Today’s post is a quickie. It went live while we were still flying to Thailand via New York. Our thought was to write something everyday to keep our site fresh.

I’ll see you out there…!

Your regularly scheduled programming will continue next week. Stay up-to-date here.

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Yep, we are still flying. Despite all the advances in technology it still takes forever to travel around the Earth. You never realize how large our planet is until you have to fly to another continent. Yet despite the long haul, there is something magical about entering a plane in one country and arriving in another. From the passenger perspective, your environment stays the same: you can’t see the changes that are happening around you until you make your first step into your new world.

We’ve brought lots to occupy our time: Magazines, playing cards, iPods, movies on our computer and yes those sleeping pills to help us cope with 18 degrees of pitch on our seats, though it feels like no change at all. Thanks to seatguru.com we’re sitting in some of the better seats that economy offers – but make no mistake it’s still grueling. Check them out each time you fly to ensure your seats are the best available.

Arrival time in BKK is 23:15 just in time for bed… er lunch… er bed. Ah, the joys of traveling.

Thanks for reading. Remember to vote and…

We’re closer to seeing you out there!

With the official start of our blogging assignment underway, we took an opportunity to provide some background on who we were to hopefully attract more voters who may have just started to follow the competition. A family photo album was the medium.

I’ll see you out there…!

Join the Facebook Fan Page here.

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Hey Explorers,

Chances are if you are reading this on Sunday we are on the plane flying from Orlando, to New York, to Tokyo and landing in Bangkok. From door to door it’s about a 29 hour flight. Yikes! Many of you readers have been following us along since the beginning, while we know many of you may be joining us for the first time today! We thought we would take this time to share with you more about who we are.

We each grew up in Massachusetts. Ben in Fall River and Somerset and Brian in Groton. Our families still reside there today. In 2005 we moved to Orlando, Florida to pursue employment opportunities. Ben graduated with undergraduate an graduate degrees in Communication from Fitchburg State College and Suffolk University respectively. Brian from Northeastern University with an M.S in Physical Therapy.

We met each other in 2003 and together share a passion for travel. Our one and only goal is to inspire you to travel to Thailand and add Pattaya to your itinerary.

In the past few months Ben has been managing the social media component of the competition while Brian takes care of the itinerary details. When they are not competing, Brian plays in a softball league in Orlando. His team does fairly well and they have competing in tournament all over the U.S.

Ben on the other hand avoids sports like the plague! He writes a small travelblog in his spare time. Experience is the best teacher. He’s learned so much from this competition he can’t wait to resume and try out what he’s learned. Every Saturday night we play in a bowling league. It gets us out of the house and brings us closer together.

While we’re flying, you may want to catch up on some of our previous blog posts. You may also enjoy this slideshow we put together with some of our favorite photos from our family. We hope you enjoy.

We’ve worked hard to make it to the finals. We’re thankful to everyone, our friends, family, fans and followers who voted during the semi-finals and helped us make it to this milestone. We’re proud to represent Massachusetts, Florida and the United States. If you enjoy following our adventures please support us and vote for Pattaya by registering and clicking the link above. You can vote every 24 hours until January 8th.

In addition to our blog you can follow our adventures on Facebook and Twitter. Our social media links are listed on the right.

We’ll see you out there!

In an effort to reach out to new voters and new ways of promotion, I partnered with my friend Kyle Berner, CEO of Feelgoodz Flip Flops. His sells flip flops made in Thailand. We bought some, packed them in our suitcase and brought them with us. We promoted him, he promoted us. I don’t know how many voters or press that got us, but his flops are really comfortable. You should definitely check them out!

If you liked today’s post, there’s lots more on Facebook. Become a fan of adventureswithben.com here.

I’ll see you out there!

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Hey Explorers,

With just a few days before our Sunday departure we’re starting our pre-flight checks. One of them includes packing our bags. There are a few things that we always bring with us whenever we travel overseas. Check out our newest video to find out what they are…

That was our short list. Ben likes to bring some of his favorite snacks from America like Oreo’s and Cheez-Its. Brian ensures that they have entertainment by bringing movies to enjoy on their computer on the flight. The backpacks they bring have traveled to Europe and Africa and are excited to add the continent of Asia. We’re also bringing and empty suitcase to load up with gifts. There are a few other random things we have packed that you might enjoy. We’ll show you those later.

