more beach sitting and the journey from hell

So i didn't quite make it to the internet cafe in Ko Lanta mainly due to being lazy, we hiked to a waterfall,let off double happys (fire crackers for those that don't remember them), hired a car for the day, hung out at the 7 eleven (only place around with decent air-con) and spent an indecent amount of time hanging out in the pool.  Ko Lanta is just this really chilled out place it is not yet high season so we got really cheap rooms (about $8 nz per night) in a lovely hotel with a pool etc.  I spent a couple of days with 6 mates i met traveling hanging out by the pool playing with frisbees and volleyballs etc.  The bars were all empty so we spent the evenings eating dinner playing cards and general banter in short i had a great time.

Moving on from there i wanted to check out the east coast islands so i duly booked a ticket leaving at 7am timetabled to arrive at 2 pm.  So first mini bus was late arriving then 10 mins down the road we waited for 25 mins while trying to find someone who had slept in.  Onto the first town (Krabi) and about a 45 min wait there not  totally unexpected but still abit annoying.  Then the next minvan turns up 20mins after i was told it was arriving and it is an absolute dunnger so in i get and we head off back down the road I drove into town on i was not impressed but anyway after a 15 min drive back to where we came from the driver pulls over to the side of the road picks somebody up and pulls a u-turn then heads back into Krabi.  After 20 mins we pull in for some gas and the driver starts to pour some water into the engine after the gas tanks has filled up he goes back and refills the1 litre bottle of water and pours that into the engine the next 20 mins are spent going backwards and forwards filling up the water bottle i think he must have poured about 8 or 9 liters into the engine so I wasn't surprised when 20 mins later he pulled over on the side of road and told us to all get out and wait for a replacement van. 45 mins later this duly arrived it was much nicer but as it was now the contents of two vans into one we had to sit four people across each row of three seats.

So  2 hrs later we arrive at the next town at a random travel agent and as we are about to head off  the van driver had told me to stay in the van the travel agent told me to get out.  The next bit damages my cred a bit as a experienced traveler so in my defense i will say that i only had about 3 hours sleep the night before and had had travelers belly for the previous few days.  So the travel agent told me to put my bag behind the counter and i could go to the internet for an hour and a half till my ferry. (at this stage it was 2pm which was supposed to have been my arrival time but i wasn't too worried as i just wanted to arrive before dark and i had paid extra to book on a fast ferry which was only 1 hr ride.  So when i came back about 45 mins later to my surprise as soon as i went to open my bag to get a book out to read the travel agent said i was going right then and proceeded to run around all the local travel agents for no apparent reason in the end he paid a taxi driver to drive me to the bus stop where he would buy the ferry ticket for me.  It all seemed a bit doddgy so i refused to go, eventually he convinced me it was all ok and off i went (i know i should have stood my ground etc but when tired and in a foreign country sometimes you don't think things through) the taxi driver was good brought me a ticket and confirmed that it was for the fast boat etc all ok.

Eventually the bus to the ferry leaves and we duly arrive and the only ferry there is the slow ferry it is now about 4pm and the slow ferry is 2.5hrs travel time so any hope of getting there before dark has now evaporated.  I figured at least i now knew why the travel agent was being so doddgy he wanted to only pay the cheaper fare for the slow boat and pocket the extra i paid for the fast ferry. So eventally i arrived in Ko Samui manage to pay only slightly over the odds for a trip into where the accomadation is and after another 45mins walking around find a place to stay so 13hrs after commencing a 9hr journey that i had paid extra to make it quicker and as easy as possible i finally got to the end.  But wait there is a kicker, to top things off when i checked my bag in the hotel i found the main reason why the travel agent was so dodgy was because while i was using the internet he had been through my bag and found my emergency cash supply that i keep in case somebody steals my visa card or i lose it.  Not a massive amount of money but still enough to be bloody annoying.  He was a professional though despite the money being in the middle of the bag inside a drybag inside a walet all he took was the money out of the wallet he didn't touch the passport that i had unthinkingly left in the bag.  He even put everything back in the bag exactly as he had found it so I could only see the money was missing by actually opening the wallet.  All in all a very embarising security slip up by someone who had only ever had one thing stolen off him in all his travels up until now (and that was only a airline ticket).