We left the hotel around 12.30, a little later than we expected to. We had spent time that morning deciding that we were not going to fly to Koh Samui the next day as we had previously thought, but we going to get the overnight sleeper train and subsequent ferry, that evening. There was a train leaving at 7.30pm that would get us to Koh Samui by mid morning.

The plan: go to station
buy tickets
head to grand palace and reclining buddha
go and get fitted for our suits
go to station
set off for Koh Samui.

It all seemed like a reasonable plan. According to the timetable there was a train that left at 19.30 which gave us 7 hours to get everything done.

By the time we got to the train station and found out that there were no seats on that train available and we had to leave at the earlier time of 5pm it was nearing 3pm giving us only 3 hours…not a problem for team formidabilis…or so we thought.

We negotiated to take a tuk tuk to the grand palace. The fumes!THE FUMES! Not the healthiest way to travel. It was during this trip that we avoided death for the first time today.

Upon arrival at the palace we realised that we didn’t have time to look all the way round so after a few pictures we made our way to the reclining Buddha. This was amazing.

It was the plan to get a tuk tuk to the tailors. By now time was very tight, we had to be out of the tailors by 4 to get the the train in time and it was already 2.20. Tuk tuk would be too slow, the only way was a water taxi. After some tooing and froing (due to my indecisiveness) we eventually had to charter a water taxi to take us to the train then from the train we had to run to the tailors

When we eventually got from the water taxi to the train, cheged lines along the way and then reached our station we still had to a 10 minute run to the tailors. Flip flops off, running like crazy people through the streets of Bangkok, we made it at 3.55.

As we walked in the door, Rajan, our tailor, put 2 cold beers in our hands gave us a couple of minutes to stop sweating then it was on with the fitting.

fitting complete, we knew we did not have long to get to the station. It was 4.30 by the time we managed to secure a method of transport, the only thing that would get us there on time….scooters. Or rather, the back of a scooter, something I had sworn I would never do!

My guy didn’t seem to know where on Earth he was going, so, after we lost Ed’s bike at some traffic lights we then had to stop 4 times to ask directions to Bangkok’s main train station!
I am wary of describing the actual journey in case my mum reads this but needless to say, it was ‘exciting’ to say the least, however, we both made it in one piece, and with 15 minutes to spare.

A quick stop in the shop to get some supplies for the journey and we were ready to board the train……