After a day of ‘hanging around’ the pool at the guest house, we took another sleeper train down to Surat Thani, in southern Thailand. Our desination is Koh Samui, an island off the East coast, where we’re due to meet up with our friends from home – Caroline and Peter, and Charlotte and Emily’s best friends, Oliver and Rachel. When we’d left home 9 months ago, we’d all said we’d meet up somewhere on the trip, for them to fly out for a two week beach holiday. And finally, after a huge wait, the time’s arrived! Although we’re already in Thailand, we’ve still got a longer journey than they will have from England. We’ve got a 12-hour train trip, followed by a two hour bus, a four hour ferry, and finally a bus on the island, which should see us there in 19 hours. They have a long-flight from England, followed by a plane change in Singapore for the hop up to Thailand. If we were both leaving at the same time, they’d arrive at the hotel about an hour earlier, despite the fact that they’re travelling 8,000 kilometres further!