Easter in Bangkok

The trip to Koh Tao, also known as Turlte Island, was quite an experience. In order to get to the island from Bangkok you must first take a bus and then a boat. It seems simple enough. The kicker on our particular journey is that it started in the middle of a tourential downpour. Kayla and I were told when we purchased our tickets that check in would be at 7:30pm on April 8th. We were nervous about getting seats together on the bus so we arrived (like nerds) at 6:30pm. We sat and sat and sat some more, anxiously awaiting the time when we could check in. No one else arrived until close to 7:15. By 7:25 the place was packed and there was no semblence of a line. Kayla and I quickly realized that there were several groups that could careless if we were there first and would gladly push past us. We knew we had to come up with a plan. So after a minute or so stragegizing Kayla wiggled through everyone "looking for the restroom." When she found it she saw that we had roughly 2 minutes until check-in. She stood in the restroom twiddling her thumbs and then leisurly made her way out....and stood right in front of the main counter. Everyone else was still being forced to wait outside. Kayla stood there for about 20 seconds and then right at 7:30 asked if she could check-in. Success. We were awarded seats 1 and 2 (and at that moment we did not realize how fortunate that would be.) We were then able to sit back and giggle as several of the rude groups had to fight in order to get in the newly formed line created by Kayla. Close to 8 we met a very nice guy from England. He was assigned seat 4 and we were glad to have a new traveling buddy. We sat around and chatted while the line grew in length. Suddenly, without warning, the skies opened up and the rain started falling. Luckily, we were under an awning, others were not so lucky and began crowding in. This continued until well after 8:30. Soon the streets started to flood and the water started gushing over the curbs and on to the sidewalks. Creatures of all sorts started seaking shelter. One unknown critter made it's way under our sheltered awning where people started shrieking and jumping out of it's way. We never did find out what it was that went running through the crowd, we were just glad that it didn't decide to come our way. Sometime later we were informed that we would begin loading the buses at 9 and that we would have to make our way a block down the street into the center to find the buses. Everyone started frantically pulling out rain covers for their bags. We were very fortunate that our mother decided to take us on one last trip to Acedemy where we bought an extra bag cover on a whim. Another stroke of luck led us to an A&M poncho found in the front pocket of one of the bags; again thank you mom. By the time our bus was called and we trudged through the rain we were very happy to find out that seats 1, 2, & 4 were on the top level of the bus, in the front row. This meant lots of extra leg room for Ms.SuperlonglegsAmerica and Mr.EvenlongerlegsEngland. While getting situated on the bus we realized that it was Easter back home and we had an impromtu celebration complete with chocolate eggs that Mr.EvenlongerlegsEngland had in his pack. We included Mr.Seat#3 who I am pretty sure was a Bhuddist but who enjoyed the chocolate egg nevertheless. The bus would travel all night and we would arrive at the boat dock at 6am. Luckily, it was a very uneventful night and we all slept fairly well. In the morning we were herded off of the bus and into a waiting area where we had to sit until the boat was ready to depart at 7am. The boat was another uneventful journey and we were able to get in a few more hours of sleep. When we arrived in Koh Tao we had a moment of panic when we realized that our accomidation fell through and that most of the hostels on the island were already booked up. Mr.EvenlongerlegsEngland was nice enough to take us to his hostel to see if it had any openings...it didn't. From there we wandered in "El Gringo's" to eat, mainy because it had free wifi. We were able to get on the web and find lodging fairly quickly. While we were paying the tab the song "Red Red Wine" came on the radio and we knew everything would work out just fine.