Our newest inclusion to our travels are Feelgoodz flip flops. They have a great story to them. They have an even greater back story! Almost 10 years ago Ben met the CEO of Feelgoodz during a summer job. He wasn’t a CEO yet, just an ice cream scooper and Ben was a restaurant attendant. The two of them become good friends. Over the years, as their paths parted and each pursued other interests they remained in touch. Ben found a career in Florida and Kyle wound up teaching English in Thailand. His passion for the country resulted in a marvelous idea – flip flops.

Flash forward to today, Kyle manages a growing retail business selling flip flops made in Thailand and Ben won a trip to the country. What better way to celebrate than to support his friend by buying his flops? If you want to learn more about Ben’s friend Kyle and his flip flops visit Feelgoodz.com. Oh and a correction from the video, Feelgoodz is working with TransFair USA for certification. It hasn’t happened yet, but check out the website for the other great initiatives this socially responsible company has.

Anyway, we’d like to know, what are your packing essentials? Leave a comment below.

If you’re a new reader, you may want to visit some of our recent posts for some fun stories. You should also vote for Pattaya. After a simple registration, you can vote every 24 hours. Click on the “Vote For Them” link at the top of the page.

AND…If you haven’t asked us a question about Thailand there’s still time. Watch the details in this video from an earlier post.

We’ll see you out there!

Today’s post marked the first official day of voting. Our strategy was to simply ask for people’s vote, but to also recap all the reasons why you should vote for us. We highlighted all the work we did in the weeks leading up to the start of voting.

Asking people to vote is frustrating. I have no idea how politicians do it. It wears you out!

If you liked today’s post, there’s lots more on Facebook. Become a fan of adventureswithben.com here.

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Hey Explorers,

What an adventure this has been since the finalists announcement earlier this month! Since we received word that we were heading to Pattaya it’s been a whirlwind. We received our flight information today and are confirming our itinerary tonight. If you missed the opportunity to read about our trip planning, you can check out our “Must-See” Attractions Game here and our “Optional” Attractions Poll here.

With less than 1 week left until we depart, we are making our final arrangements, packing our bags and preparing to depart. At each step of the process we’ve worked hard to include you as part of our trip. Readers such as yourself submitted names for our team. And we’ve had the pleasure of chatting with many of you in real-time (find out how here).

When our blogging assignment starts next week, we’ll be the only pair out of the 5 that has never been to Thailand before. You’ll be watching the reactions of first-time travelers to the country. We hope you enjoyed watching us practice our Thai here. Finally, as shared as recently as yesterday, while we are in Thailand we’re going to answer the questions you have about the country and it’s people and culture.

We’ve had so much fun meeting you and taking you along with us on our adventure to Pattaya. Voting official starts today. If you’ve enjoyed our posts, please consider voting for the City of Pattaya and for Ben and Brian every 24 hours from now until January 8th to be your Ultimate Thailand Explorers. Voters are eligible for prizes. You can vote by clicking the voting link on the header above. You can also connect with us on our social media networks on the bottom-right corner of this page. We love traveling and sharing it with all of you is even better. Thank you for your continued support.

We’ll see you out there!

On a long car ride from Orlando to Miami, we got the idea to try pronouncing some funny Thai phrases we read in our phrasebook. Meant purely as a comedy piece, it became quite popular.

Enjoy.

If you liked today’s post, there’s lots more on Facebook. Become a fan of adventureswithben.com here.

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Hey Explorers,

As promised from yesterday’s post we are ready to debut our adventures in learning to speak Thai. But before we show you the video, we should share a few caveats.

To date, our world travels together have taken us to Europe and Africa. Our studies in school helped prepare us for speaking in France and South Africans speak English. We’ve been lucky so far. We are confident that we’ll be able to communicate just fine in Thailand, but whenever you travel, where ever you go, it’s polite and respectful to learn a few words in the local tongue.

Therefore, we purchased a Thai Phrasebook not too long ago and found the opportunity to practice on our road trip to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. As we discovered (and as you will soon too), this book of ours has some pretty bizarre expressions translated. Many of the phrases in the book we would probably never need to know. We thought they were funny enough that we had to capture them on video and share them with you.

Our pronounciation is horrible. Please forgive us. We have never heard Thai spoken before. We don’t know what the accents sound like. We can’t read your letters. We don’t know how to interpret the changes in the tone of our voice. The book was on sale. It looked cute, with it being small enough to fit in a shirt pocket. We will learn, but we need your patience. You’ll see what we mean in this YouTube Video.

