Pattaya Kart Speedway

Pattaya Kart Speedway was our location for today. It had go-karts that went 40 miles per hour with no seatbelts or any real safety. We did get some cracked helmets though! Racing was fun but a little scary since the cars went so fast and your basically not really in the car as much as on it LOL.

Notice the little cars and how people are sitting on them...Troy and I sporting our tack outfits...After racing we then went over to the paintball fields and bungee jumping section. Natalia decided to go bungee jumping.

Natalia jumping..
And some of her on the bouncing part...Paintball war was GREAT! On team yellow was me and Pulkit and on team brown was Troy and Mia. Team yellow won EVERY game!!!! Woot! I got some great kill shots on Troy also. I got the most kills and Pulkit was the only one who never got killed. We made a great team. But look at our uniforms...put a women who is hot and thirsty and put her in an ugly outfit out in a field with bugs that are the size of small animals...then hand her a gun....oh yeah she is going to get some action.

Action shot...can you see BOTH players!
Winning team!

Spas

I go to the spas probably 4 times a week while I am here. The price is so great so you would be a fool not to go. Many times some of my girls join me.

Manicure & Pedicure for both $10 (normally $30-79 in the USA)
Thai massage- $6/hr (normally $90 in the USA)Dermabrasion-$30 (normally $100 in the USA)

LakeLand Cable Skiing

A group of us (Mike, Hakan, Pulkit, Natalia, Vamshi, Jeff, Zudtky) all went to the cable lake skiing area in town (all photos link). For people who don't know what that is....its a man made lake about 4 feet deep that had cables that go in a circle above the lake. So if you fall anywhere in the lake you just get out and walk on the path that circles it, back to the dock. Every 10-15 seconds there is a hook with a rope on it that you can ski behind. The thing that makes this more difficult is that you have to do a dock start! This turned out to be harder then I thought it would be. I didn't do well at it. I did go knee boarding for the first time though. Its 300 Baht (about $8) for 2hrs of use....this includes skies/kneeboard/salom skies, you can rent a wake board for a couple dollars more. Two hours doesn't seem like much but after that two hours I was very sore! You can ski so much more when your not waiting for the boat to turn around to get you and to straighten the rope out, etc, etc. A couple of us knew how to ski, but there were more that didn't. Everyone did pretty good for their first or second try! And ALMOST everyone was able to knee board at the very least.....

Desert Safari

Today we did a desert Safari....story on the PICS!

Sand Dunes

The entire country of Qatar is about 100 miles across. So today we decided to drive around part of it and just find things. We headed south of Doha. We found a few beaches. The water is very shallow for a long distance out...you could walk two-three blocks and only be waste deep in the water. Because of this the water was warm and not as refreshing as we hoped for in 110 degree heat. So we kept driving south. We saw many sheep, goats and camels walking around and of course got a few pictures. We also found the USA military base-the one thats in the new movie "Transformers". It is illegal to take pictures of military places here so I didn't get any of there. While we kept driving we found the "singing sand dunes". We decided to hike up one. For anyone who has not done this yet...don't just jump out of the car and start walking (as we did). First of all the sand is so hot that i burned the bottom of my feet and i had the thick Teva sandals on! Plus in with the temperature being what it was the "short" little hike took about an hour. In the pictures you can't tell how big the dune is because there is no focal point to show the distance. But i couldn't even see the car from the top of this thing. It is difficult to climb also because its a steep edge and the sand just moves so fast under your feet. Picture the cartoon animals running as hard as they can and not moving! That was us. So you had to go slow to get anywhere. The view on the top was just like in all the desert movies you see, and my photos don't do it any justice.
Once we got back down the dune we did some more driving around the country side. It is the desert so not much else to see but sand.
Once we were done driving around we wanted to do a more local experience. So we went down to the Old Souqs. Souqs is just another name for a bunch of little shops clumped together. Once we finally found a parking spot we did alot of walking around in this area. The trick to shopping here is haggling! I am ok at it however my husband doesn't even bother trying. He just pays full price. Which we learned is considered rude. We got an Arabian Pot, decorative Koran to display and a Shisha (tabacco pipe). Hoping to get a Persian Rug while we are in Qatar also.

Leeds, UK

Today Troy and I drove up to Leeds to visit our friend Ceri and her boyfriend Eric. Now in that picture you think what a cute couple. However what you can't tell is how tall they are. Ceri is 6ft and Eric is 6'8'' tall so here is one of Eric and me. Eric is a Rugby player for the Earth Titans. So Troy and I went to our first Rugby game. Its not quit what I was expecting. I thought it was much more brutal then it really was. The game has very strict rules for the players/coaches on and off the field. An example of that would be...since the Titans coach said a referee was stupid on a website he was kicked out of two games! Anyway the Titans won the game so everyone was happy. Afterwards we went downtown and hit the bars. Those rugby boys sure can drink. And I am proud to say I can keep up! Troy well that's a different story...he isn't so good at keeping up. It was funny though he was the runt of the packed the next shorted guy was 4 inches taller. We drank and danced and slept well once we got back to Ceri's. The next day we hung out with them again and ate and watched Eric's brother's Rugby game which was on TV! It was funny hanging out with two people who could tell you stories of every one of the professional rugby guys, because they knew them all. It made watching it much more enjoyable. Then we had to drive home because Troy had to work on Monday morning at the Guildford Office (this is one of UOP's many Hub offices around the world).
But on a bad note-the US Dollar hit an ALL TIME LOW for our trip, which made it very expensive. $2 (US) equaled 1 Pound (UK).
And random info fact-did you know that the UK is the only country in the world that actually has enough gold stored to cover every piece of money in the country! Pretty impressive.
And in England tradition I must spread gossip so...did you hear that Prince William had his 5yr long term girlfriend Katie hanging out with the Royal Family during his officer's parade. I wonder if that means wedding bells soon! (This was the only topic on TV!)

Fishing Trip

We went on a fishing and snorkeling trip so some of the small islands near Pattaya. It was a big boat and a very nice crew. I caught my very first and second fish! Well first outside of a trout pond that is. It was a huge 4-6 inch white fish, nope i don't know the name because the man helping me didn't speak English. Nothing record breaking but oh so special for the kid in me! I got a picture and it should be getting to me soon. Troy did a little snorkeling but it was really windy and lots of waves so he didn't see much. It was too wavy for me to even go. He did some fishing also and of course got fish bigger than mine. But remember it's not the size of your fish that counts. I got my first fish with my first bait on my first throw! Fishing was great. I see why so many like to do it. I sit, drink, and catch fish. Brilliant!