Pleasant day and a little bit scary rip off

Yesterday I rented a bike to go arround in the small beaches of Koh Tao. I found really nice ones, even if I sometimes struggled a bit when the road became very uneven but then I could enjoy an incredibly hot walk to the beach, and enjoy even more a fresh drink. I had lunch in a very good (and cheap) restaurant. I founded really nice and relaxed places, and I really had a lot of fun driving the bike arround, getting some moving air along nice roads!



Then I had booked a "joint ticket", it's not for a smoke that makes you laughting, it's a ticket that's used for Taxi+boat+bus to take you where you have to go. It's suppose to be cheaper...
In order not to waste a day, I left with the night-boat at 21.00 yesterday night. The boat was OK, made out of wood and nicely rocking to get you asleep, I didn't see the super-sized cockroaches crowling on the roof so I slept all-right.

I arrived this morning in Surathani at 4.30, not 100% fresh mind.. Then thai travellers went on their own, and farangs like me were distributed among few tuk tuks. I was with two english guys going to a different destination. I was supposed to catch a bus at 5.30 in the monrning to carry on to Phuket but they first took us to a sort of bar and they said we had to wait till 7.30 for the bus. Well... 2h30 min waiting... nevermind. At 7 another tuk tuk came and took me to another bar without the two other english guys. Once I got there an Indian guy (that I found not nice right in the beggining) told me I had to pay again to go to Phuket, otherwise I would have to wait until 9.30. I didn't want to pay so after some negociations I said I'd wait, but I got a bit angry in the inside! Other people came and -thanks gos- an Australian couple ended up in the situation as me.

Then at 8.30 a minibus came, the driver talked with the Indian guy in thai and we finally get in, apparently to go to the bus. But after the 3 of us got in the car, the guy went back to the trunk and started doing stuff, till we understood he was probably taking a quick look in our bags! We started looking, he closed the trunk and we left. The guy drove arround the corner and actually got back to the place we were, talked again to the indian guy and we left again quickly. We -of course- started to worry and tryed to talk to the drive, but he seemed not to speak a word in english, and could only said, "10min, wait, 10min wait". After 5min wondering with the australian guy what was happening, we figured out the bus station was behind us and everything was going wrong. So I don't know where the driver was exactly taking us, but the australian asked in the very very very serious way to stop right where we were, and after few seconds trying ti argue, the driver did so.

Well, in the end we took a tuk tuk back to the city center and the bus station, bought another ticket, and arrived in Phuket at 4.30. I'm glad I wasn't alone! I only wasted some hours and 250B (7€), so it's not too bad. I think we've been very unlucky, and later on we actually heard that Surathani was famous for this sort of rip off. That's it!

Tonight I'm staying in a really nice place, nice staff, nice room, quiet, cheap internet, breakfast included, etc.. which i needed after 48h sweating without shower.

I'm trying to get some pics out of my phone.. but it doesn't work :-(

By the way:
-no need to worry mum and dad, I'm fine, it was just worth telling the rip off story!
-I said I had seen jingle on Kho Tao.. actually not, it was just tough forest :)