What can we say at this point? It was our first attempt at speaking Thai. We have one more week to learn. If we haven’t mastered it by then, we’ll follow the best advice offered in this little book of ours…point to the phrase and show it to the person we’re speaking to AND laugh at your mistakes.

We hope you enjoyed laughing along with us. When we touchdown in Pattaya feel free to teach us a few of your favorite expressions. You can also share them here by adding a comment to this blog post.

Before you go, there is only one more day left to choose which optional activities we should see in Pattaya. Participate in the poll by clicking here.

You can also play our guessing game. What will our itinerary in Pattaya be? Watch our YouTube video here to find out.

We’ll see you out there! (dee-o pop gan mai)

What started as a small mistake quickly became a signature characteristic of Ultimate Thailand Explorers Ben and Brian. In our application video we mispronounced the city we were applying too. It was made clear to us on several occasions. And each time we tried to correct ourselves, it got worse.

It’s tough trying to guess how to pronounce something you’ve never heard before. Where does the accent do? Are the vowels hard or soft? Eventually we got it and when we did, I put it out on twitter. That’s what today’s post is all about.

Don’t forget to become a fan of adventureswithben.com on Facebook here.

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Hey Explorers,

We are taking a road trip this weekend to South Florida for a softball tournament that Brian is playing in. Thanks to technology, we’re blogging on the road from our phones!

We have about a 3-hour drive to the city of Ft. Lauderdale, so to pass the time we’ve been learning to speak Thai. We’ll share a YouTube video with our progress later this weekend as soon as we can upload our camera and laptop to the Internet.

Speaking of learning to speak Thai…

There’s no denying it, Ben has lots of trouble speaking new languages. And for some reason, he just can’t get a handle on the pronounciation of the city he’s visiting.

Thank you to all of you who have written in with the correct phoenetic pronounciation of Pattaya, but reading something and hearing it are two very different learning methods.

Well earlier this week some of you on Twitter may have received word that Ben thinks he’s figured out. Follow the link below to hear for yourself.

http://tmic.fm/ox968pbzzrc

What do you think, did he get it correct once and for all? By the way, how many different ways has he pronounced Pattaya? Review all our YouTube videos on our YouTube Channel and comment below with your answers to both questions!

YouTube.com/user/benandbrianthai

We’ll see you out there!

After much deliberation we had finally solidified our itinerary. It was jam-packed. It also changed multiple times once we arrived in Thailand and even on the fly to accommodate new additions and meetings. Knowing where you could go is exciting. Doing it is even better.

Coming soon…where we actually went.

Did you know I also have a Facebook Fan Page? You can find it here.

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Have you seen our itinerary yet? You can, click here.

What do you think? We had no idea Pattaya had so much! We’ve been asked quite a bit why we chose Pattaya. And up until now point, we don’t think we’ve shared that with you.

Each year we try to travel to a new, international destination. We’ve made it to Europe and Africa and needed to add Asia to that roster soon. With Bangkok being one of the most well-known cities in Thailand, we figured our travels would someday take us here. Perhaps Phuket too. We had never heard of Pattaya until we saw it on the Ultimate Thailand Explorers website. Seriously. It was an unknown city for us.

We saw this competition as an opportunity to explore a place we probably would never have considered traveling to on our own. Even more important than that, this was a chance to learn and share with all of you an important lesson – to get out and explore the world we share; the cities we know, and the cities we don’t. Our focus has always been and will continue from now until January 8th, to encourage you to visit Pattaya. To include it on your list of must-see destinations.

When we received our itinerary last week we were blown away! Our first reaction – how are we going to do all of that in the 6-days we have? Over the course of the week Brian’s been doing a lot of the itinerary research while Ben’s been working the social media tasks. With only 2 days left before we leave, we’re still sorting through the logistics, but it will all come together soon, we hope!

If you live in Pattaya, or have been to the city before we’d love to hear your thoughts about where we’re going. Do you have a travel tip to share? Is there something we shouldn’t miss at the attractions we’re visiting? Comment below or send us a tweet @benandbrianthai

Be sure to vote for us too.

We’ll see you out there!

Each team was instructed to provide gifts for the other teams from their home country. Being located next to the Walt Disney World Resort, it’s always easy for us to find “American Gifts”. What’s more American than Mickey Mouse?

So we took a trip to the theme parks and purchased stuffed animals that reflected the personalities of each of the teams. We then took a small photo as a teaser to keep them guessing. Michael & Jenny, the Ultimate Thailand Explorers team to Koh Samui, revealed in their blog what each of the gifts were. Guess for yourself below, and then click here to see how you did.

