From Phnom Penh to Koh Tao by Any Means Necessary

So we waved goodbye to Territ at 7:30am and took a tuk tuk to the bus station in PP. The first bus will take us to the border between Cambodia and Thailand. It costs 250 baht ($8) This should take 7 hours. We board the bus and we are in the very back. Every seat on the bus is taken and our seats are located directly above the engine. Cramer is sitting to the right of me and a local kid is sitting to the left. Its suppose to be AC but I'm sweating instantly. The bus slowly weaves through traffic and we finally get out of PP. Once in the country the bus is making frequent stops to let people off and to pick some up and for periodic rest breaks. About 4 hours in enough people finally get off that I have the whole back seat of the bus to myself. Cramer and I open the windows in the back and the air is blasting us in the face. We finally get to the border at about 4:00pm. We get our visas for Thailand and walk across the border. We find another bus leaving for Bangkok in 5 minutes. This one only costs 200baht ($6.50) This bus is much better. We have tons of room and the AC is working well. Things go smooth and we arrive in Bangkok's east bus station at about 9pm. Now we need to find a bus that will take us another 8 hours south to Champuon, so we can catch a ferry to Koh Tao the first island on our agenda. The only problems is we're not at the right bus station. We hop in a taxi and tell the guy to step on it. We tell him to take the expressway, which is much faster, except you have to pay for the tolls. But the tolls are only a few dollars. He tells us he can get us to the other bus station by 9:45. True to his word he drops us off at exactly 9:45. We walk into an empty looking station thinking we may have to spend the night in Bangkok. As we get to the top of the stairs near the ticketing area the people ask where we're going. We say Champuon. They say hurry up, the bus leaves in 5 minutes! Holy shit. We buy the ticket for another 250baht ($8) and we jump on the bus with 2 minutes to spare. At this point I'm just a zombie. Barely sleeping the whole time. This bus has more room, but I can't get comfortable and the AC unit is leaking water right on my head. I switch to another seat and finally manage to fall asleep. The guy is nudging me to wake up. Its 4:30am and we're in Champuon. They drop Cramer and I on the side of the road, and the bus takes off. So its 4:30am, we're both half asleep standing on the side of a road with nobody around. Suddenly two guys are standing there telling us they can take us to the ferry for 500baht each. What!!! Not knowning where we're suppose to go and not seeing any other transportation options they have us by the balls. We settle on 250baht each, which is the same amount as an 8 hour bus ride. Thinking we will be taking a taxi, we're shocked to learn that we're both going to fit on the back of a scooter including our huge backpacks and the driver. The guy seriously drives us 5 minutes and drops us off at a restaurant. Thats it? Wow. Its too early and we're too tired to worry about it now. We go into the restaurant and buy a ticket for 350 baht ($12) that will take us to the ferry and include a ticket from Champuon to Koh Tao by boat. Finally we get to the dock and board a huge new high spped catamaran which will take 2 more hours. 26 hours later... We finally step on Koh Tao at about 9:30am. It looks like something out of Lost. A tropical island paradise: Interior mountains, beautiful beaches, beach side bars, and bungalows. I need to find a tree to lay under and sleep. We're bombarded by taxi driver wanting to take us to our room, well we don't have a room. We try using the Lonely Planet recommendation, but it doesn't pan out. We cross the street and we find a huge room for way more than we want to pay, but we're too tired to keep looking. The cheap prices from Laos and Cambodia are gone, we're now in Tourist county. We pass out trying to catch up on sleep ready to explore the island as soon as we wake.