We awoke to a non-rainy day, the first in several days. We took the skytrain to Jim Thompson's house for a tour. He was an American man who moved to Thailand after retiring from the military and fell in love with the country. He was famous for making the Thai silk available at an international level and soon became the most prominent exporter of Thai silk. He mysteriously dissappeared at the age of 61 on holiday in Malasia. His house is now a museum, that is open to the public and his factory is still successfully in business to this [View Full Entry]

---

---

We returned the boat, Princess Athena, and took a flight from Phuket to Bangkok. We got a taxi to the Vietnam Embassy so we could get our visas for Friday to fly to Vietnam. The taxi driver took us to the United States Embassy instead so we had to back track several blocks and finally found it through an unmarked door....Strange? So we submitted our paper work and our passports to the Vietnam Embassy and hoped they would be approved within 24 hours. We checked into the Omni hotel and went around the corner to an Irish Bar called the [View Full Entry]

---

---

We have been sailing the past few days, but we are still alive. As soon as we get back to the main land we will update everyone about our week on the "Princess Athena" boat. [View Full Entry]

---

---

We went to the Sacred Heart Cathedral and attended the 8:30am mass in Thai. We had no idea what they were saying, but we recognized the parts of the mass so I assume that counts as going to mass=) Next we stopped at a little coffee shop for breakfast and some iced mochas, yum! Next we hopped on our scooter and headed back into the mountainous jungle to try our luck on riding elephants again. We were in luck, the Chiang Mai elephant camp was open and we got to ride a 42 year old elephant for an hour and then [View Full Entry]

---

---

Went to breakfast down the lane at a little mom and pop place (okay, they all are....) called the guesthouse. It was delicious, a good old fashioned american breakfast. It seems that people here do not have set breakfast foods, they eat the same thing they would eat for lunch or dinner. Afterwards, we rented a scooter, and after getting lost in town and accidently got onto the superhighway (not a place to be on with a motorcycle let alone and bleeping scooter!!!) we finally found the correct turn and headed into the mountain jungle to do some site seeing. We [View Full Entry]

---

---

Finally getting out of Bangkok! Took the 8:30 am train from Bangkok's Hualampong's Train Staion North to Chiang Mai, an older town and popular tourist destination famous for it's large number of temples and crazy night bazaar markets. The train ride took 12 hours and succesully arrived at 8:20pm in Chaing Mais station. Note Train station in Bangkok: Not only did I have to pay 5 Baht to use the toilet, there was only 1 western style (not a hole in the floor) toilet that was working and there was a line. It's okay, I wait in line. Finally, it's my [View Full Entry]

---

---

Wednesday May 13, 2009 Had breakfast at the hotel (included), check out of hotel and took the skytrain to the canal and hoped on a river ferry to get to the Banglampu area in Bangkok. Once there we wondered around the steets with all our backpacks looking for the hotel we saw on line. After getting bad directions from the tourist info desk, we decided to cancel our reservations, or rather they were cancelled for us due to lack of communication (we have no cell service and limited email access), we said the heck with it and Camden picked out a [View Full Entry]

---

---

As I can, I will be posted all of our trip pictures on our shutter fly website: http://our7weekadventurethroughasia.shutterfly.com/ Thanks, Britteni [View Full Entry]

---

---

1st Impressions of Bangkok = Inverse of Tokyo with charm=) -Hawkers everywhere touting "Where are you going", "You need taxi", " I take you for a ride on tuk tuk" (Yeah, I bet you will!) -Roads full of cars, motorcycles, tuk tuks, street vendors (yes in the streets!), and people (because the sidewalks randomly crumble away in some parts) -Taxis stalk you -Tuk Tuks want to take you and your wallet for a ride (they get comission from the overpriced stores they deposit you at) -Everyone wants to sell you something whether you need it or not -Elevator guy at hotel [View Full Entry]

---

---

We took the 6am train from Sapporo to the Chitsoe airport and flew into the Haneda airport in Tokyo, from there we had to take an airport bus to the Narita International airport, also in Tokyo to catch our flight to Bangkok that evening. The flight to Bangkok was supposed to leave at 6pm, however, when they inspected the passengers on the aircraft (as they did us when we first arrived in Tokyo) they decided to switch planes. So our flight was pushed back to depart at 8pm and we finally arrived at Bangkok at 12:30am (which is 11 hours ahead [View Full Entry]

---

---