down again as though nothing had happened!

Finally at 9am (our train was scheduled to leave at 8:30), we boarded the final leg of our journey, a train to Chiang Mai. This was a pretty old school train, which was to be our home for the next 11 hours.

We’d stocked up on food for the journey, but we also received three snacks / meals on board so didn’t end up eating everything we brought with us. The train was also nicely air-conditioned, giving us a welcome day off from the heat. It was really interesting watching the scenery change from the suburbs of Bangkok, to rice paddies in the flat lands of Central Thailand, up to watching the sunset over the hilly karst national parks outside of Chiang Mai. Unfortunately the windows were a bit greasy so the photos don’t really do the scenery justice.

We entertained ourselves by playing card games, watching TV shows (when we could hear them over the train’s horn blasting constantly!) and blogging.

So was it worth it? I’d say yes, but that was only because we had the time to do it. If we’d only been here a short time, flying would probably have been the more practical option, but what’s travelling about if not the journey, eh?