Chumphon Gardens Hotel

... the Kramer effect; fifty percent instinct and fifty percent dumb luck allows us to fall ass backwards into some groovy situations. I’d also add to that, an extra seventy-five percent factor that we’ve got both of our mom’s looking out for us from beyond.

Like every new world of discovery, there are characters in place to make you feel not so far away from home and others that make you feel like you’ve landed somewhere in a realm of time ...

Made it out to Koh Tao last weekend. Traveling on such a tight budget enables me to have some "different" experiences. The night boat out to Koh Tao is about $5-$10 cheaper so around 11pm we boarded the rickety, full boat. Because this is the cheapest option the majority of the travelers were locals or fellow back-packers. The room made available to use was filled with over 50 bunk beds and while the setting may have been a ...

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It was 650km, 9 hours. I made numerous stopovers. Contrary to the forecast, weather was perfect.

Chumphon is a convenient town for long distance drivers to take an overnight break. Others came here for the beaches, or to take a ferry to Koh Tao- well known as the best diving site in the Gulf of Thailand, or to Koh Phangan -famous for it's full moon party , or to Koh Samui-the largest and the most developed ...

... arrive

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Making our way to the islands South of Thailand
Objectif : Ko Phayam, on the recommendations of Kel & Stu !

Arrived around 12am after 30 hours of transport, from Cambodia, in 11 differents vehicules (from Bus to boat or motorbikes)
And after staying for 2 and a half hour in the middle of nowhere at 3 in the morning in the dark !

Hey all,
We finally arrived in Chumphon! Riley and I had a 20 hour journey across the Pacific to Bangkok. WE were greeted at the airport by Tong (our coordinator) and taken to the guest house where we to to stay for the night. After a fast journey to the 7 eleven and a quick nap we ventured out to meet up with a few other volunteers for our welcome dinner. Steven and Sara are about our age and are currently placed near Rayon and Ross ...

... goes off to school.

4:15 pm – excited teacher Charlie and I seek Suda, the name that I was given. We tell Suda what we’re looking for and she makes a call.

4:20 pm – a truck pulls up outside Suda’s house and short, round lady gets out for a brief introduction and understanding of what’s going on. We leave our luggage at Suda’s ...

We set off from Kanchanaburi after a lovely and interesting stay. Our bus was full of locals heading to Bangkok but we were making good time until the police had set-up a road block and got everyone to leave the motorway. We sat there for half an hour when a convoy of police cars and a few merc's with Thai flags on the front went passed, so I reckon Thai royalty surely they wouldn't do that every time the PM wants to nip to Tesco. Anyway ...

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Arriving in Ranong we head for a Fish Pond located at the site of a temple and to find a 'loo'.......a Monk endeavours to find a cleaner 'site' than what is on offer to the general public (didn't really succeed).........it was up a lot of steps......on the way down i got there a little quicker than anticipated......slipped........and.... ...yep........landed on my ar???.........backside!!.........very painfull!!........Tong.....(Pitchy's mom).......to the ...

Dan, who I am travelling with, wrote the following: After waiting for our half of the train to arrive (the other half of the train was already on the platform, ours decided not to turn up till later), we climbed onto this already full third class carriage and sat down in the wrong seats until an old man and woman came along and said a bunch of stuff to us in Thai which was probably "get out of our ****ing seats". So we did and ...

After breakfast in the hotel we packed and took our bags down then hit the beach for a while, its a Monday oh yeah and the year is 2552 so I'm almost 600 years old, I feel ok but look a bit rough for my age I think!! We all pile into a tuk tuk to the station to discover the train is an hour late but the time flys by and soon we are ...