Day 6

Travel day. Upto now, we've basically just had a weeks holiday in Bangkok. We've not done any 'travelling' other than the initial flight out here, and we've not had to re-pack our lives up into a few bags, but today was that day. We had to check out of the hotel by 1pm, but our 14 hour journey from Bangkok to Koh Tao didn't start until 7.30pm, so we had a fair bit of time to kill. The hotel in Bangkok were kind enough to let us leave our bags with them for the day so we could have a wander without the burden, and whilst we're on the subject – The Mermaid Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 29 is an excellent hotel, and our stay there was perfect – I would highly recommend them to anybody visiting Bangkok. Before we continue I just want to note that Josephine wrote yesterdays blog, but she's had a huge input throughout – and will continue to write chapters, along with helping to edit mine.

Now as you all know, I'm not one for moaning. However, after my first experience of travel day, I think it might become my moaning day. The day started well, as we packed everything up in the room, got clean and ate breakfast before going out to visit a Tesco Lotus 'hypermarket'. Pretty impressive variation on the Tesco we're more familiar with, and it was absolutely huge. We took the BTS sky train one final time back from Tesco to Nana Plaza, the scene of the ladyboy escapades from last night, and had a quick look around the bars on Soi 11 before bidding farewell to Bangkok. At this point, Josephine dropped a coin on the floor before stomping on it to stop it in it's tracks. A huge no-no in Thailand. They love their king, and I mean LOVE their king, so standing on anything that has his face on it is a huge sign of disrespect over here. Luckily nobody saw and we survived.

Then it hit me. Waking up at 6.30am, and walking around all day in extreme heat had tired me out a bit. But I had a 10 hour night coach to catch, so I'd be able to sleep through that, right? Well, yes actually. I'd moaned all afternoon about how I was dreading this coach trip, but when we got there, we managed to bag the front seats on the top deck, and had about 2 metres of leg room so I fully stretched out and slept for a solid 5-6 hours. The coach was excellent. Comfy seats, air conditioning and very modern. Not the rickety old bus I was half expecting. We arrived at Chumporn at 5am, and our high speed catamaran to Koh Tao was due to depart at 7.30am. It was fine tho, we just sat around and enjoyed the experience of it all. Basking in how successful the coach trip was, and how travel day was actually not that bad!

The catamaran was a different story altogether though. As we boarded and prepared to set off, the weather wasn't excellent, and the water a touch choppy. No biggie though. Not for Captain Kelly. I was wrong, and the waves were horrendous. There were about 100 people on that catamaran, and one by one you could see them dropping like flies, head first into a little black plastic sick bag. I lasted until about 30 minutes in, when the sounds of those around me heaving finally tipped me over the edge. Josephine stuck it out longer though, and only caved with about 40 minutes left of the 2 hour journey. So I spent an hour and a half of my first nautical experience in Thailand, with my head buried in a little sick bag, like a shire horse at lunch time. Worst. Captain. Ever. We arrived safely though, and we'll let you know exactly how Koh Tao is over the next couple of days, before we get the next boat on to Koh Samui. Gulp.