Nora Lakeview Hotel Surat Thani

... br><br>Not a lot to do when we got to Surat Thani, had some very good Chicken Fried Rice and a couple of beers, checked our emails an chatted to a couple of lads from Germany and then boarded the overnight sleeper train to Bangkok.<br><br>This time we had booked second class sleepers which are contained within the main body of the carraige, but you have quite a large ...

... was about 8:30pm and after a long hard day driving and with our nerves on edge from the dark forest drive a beer or 2 was a must before bed!! One of the young boys took us to our treehouse, where he had to get rid of a rather large frog that had made itself at home in the corner of the room! So under the mosquito nets we clambered and went to sleep with the sound of frogs and many other animals outside... Day 4: The next morning, we were up early - we had ...

... gibbons (swinging through trees and too fast to photograph) and a hornbill in the tree. The lake looked really stunning too with the sun low in the sky and mist on the lake and hills. We returned for breakfast but my ordering of soft-boiled eggs turned out to be ...

... You're definitely a tourist here. Our accomodation is cheap and uninspiring but the surroundings are what keeps us here. Laem Son is a quiet place and lays on its own virtually private white sand palm-treed beach called Aow Srithanu. It has to be one of the best beaches because we get day trippers coming here on boats from other parts of the island. Before they are told "Get on the boat" in the manner of a Stormtrooper. Its quite ...

... from Bangkok. She wanted me to go to a nearby hotel room across the road but I politely thanked her . She was hugely disappointed and asked me if I was carrying some money. I told her that I did not. I came back and narrated the incident to my wife who laughed at this early morning encounter.Later in the day we visited, Noppharathara Beach was was about 2 km away. This is a long expanse of sand, strewn with shells along the coast.There are a number of islands ...

I guess it is low season for a reason in Thailand. After a week of sunny skies, the rain came pouring down during my trip from Samui to Bangkok. This would not have been a big deal if the ride was smooth, but it was not, and I both my belongings and myself ended up soaking wet. The trip north was probably the least pleasant of any of my journey thus far. I had been warned about overnight buses, where rerouting, layovers, lost luggage, and theft ...

... So we agreed and left expecting to get into a speedboat.....wrong, it was a longtail fishing boat, slightly larger than a rowing boat with a poxy little engine that got us to about 10mph! So amid crashing waves, the salt water stinging our sunburnt skin, we set off for ther journey across the choppy ocean to Samui which had taken just 20 minutes on the way over. An hour and a forty five minutes later, bedraggled and drenched from head to toe in fishy seawater and ...

... waistbands on the natives. The guide's vividly bring to mind a slightly more gracious version of Hawaii locals and we couldn't help but assume the bigger hotels and golf courses would be on the way. This theory was strongly reinforced when we were taken past a spot where, across the river, we saw the land being cleared for exactly that purpose. The pattern for tourist treatment should surely follow ...

... Kian outside. He seemed to want to chat so we sat down on the veranda. I was exhausted, adn although he was really sweet just wanted to go to bed, but my increasingly obvious hints of yawning, and "im really tired, think its time for me to go to sleep" didnt seem to have much effect! So we chatted for about 2 hours, and he told me lots of things about the jungle, and thailand, adn showed me some cool photos of monkeys. Anyway, by 11pm I decided that it really was bedtime, so stood up adn ...

Decided to move on - not really sorry to leave Samui. I'm sure if you get off the beaten track it is nice, but for the most part it's a tacky tourist island. We checked out - to much tutting by lady-man - and waited at the roadside for a songthaew. Our arrival at Nathon pier was just in time to catch the express boat to Surat. The entire deck was covered in ...