If you liked today’s post, there’s lots more on Facebook. Join me here.

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Hey Explorers,

At our welcome dinner next week all five of the teams will meet for the first time. We are looking forward to meeting everyone in person, as we’re sure all of the teams are. During our meal all of the teams will be exchanging gifts from their hometown. We live in Orlando, Florida and purchased our gifts today. Here’s what we bought.

What do you think? Oh, the photos are blurry and zoomed in? I guess you’ll have to wait to find out what they are! You can also submit your questions about Thailand to us. Read more here.

Please remember to register and login to vote for Pattaya. Click on the “Vote For Them” link above.

We’ll see you out there!

Today’s post was another avenue to involve our readers in our travels to Thailand. The goal was to show them what they wanted to see. With the hectic schedule we had, we weren’t able to create a singular post that answered our readers comments – but we did try to incorporate them into other posts.

This was a big experiment that worked to some extent. But that was the point. To use this platform to try new things. Blogging is fantastic!

Anyway, I’m still out of the country. If you’d like to stay up-to-date on my adventures in South Africa, follow me on Facebook here.

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Hey Explorers,

Before we elaborate on today’s post, watch this YouTube video for the details…

Simple enough right? Any questions?

International travel is wonderful because there are so many great sights to explore. But sometimes the little things are just as magical. A colleague of mine, whenever she travels, likes to discover the different flavors of Potato Chips (Crisps) found in the grocery store. Some like to eat new pizza toppings, while others like myself (as you saw in the video*) find the ordinary to be interesting. So what do you want to see?

While we are actually going to Pattaya, we haven’t forgotten that you voted to send us there. We want to bring you as close to the excitement as possible. So as you heard in the video, tell us what you want to uncover. We’ll debunk myths, seek out the weird and wonderful and investigate the secrets underneath. Some thought starters might be…

• I’ve always wondered…
• Is it true that…
• I once heard…
• Show me what…
• Or create your own…

You can ask your questions up until the last day we are in Pattaya (December 15th). Submit those questions by commenting below or send them to us via Twitter and add #benbrian to your tweet. We are curious as to what you’re curious about!

Voting starts December 1st. More on that tomorrow.

We’ll see you out there!

*Update 30/11/09 – while I wasn’t clear in the video, I stated my interest in seeing the toilet water swirl in the opposite direction – but after countless trips to toilet stalls the country-over it doesn’t always. Thank you to a reader for sending a note clarifying that point. And that’s the kind of stuff we’d be interested in discovering in Thailand for you!

In today’s post, we offered our readers the opportunity to decide which “optional attractions” we would visit by hosting a TwitPoll. Whatever interested them the most would be what we would do. While the poll is now closed the winner was Walking Street. As it turned out, we did everything on the list but the Stone Park, Bottle Museum and Go Kart Park.

On having readers select our optional activities, one reader said, “Very clever gentlemen. This is a nice way to involve people in your journey.” And that’s what it was all about. Involving our fans in our experience.

If you’d like to read about what we did at those optional activities, stay tuned for a future post. In the meantime, Don’t forget to become a fan of adventureswithben.com on Facebook here.

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Hey Explorers,

In addition to the “must-see” attractions, we’ve been provided with a list of optional attractions we should visit while in Pattaya. We need to decide very soon which of these, we’ll be able to squeeze into our itinerary and visit. Realistically, we can’t visit all of them. Can you help us?

We’d like your opinion. Where would you like to see us go? We’ve listed the sites down below, in no particular order. All but one are hyperlinked for you to learn more about them. After browsing, cast your vote on our poll below.

After hearing your vote we’ll work to include your #1 pick in our itinerary. If for some reason we can’t make it to #1, we’ll visit #2 and so on. Here is your opportunity to choose our adventure. Start practicing those voting skills for Tuesday!

The Attractions Are…

• Pattaya Floating Market
• Million Years Stone Park
• The Bottle Art Museum (From Tourism Thailand)
• Yannasangwarar am Temple/ Khao Chi Chan Buddha image (From Tourism Thailand)
• Pattaya Park Go Kart (From Tourism Thailand)
• Walking Street
• Phratamnak view point/ Big Buddha (no site available)

Now Cast Your Vote!

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Have you connected with us on our social networks yet? The links are below on the right! You can also chat with us live too! Find out how by clicking here.

We’ll see you out there!