Surat Thani

Yesterday I was shocked/electrocuted 3 times! Twice on the computer that I posted yesterdays blog post on and then in the bungalow during the night (while I was trying to turn on the light). So, today I have avoided all powerlines and such. :)
Up early this morning. Monkeys came to our bungalow this morning and welcomed us into the day by stealing a bag of goodies from our room (crackers and pineapple juice). Avery booked us a mini-van ride from the Park to Surat Thani, a city 2 hours east of the Park. We were picked up at our resort and all of a sudden it was stage 3 of DeathRace 2008... but this guy was a bit more subdued in his crazy driving.
We arrived Surat Thani and had them drop us off at the train station, where we dropped off our bags and booked a train ticket to Bangkok for this evening... we got sleeper cars for about 700 baht each (all they had left were air conditioned sleepers, which we dont need). Fan sleepers were sold out. :(
We then took a bus to downtown Surat Thani to look for some food and see some sights. Turns out there are very little western restaurants and we seriously walked for 4 hours before we found a place that we felt would be OK to eat at. We had some beers and ate 4 main dishes between the two of us. It was a fun walk though. We got lost in various neighborhoods and kept running into very nice Thai people who tried to help get us back on track.
We just caught the bus back to the train station (15 baht) and our train leaves in 1 hour. Checking internet, plan to buy some snacks and whiskey and then off to our train.
Everything is VERY cheap in this town. Avery bought a shirt for 60 baht. We only saw 3 other foreigners in the 5 hours we were walking. It was nice to be away from the touristy stuff... and the tourists.
But, on the other hand, we could have used some 'western' restaurants. We saw plenty of places to eat, but they all had precooked dishes sitting in bowl and plates with flies around them and whatnot. Neither of us want a serious case of food poisoning and were too paranoid to dig in at those places.
Our plan now is to take the overnight train to Bangkok. We will arrive there around 7am. Then we will book another train to Kanchanaburi in western-central Thailand. Its on the River Kwai and is where 'Bridge over the River Kwai' is based. I have seen the movie. 18000 POWs and 90,000 asians apparently died building the bridge under japanese occupation during WW2. Its supposed to be a charming town and both Avery and I are excited to get there. So I will see Bangkok tomorrow morning from the train station only.
Excited to be on the train. Hope it lives up to my expectations. If not, i have whiskey! :)
Only 5 more days of my trip left!!!!!!
We better go if we want to catch our train.