Travelling From Bangkok To Koh Samui

The train

The island of Koh Samui was our next stop, and getting there involved nothing less than taking a train to Surat Thani, then a bus to the pier, and finally a ferry to the island.

I had heard that taking the train at daytime from Bangkok to Surat Thani was worth it for the amazing scenery. So when Pete and I went to book our journey tickets to Koh Samui, that is what I had in mind - a fun tour of the beautiful Thai countryside. Unfortunately once again things didn't quite go to plan, as all the day trains had been sold out for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, the night trains were also full for the next day which is when we were planning to leave! With this new information in mind we had no choice but to postpone our journey to the day after. We were just happy we managed to get the tickets, there were only four beds left!

Getting comfortable

Getting to the train station was another one of those sweaty palms moments as we had definitely not factored in the rush hour traffic. I'm just really bad at dealing with situations like this; poor Pete had to sit next to me listening to my complaining and whining about how we should have left earlier instead of chilling at the restaurant drinking beer whilst twisting in my seat wiping my sweaty palms on my shorts. I hate not knowing where I am and being in a situation where I have no control. It didn't even help having a map in my hands, since all the street names were written in Thai. I couldn't even figure out which part of the city we were in; it drove me crazy! At some point when we had been standing still for several minutes I asked the cab driver how long we had left and he just showed me two fingers. Did that mean two minutes? Twenty minutes? Two hours? Fuck off?

Dinner time

Of course we got to the train station on time. In fact, we got there 30 minutes before our scheduled departure....

The train was very comfortable and FUN!! The seats were so wide you could easily sit on them sideways with your feet folded up like in a big armchair. We ordered some beers and dinner and enjoyed some quality card playing before the seats were turned into beds. We both had upper berths which, I'm not going to lie, scared me a bit. The beds aren't exactly wide and I'm a restless sleeper. I clung to the wall for my life for the entire night.

Mr. Jenkins and me ready for bed

Luckily the night passed without any major incidents and we arrived in Surat Thani early the next morning. It's a little confusing, knowing when to get off the train, as the stations are not announced very well - earlier a couple missed their stop because the guard was sleeping and forgot to let them out so knowing this didn't exactly help my worrying. I felt I had to stay double alert.

It was all fine of course (so far it always has been no matter what little hiccups have occurred along the way) (I jinxed it, didn't I?), most people got off at Surat Thani because it is the main transfer point to Koh Samui as well as Koh Phangan.

The rest of the journey went very much the way the journey had gone so far, smooth and effortless. It helped having our tickets sorted for the part after the train too, the 1.5 hour bus ride and 2 hour ferry to Koh Samui. Managed to tan the outline of my flip-flop on the top of my foot. I think that was the most distressing detail of this bit of the travel. Very fittingly, the place we stayed at in Koh Samui was called Hakuna Matata.

Problem free philosopheee, just the way I like it!

Ferry to Koh Samui