The best laid plans of mice and men!!! I arranged a lift to the train station through Oodie the guy at My Way. It was all a little confusing so we asked to be collected at 6.00pm thinking that way if the tuk tuk failed to arrive we would still have time to get ourselves to the train station by 7.10pm. Any way…. the taxi arrived 10 mins early and it only took 10 mins to get to the train station so we arrived and had seated our selves by 6.15…. only an hour wait. At 7.00pm a Thai voice came over the loud speaker with a message - I got a mixed translation from a train guard and worked out that it was delayed until 8.10pm - it finally arrived at 8.30. It’s always difficult when things don’t go to plan - you have that irking feeling that everything in life is suddenly going to go horribly wrong, you don’t speak the local language and no one speaks English. It’s one of the terrors and the joys of foreign travel. It is definitely one of the bits we find hardest, Tehya was great she was tired but full of the joys of being away…. she really is some thing else and I have to say I can’t quite believe she is mine some times!! We got ourselves on the train and into our 1st class booth, which to UK standards was not 1st class but it had two beds, air con, a sink, complementary water and most importantly a lockable door - which of course meant we could sleep or try to sleep content in the knowledge that Tehya was safe from harm. Tehya of course loved the train, our picnic, the adventure and after eating went straight to sleep. Gavin and I true to form …. did not!!! Neither of us have yet been able to work out why but we can not sleep well on any form of transportation whether it be bus, train, boat or airplane!!!! The next morning we were treated to a rather awful but edible breakfast and sat and waited out the remainder of our journey. We could tell we had arrived in Southern Thailand and that we were nearing the Malay boarder as all the men and womens dress was changing - 80% of the population (or thereabouts) is Muslim. We passed through boader controls from one country to another with only friendliness and smiles. We were met on the other side by and easy offer of a taxi straight to Kota Bharu at a good price - we were expecting 35/45RM but we were offered 30RM (you can get Taxis from 20RM to 30RM depending on how much effort you hassle). The driver was Gila (crazy) but we got here in one piece and managed our banking, ice cream search (for Tehya) and called Mr Lee, who collected us from town and bought us back to his guest house. It is great…. a really nice place to stay - simple and clean. He is a true gentleman, he took us back into town and left us at the mall, where we were able to have our first taste of Malay cooking and buy nappies for Tehya. He was also able to sort out our taxi (try and arrange yourself as he charged us 60RM for a private taxi - it wasn’t private as it had another 12 people on board who only paid 8RM each) for the islands and our boat tickets!!! To top it all off he is supplying us with a complementary breakfast before we head off in the morning - you couldn’t ask for much more than that!!!