🇲🇾 Two Ferry’s, Two Trains & 40 Winks

If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know I was determined to get onto a sleeper train on this trip, and I got my wish in the remaining hours of a month spent in Thailand.

After spending the last week on Koh Tao island for my diving course, I took a ferry back to the mainland & booked my overnight fare from coastal Chumphon to the Thai-Malay border.

A serious delay meant spending around 9 hours at Chumphon train station, but luckily I was still able to see something new. In this case, a new type of bar! This bar doubled as a music venue… and… you guessed it! A BOXING RING 😛 wait, you didn’t guess it?!

Gone are the days of asking someone outside for a punch up… stick some gloves on, throw a right hook, and order your next pint between rounds! Maybe it’ll catch on in the UK, what could go wrong? 😀

My train did eventually arrive at almost 1.30am, and I eagerly boarded, not knowing quite what my first sleeper train experience would be like.

The train looked a little like a hospital ward, but the bed was lovely! They never have enough storage on transport in Asia, so I was used to sleeping next a guitar by now… however they encouraged me to leave my rucksack on the floor beneath my top bunk bed. Reluctantly I did (checking religiously), and thankfully it was still there when I woke up at the border!

I had my passport, money, and headphones on me.. fully prepared to wake up without this view 😛

After completing the routine immigration and passport checks, I attempted to book onto the next leg of my journey, bound for colonial port town Butterworth! They weren’t able to accept my Thai currency, which led to a thrilling a chase scene, spending the next 20 minutes chasing down the closest exchange to avoid further delays!

The strong British influence in Malaysia’s history meant to scenery along the next train route began to remind me of home…

But the train was on time and not overpriced, which helped me swiftly snap back to reality! The scenery also began to switch, once again reminding I was far from the delights of Berkshire and Old Blighty!

Arriving in Butterworth, I was totally ready to stop moving… but I had one more leg to go! I started this journey off taking a ferry away from one island… so what better way to end it than to take one more ferry to a new one?