Travel Drama Before We Even Leave

The plan was to only plan the first week of the trip and to see where the wind took us for the rest of our journey. We fly into Bangkok on December 28th and are staying in a hostel for 2 nights (Suk 11, http://www.suk11.com/; thanks Craig and Jess!) After that, we planned on taking the night train on December 30th from Bangkok to Chumphon in southeast Thailand where we would catch a ferry to the island of Ko Tao at 7:00am. We have reservations for a 4-day dive certification class on Ko Tao (http://www.scuba-junction.com/) and were planning on kicking off New Years Eve on this gorgeous island. We have our plane tickets to Bangkok. We have our hostel reservations at Suk 11. We have our ferry tickets from Chumphon to Ko Tao. Guess what? The train from Bangkok to Chumphon on December 30th is SOLD OUT! That's right folks. It's holiday time everywhere and we have no train! So we are working on trying to get a bus but communicating quickly with agencies in Thailand is really testing my patience! Wish us luck; we are still waiting to hear if we can get tickets on a bus through the company runs the ferry we are taking to Ko Tao. I guess this is just preparing us for the many obstacles we will experience during our travels. I am probably supposed to learn something from this like being calm in the face of challenge, being patient and trusting that things will work out. Great lessons. But right now, I am freaking out that we might not get out of Bangkok before New Years Eve.....