Koh Tao day 8

An early wake up call, gets us out of bed at 4.30am to say our farewells to Matt and Dan whose flight leaves at 6pm. It’s been a brief interlude but so good to see them both even for a short while. We return to bed to snatch a few more hours sleep before facing our own 24-hour journey to get to Butterworth in Malaysia – the first leg on the way to Singapore. We catch the 1.30pm ferry expecting to travel as foot passengers and for a bus to be waiting at Donsak port on the mainland or the transfer to Surat Thani station to catch our train. But the arrangements for returning are rather different from the outbound journey. We arrive at the pier to discover that we are travelling by coach from Koh Tao and we must join said coach before boarding the ferry. The coach for some unfathomable reason is parked at another pier about 300 metres away from where the ferry sails and we have to haul our luggage in the midday sun to pick up our tickets and board the coach. We are then driven the 300 metres back to our starting point so that we can get off the coach and walk onto the ferry! No doubt there is a logic to this palaver, but it alludes us.

After a one-and-half hour ferry journey and a further two hours on the coach we arrive at Surat Thani railway station around 5pm. Our train departs at 00.45 so we have 7+ hours to kill. We deposit our lugage in the 24-hour left luggage store in the station and take a look around the surrounding streets in the hope of finding something to eat and an internet cafe or bar where Andy can watch today’s football match. The information clerk in the station is very helpful and after explaining that the train will arrive at 00:40 and we will have five minutes to board. He sends us in the direction of a local street market for food But it soon becomes apparent that there is not enough here to keep us occupied until our train departs.

The train station is in a suburb of Surrat Thani untouched by tourism. The only foreigners are those passing through on their way to Bangkok or points south. There are plenty of the simple pavement cafes where food is cooked on the street and customers sit at cheap plastic-covered tables. The market is a few streets from the station and food stalls line one side of several streets whilst on the other an assortment of shoes, clothes, bags and household items are on display. My bag is falling apart – the strap is abut to part company from the main bag, so I pick up a cheap replacement for £3. We have an average meal in a street cafe and by 8pm we are back at the station having exhausted what little there is to do here.

The station is full of a mix of locals and foreigners waiting for trains which run through the night. The only available seating is hard slatted wooden benches and we settle down and prepare for a long and rather uncomfortable 5+ hour wait. We spend part of the time chatting to a young American woman from Colorado who is travelling for two months and is on her way to Chiang Mai. Just as we are beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel, a 100-minute delay is announced – our train won’t be leaving until 02:20. Our hearts sink and tiredness is getting the better of us. I manage to catnap for a while but it is a welcome relief when the train finally pulls in and we can drop into our bunks and sink into a comfortable sleep.