Around the world in 17 days

We flew out of Bangkok, Monday morning at 1:00 am (Sunday, 1:00 pm EST).  It is a very large airport and architecturally interesting.

We flew from Thailand to Oslo, Norway.  There we were able to catch a beautiful sunrise, and as we flew over Norway, we were able to see some of the fjords and mountains.

We flew a northern route, so we were able to see Greenland.  I'm not sure if we will ever get closer than this in this system.

It sure made for a very long day, since we arrived in Newark, NJ around 1:00 pm.  And it was still Monday.  

We look forward to seeing all of you, now that we are back home.  Feel free to  ask us about the trip, the amount of stories we have would have bored you if I had tried writing them all here.

 We hope you enjoyed the blog!  We can't wait to see you all.

Our last hours in Thailand

We made it to the last day of our trip to Thailand.  Our whole trip only took eight seperate flights, two trains, three buses, an unnumbered amount of taxis in various shapes and sizes, and several stops on Bangkok's BTS (elevated train).  Needless to say we had a great time.

Our last leg of the.trip started in Hua Hin, where we ate breakfast, and made one last walk to the beach.  This is along the Gulf of Thailand.  Then we met our bus to Bangkok.  When we arrived in the city we took a tour of the Jim Thompson house.  He was a collector of Thai art and helped reestablish the Thai silk industry.

Following our tour we hung out with Laurie's family at their hotel before we we began our 24 hour journey back home.  The picture below show the name "Jah" on the wall of one of the hotel restaurants.  There were names all along the ceiling around the dinning room.

Hua Hin

Today we enjoyed a relaxing day at the beach.  We didn't do much but go to the beach, eat dinner, and visit their night market.  We are not here for long, since tomorrow we are headed back to Bangkok to begin our journey back home.

While at the beach, there were groups of school children shyly looking for people to ask a few questions in English for a school project.  I think we ended up helping about three or four groups out. They were very greatful since the were reluctant to approach people.

We used the bathroom at this hotel next to the beach.  It is modeled after a southern plantation, and they had all their shrubs cut in the shapes of animals and birds.

"The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it"

This morning we woke up on the train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok.  Let me tell you, it isn't as glamorous as it looks in the movies.

We may have been able to bike faster than this train was traveling.  In fact we realized it was so far behind schedule, that we would be missing our connecting train in Bangkok, to get us to Hua Hin.  After Laurie's dad spoke with one of the conductors, it was desired that we needed to get off at the next station because our train would be passing through that station in a half hour.  We quickly got off.  Which isn't easy to do with luggage for six people.

We made the train we wanted, enjoyed a great lunch on board, and made it to Hua Hin.  It has a beautiful historic train station here.

We took a truck taxi to the hotel (not without incident), took much needed showers and walked down to the beach.  Now we are looking forward to seeing what we can while we are here.

The natives are getting restless

Our last two days in Chiang Mai were the ones we had the biggest challenges with the language barrier.  After getting back to the city from our trip to see the tigers, we went went to the night market for Indian food and massages.  Unfortunately not everyone got a massage, due to the fact that they had been forgotten about by the receptionist.  Then we did some last minute shopping before returning to the hotel.

Brian was able to get us a great deal for a truck taxi to bring the six of us back to the hotel, 60 baht ($2).  We all piled in and set off for our rooms.  Half way there the driver, a very elderly man, stopped to take another look at the directions we had given him by looking at it by the light from his head lights.  When he saw the six of us in the back, he muttered something about having to pay 120 baht for the six of us.  At the hotel, he then demanded the 120 baht.  The following "conversation" included the driver, different members of our party, the night security, the lobby receptionist, and another hotel guest.

You will have to ask us how that went.

Yesterday we were checking out, and headed to Hua Hin.  Before leaving town we made one last trip to get some of our group massages, and some lunch before embarking on our overnight train trip.

Lunch didn't end so good.  We knew we had a small window to eat and pick up our luggage before heading to the train station.  We let the waiter know this, and the ordering serving and getting the bill, all ended on a bad note, because our waiter  miscommunicated what we could order, and didn't understand our need to have a quick lunch.

Needless to say, he wasn't happy with us.  That's when we knew it was time to move on.

Catch a tiger by the tail

As you can see, today was an interesting day!  We went to Tiger Kingdom in the morning.

If it looks like I am not relaxed in these next pictures, it's because I wasn't.  It's ok though because I know that I will be having a massage later in the day.

We really had a great time!  It has been enjoyable doing things that we don't get to do at home.

After many hours with the tigers, and one lion (you will have to ask Laurie about the lion), we went to a monkey school.  You will not see any pictures of me interacting with the monkeys, because as many of you know, I DO NOT like monkeys!

On our way back to the hotel, our driver took us to several handy-craft locations.  We watched the making and painting of the beautiful Thai umbrellas, the process of getting silk from worm to cloth, a wood working shop, and a jewelry making place.