After 651 days travelling the world, we decided it was time to return to New Zealand for Christmas, spend some time with our families and work out the next stage of our lives. We had one final, epic journey to get there though as it wouldn’t be a Karen and Reuben adventure without some overnight fun!

We checked out from our wonderful hotel in Samui in the morning (after a sacrifice on the beach) and then spent the afternoon lazing by their pool.  In the late afternoon we heaved our packs on for a last walk out to the main road, where we flagged down a songthaew which took us across the island to the bus station.

 

 

Our bus then took us to the ferry station, where we (and our bus) boarded as the sun set.  We had some cool views of the small islands pictured above as it turned into night.  This ferry took us back to the mainland, where we hopped back on our bus bound for Bangkok.

 

 

 

Our bus headed back to Bangkok, stopping for food along the way at around 11pm. The food turned out to be included in our ticket – we got off and joined our fellow passengers at a shared table, where we all snacked on rice and various curries – most delicious! We reached Bangkok at around 5am and decided it was time for an early breakfast at our one of our favourite Thailand snack stops – 7/11.

 

 

 

 

We took a taxi to the airport, where we hung out for a few hours before boarding our Air Asia plane to Singapore.

 

 

 

 

 

We arrived in Singapore and “entered” Singapore for an hour or so as we cleared Customs and went back through! We then had a few hours to kill at the airport – luckily Singapore is one of the best airports in the world, so this wasn’t hard. We were too tired to make it to any of the beautiful gardens in the airport that we have been to before – but we did have fun duty free shopping, playing with technology and eating at the food court.

 

 

We had an overnight flight back to Auckland, where we arrived at 10.00am, excited to be met by our wonderful friends Murray and Shona.  After 36 hours of travel, we were really excited to be in one place, with the prospect of sleeping in a real bed for the first time in three nights!